4 - New Habits Are Formed

Summary

When turning to what might be described as the revolution of birth control in the 1960s and early 1970s, retrospect affords me a feeling that what took place during these years had somehow already taken place once before. Indeed, many of the events in these years bear eerie resemblance to those of the 1930s. Much like the 1930s, for example, there was an explosion of growth in the contraceptive manufacturing industry. Much like the 1930s, there were new laws and initiatives that reflected a growing endorsement of birth control on behalf of the state. Much like the 1930s, there was a dramatic expansion of the birth control clinic movement, both by those interested in associating with Planned Parenthood and those beyond its doors.

For all the similarities to be noticed, however, there are at least two important distinctions (beyond of course the revolution of the pill) that shatter this warm familiarity. First, while in the 1930s it was alliances with doctors and eugenicists that gave the charity clinic movement the legitimacy it needed, by the 1960s it was alliances with the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry that would be an important strategy, ensuring its financial stability and scientific legitimacy. Second, while in the 1930s the movement worked to establish its authority by narrowly restricting the definition of birth control and the birth control clinic, by the 1960s and early 1970s it blew these definitions wide open again: it threw out its opposition to openness about various birth control techniques, it threw out its opposition to service to the unwed, it even threw out its opposition to abortion.