CONTACT:
Susan Tew/Chris Kirchgaessner
212-248-1111 mediaworks@guttmacher.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
APRIL 7, 2000

Five Essays Examine Issues and Challenges of Pill Use Today

When oral contraceptives were approved for introduction to the U.S. market by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May of 1960, they revolutionized women's ability to control their fertility. More than 10 million U.S. women--about one-quarter of contraceptive users--currently rely on the pill for birth control and birthspacing; more than 50 million are estimated to have ever used this method. In acknowledgment of the 40th anniversary of the pill's FDA approval, the March/April 2000 issue of The Alan Guttmacher Institute's peer-reviewed professional journal Family Planning Perspectives presents a forum of essays by reproductive health experts--"The Pill at 40--A New Look at a Familiar Method." These essays address the role and influence of oral contraceptives in society today:

• "Whose Pill Is It, Anyway?" by Anita L. Nelson

• "The Pill and Men's Involvement in Contraception," by Jacqueline E. Darroch

• "Mothers, Daughters and the Pill," by Paula J. Adams Hillard

• "Black Women and the Pill," by Dorothy Roberts

• "Will the Pill Become Obsolete in This Century?" by John Guillebaud

Provocative questions raised in these essays include the following:

• Has the pill freed women from the risk of pregnancy, only to subject them to physicians' rigid ideas of how they should use this method?

• Is the pill a way for black women to gain bodily autonomy or a tool used by white society to limit black fertility?

• Has the pill given women more control over contraception, only to burden them with responsibilities they would prefer to share with their partners?

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