Birth Control In America

Birth control has always been a controversial topic in America. There are people who believe that it does more harm than good for women, while others think the complete opposite. Even though there have been some medical down sides to birth control there have been more positive outcomes from the legalization such as independence from men. Birth control started a movement for women in America and because of the movement, women now are able to take control of their bodies and have the power to choose to have children or not, changing women's rights in America forever. It is difficult to understand how the pill affected the history of women’s rights if we don't cover the life of a woman leading up to the legalization of the birth control pill
Women started to work as railway guards, ticket collectors, buses and tram conductors, postal workers, police, firefighters and as bank tellers and clerks. According to () “Women’s employment rates increased during World War One from 23.6% of the working age population in 1914 to between 37.7% and 46.7% in 1918.” While job opportunities were becoming more available for women, there was a women who was focused on a woman’s body being her own. Her name was Margaret Sanger and in 1921 her and her sister opened a clinic in Brooklyn New York for women. This was not a topic that people comfortable with, which made it a controversial. Only ten days after the clinic was open, Sanger was arrested and placed in jail for her actions. This started the movement of giving women power of their own bodies that would affect the American women for years to
However, it wasn’t until 1957 when the pill Enovid was approved by the FDA to help women relieve menstrual pain. Soon later the pill was changed to control birth rates instead of pain, and on May 9th 1960 Enovid was re-approved by the FDA as the birth control pill and birth control was legalized. Enovid, became the first birth control pill on the market. The legalization of birth control put woman in control of their own bodies. The pill made it so women didn’t need consent from their partner to take it, it became solely their decision. It was about five years after the Pill went on the market that 6 million women started to take it. The pill started the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and women took their own sexuality into their own hands. The pill gave women control of their own fertility and lowered the risk of unwanted pregnancies, illegal abortions, and shotgun marriages. A woman losing her virginity before she was married started to increase and began to be more acceptable then it was in the nineteenth century. 40% of women had sex before they were married after the pill was legalized compared to 10% who did in the