60 Years of the Contraceptive Pill

Moral Maze

BBC

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 609 Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

It’s 60 years since the contraceptive pill was made available on the NHS. It has had a revolutionary impact on women’s lives and on society. In 1961 women often married at an early age and many were expected to stay at home and raise a family while men went out to work. The ability for women to have control of their own fertility meant they could choose to have children and a career on their own terms. The availability of the pill undoubtedly changed the nature of sexual relationships, even if it was not the single cause of the sexual revolution. While many view sex without the possibility of pregnancy as integral to a woman’s moral agency, social conservatives argue that separating sex from reproduction threatens the traditional family unit, which they see as the foundation of a stable society. More recently, there has been a backlash by some women against hormonal contraceptives to try to reclaim autonomy over their bodies. 60 years on, we live in a very different society but can we say we have made progress when it comes to attitudes towards women and sex? Teenage girls report sexual abuse in schools and on social media, while concern is growing among experts about the impact on children of readily-available pornographic images. If this isn’t where we hoped we might be, where do we go from here? Where now for women’s liberation? Is it time for another sexual revolution? With Dr. Sarah Jarvis, Caroline Farrow, Emma Chan and Louise Perry.

Producer: Dan Tierney.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. Good evening, it's exactly 60 years since the contraceptive pill was first prescribed on the NHS, for married women only, of course. There was much talk of encouraging promiscuity back in 1961 of undermining marriage. At some clinics in the early days, an unmarried woman had to produce a
0:23.3	minister's note to say that the date for her wedding had been fixed. There's no doubt it was
0:28.1	liberating. It gave women control over their own fertility. It changed the nature of sex, reliably
0:33.3	dividing recreation from reproduction. Women could have children and a career on their own terms.
0:40.0	It was perhaps not the only driver of the sexual revolution that's taken place in the last
0:44.2	half century, but many regard it as the most important one.
0:47.7	For good or ill.
0:49.4	Few would want to go back to the days when sex was a biological gamble with shame, disgrace or a shotgun wedding for the losers.
0:55.7	But there are those who say the institution of marriage is weaker now, that society has been sexualised,
1:01.7	the young in particular being subject to unrealistic expectations, abuse of all kinds, and ubiquitous pornography.
1:09.2	Is this where we wanted to be after 60 years of the pill?
1:12.9	Or is it time for a new sexual revolution? That's our moral maze tonight. The panel, Mona Siddiqui,
1:18.5	Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at Edinburgh University, Anne McElvoy, senior editor
1:24.0	at The Economist, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation Matthew Taylor and the historian Tim Stanley.
1:30.9	Well, Anne, I suppose you were in the first generation growing up with the pill.
1:35.8	Has it made life better for people like you and for society as a whole?
1:40.6	Gosh, I think Larkin said sexual intercourse began with the pill in 1963.
1:45.5	So not quite, Michael, but no, I was Larkin said sexual intercourse began with a pill in 1963, so not quite Michael,
1:51.6	but no, I was absolutely the beneficiary a couple of decades later of the pill being widely available and widely, more widely accepted.
1:54.4	And I'm very pleased to have grown up in that generation in terms of contraception.
1:58.2	I would not have wanted to grow up.
1:59.4	I come from a Catholic background also. I would not have wanted to grow up. I come from a Catholic background also.
	...

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