Margaret Sanger fought exhaustively throughout her life to promote the use and acceptance of birth control. In 1916 she opened the first birth control clinic, which would later be known as Planned Parenthood. In her early years, working as a nurse in New York City, she saw many women die in child birth and from self-induced abortion. The horrors that she witnessed there sparked her involvement in the birth control movement. She met great opposition with the Catholic Church who constantly fought her new, forward ways of thinking. Sanger also had to fight the mainstream society of her time. She was branded a criminal on many occasions for publishing pamphlets that allowed women to become aware of their sexuality and the use of contraceptives. Both the Catholic Church and society preferred traditionalism over modernism. Fortunately, Margaret Sanger's efforts paid off and in 1960 the Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of the Pill for contraceptive use.
Timeline of the 1960s
1960 |
1961 |
1962 |
| The Food and Drug Administration approves the sale of the Pill for contraceptive use. However, the Pill is already being used by at least 500,000 women to regulate their menstrual cycles. | The first international conference on IUDs is held in New York City. Sherri Finkbine is refused an abortion in the U.S. even though her fetus is deformed because she was prescribed thalidomide during her pregnancy. She has to fly to Sweden in order to have the abortion. |
John F. Kennedy endorses research on contraceptives to find and make new methods available because he says that the staggering population growth could pose problems in the future. |
1963 |
1964 |
1965 |
| In order to support and oversee research in reproductive science and contraceptive development, th U.S. government establishes the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. | A rubella epidemic causes a high incidence of fetal deformity, which increases the public sentiment for women to have legal and safe means of abortion. | The Supreme Court case, Griswold v. Connecticut, challenged the Connecticut laws on prohibiting the use of contraceptives by married couples. Griswold's victory allowed family planning in states that it had previously been banned in.
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1966 |
1967 |
1968 |
Lyndon Johnson declares family planning as one of four critical health problems and develops a program to provide contraceptive services for those who cannot afford it. Margaret Sanger dies at the age of 86. |
Colorado, along
with 13 other states, reform their abortion laws, making them more lenient. |
Pope Paul VI confirmed the Catholic Church's stance against using any means of birth control, including the Pill. |
1969 |
|
The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League is founded in order to preserve the right to safe and legal abortion for all women.
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The timeline was taken from Planned Parenthood
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