Birth Control Movement

Abortion History @ Margaret Sanger (7) Blanche Ames @

Faye Wattleton Biography

A profile of Faye Wattleton of the Planned Parenthood Federation and Center for the Advancement of Women.

Faye Wattleton Quotes

Quotes by Faye Wattleton - part of an extensive collection of quotations by notable women.

Birth Control and Family Planning

This medical encyclopedia entry describes the many different methods of birth control and how they work. Includes diagrams of the common methods.

Devices and Desires - Interview on History of Contraceptives

Tracee Comforth, About.com Guide to Women's Health, interviews Andrea Tone on the history of contraceptives in America.

Oral Contraceptive History - Birth Control Pills

Mary Bellis, About's Guide to Inventors, highlights key people who invented the birth control pill or oral contraceptives.

Tubal Ligation

When a woman says she's getting her "tubes tied," she's referring to a tubal ligation. Here's a medical encyclopedia description of this sterilization surgery, used as a method of permanent birth control.

Catholics and Abortion: Authority vs. Dissent

Rosemary Radford Ruether details the history in the 1980s in the United States of dissent from Roman Catholic positions on abortion (and birth control). Includes a reference to the history of Humanae Vitae as a Papal response to a majority opinion by church ethicists that artificial birth control was not morally wrong.

First Birth Control Clinic in America

A 1916 photograph shows the first birth control clinic in America.

The Pill

The Pill, from American Experience (PBS), explores the story behind the development of the drug that put women in control of birth control.