Increasing knowledge and accessibility of birth control is necessary for the protection of women’s health and freedom to control their fertility. There has been a lot of controversy around the topic of birth control in history as a result of women not being recognized as an autonomous being in a society deeply rooted in patriarchy, However, advancement in science and support of women’s health, as well as a shift on society’s perspective on females, have all contributed to the development of safe, attainable birth control. Even though most of that controversy has died down, our knowledge on the Pill and other forms of birth control are still being developed today in addition to spreading its accessibility to all women.
Planned Parenthood is an essential source of information and accessibility to contraception and infertility services. It began its influence in the 1960s, and we can still see its influence today. Some examples of this influence are stated in this article. For example, “Throughout the 1990s, Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health experts successfully advocated for FDA approval of new, effective methods of birth control … In 1999, the FDA approved Plan B emergency contraception, and Planned Parenthood began work to make emergency contraception widely available at its health centers and educate the public about emergency contraception, also known as the “morning-after pill.” Unfortunately, there has always been a fight against women’s reproductive rights, but Planned Parenthood always remained an active part of protecting women. A fairly recent example of this is, “After years of state by state restrictions on abortion, in 2016 the Supreme Court ruled that states could not create rules that placed an “undue burden” on people seeking abortion, in the Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt case — a victory for those in favor of safe and legal abortion. In response, Planned Parenthood vowed to redouble its efforts to fight abortion restrictions across the country”. Planned Parenthood has continuously fought against efforts that have threatened women;’s reproductive and abortion rights. Their influence is very significant as they have developed and maintained the ability to provide women with the information and resources they need, resulting in expanded birth control and abortion options by the 21st century.
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The rise of Planned Parenthood around the 1960s initiated its future influence, which became an essential part of the freedom of women’s reproductive health. The image above portrays a woman holding a sign advertising birth control around 1960, when the first birth control was introduced. Around this time, the Planned Parenthood organization began distributing information about birth control in the U.S., and providing accessibility to contraception and infertility services. This was the origin of Planned Parenthood as they began to reach out to women in the U.S. through advertisement and promote the idea of women exercising their reproductive rights by teaching them about birth control and making it available to them, as well as other services that were there to provide support. The phrase “You can decide how many children you want” gives women a sense of empowerment and lets them know that they have control over their body and the decisions they make pertaining to fertility, which is the idea Planned Parenthood is representative of. This image is provides context on the roots of Planned Parenthood and how its influence began to develop.
To the right are three other images, two of which are from Planned Parenthood and one of which is from a healthcare center. These images demonstrate the rise in advertisement of the Pill and increasing awareness of contraceptive options as the availability to them also began to expand. This also led to a shift in the way people viewed having kids, as well a change in women’s freedom of sexual expression.
The book The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science discusses the way birth control shaped family planning in the sense that it provided stability. Loth states how “Nature often puts an arbitrary ceiling on family size” and how “most couples are physiologically capable of producing more children than they can manage or want, and more than would be beneficial for society”. He talks about how divorce rates, records on delinquency, martial conflict and family deterioration, which result from overcrowding, sibling jealousy, economic strain parental conflicts, etc. Therefore, he argues that the existence of Birth Control helps place a limit on the number of kids couples can produce and helps alleviate these problems. Being that this was written in the 1950s, it is clear that concepts backed by Planned Parenthood now were starting to develop and gradually gain society’s acceptance of contraception.