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  1. Social Reform

Birth Control Movement

The movement to allow women to control their births -- sometimes called voluntary motherhood or planned parenthood -- includes changes in laws, cultural mores and technology. The movement made possible other changes in women's lives.
  1. Abortion History
  2. Blanche Ames
  3. Margaret Sanger (5)

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

Planned Parenthood
A profile of the organization Planned Parenthood, a major provider of women's reproductive health services in America.

When Was the Birth Control Pill Approved By the FDA?
When was the Pill approved in the U.S. for birth control? Read about Enovid, the first pill approved for use as an oral contraceptive.

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.

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