Although I don't agree with choosing a drug's "birthday" by its FDA approval date (the lifesaving idea was developed much earlier, and why give FDA the credit for the innovation?), many news outlets are using that determination to say that hormonal birth control is turning 50 this month.
Says the AP article: "In the 1960s, anthropologist Ashley Montagu thought the birth control pill was as important as the discovery of fire. Turns out it wasn't the answer to overpopulation, war and poverty, as some of its early advocates had hoped. Nor did it universally save marriages."
Well, no. Man has volition. The mere appearance of a new, more effective method of contraception is no guarantee that people will use it, nor of which people will use it (wealthy couples who could support a child if they had one? poor couples who hope that a large family might support them later in life?). It doesn't cause men to choose a life of production over a life of aggression or one of idleness, and it doesn't cause married people to communicate with each other, stay faithful to each other, or any of the other choices that keep a marriage strong.
But although the Pill can't stop man from making poor choices, it is tremendously good. Why? Because sex is good. Sex is pleasure, and sex can lead to babies. Sometimes -- in fact, a lot of the time -- man wants the pleasure without the tremendous responsibility of the babies. There's nothing wrong with that. What the Pill has done is to make it easier for men and women to enjoy the pleasure of sex without the worry of being condemned to nine months of pregnancy and eighteen years of raising an unwanted child. I'm glad that my husband and I have grown up in a world where that's possible; I'm glad that we can enjoy just being husband and wife, without having to think about being Daddy and Mommy just yet.
Happy birthday, birth control!
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