Word: pills
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...think anyone is saying that your hearings are impregnating women," Guttmacher told Nelson, "but the adverse publicity has caused many women to quit the Pill." Kansas Republican Robert J. Dole interrupted to voice the hope that the resulting babies will not all be named for subcommittee members. But Guttmacher, like a committee of 19 Planned Parenthood physicians that met recently, had a more serious concern. By no means all the unwanted pregnancies will result in babies. As many or more will result in abortions (see following story), most of them illegal, with the attendant hazard of serious illness or death...
Pregnant Brides. Guttmacher insisted that his intention was not to whitewash the Pill but "to place this matter in proper perspective." The Pill, he declared, is "a prophylaxis against one of the gravest sociomedical illnesses-unwanted pregnancy." Experts estimate, he said, that from 200,000 to 1,000,000 abortions are performed in the U.S. each year, with a death rate of 100 per 100,000 illegal abortions performed by non-medical operators. At least one out of six U.S. brides is pregnant when married, and among teen-age brides, one out of two. No fewer than 300,000 illegitimate...
Both Guttmacher and Columbia University's Dr. Elizabeth Connell readily conceded that the Pill has some harmful side effects. The side effects are unpredictable in some women. Dr. Connell urged that the Pill never be prescribed for women who already show danger signals. She listed these as persistent headaches, swelling of the legs, vein tenderness and chest pain. One midnight not long ago, she said, a relative called her and described some of these symptoms. Dr. Connell (mother of six who refuses to say whether or not she takes the Pill herself) answered forthrightly: "If you ever take...
Zero Is Too Much. Senator Nelson reiterated that he is not against the Pill as such. "I favor planned parenthood," he said. "I would like to see the perfect Pill. The U.S. is already overpopulated. Zero population growth is even too much, but J also think the public is entitled to the facts." Some of the facts, Nelson contended, have been obscured by drug-company promotion: "The literature that is going out is inaccurate and is misleading 8,500,000 women, and has been doing so for ten years." To prove his point, Nelson quoted from a drug company...
Although Nelson and Guttmacher could agree that the Pill is "a crude, first-generation contraceptive," they could not agree as to how women should be told about its admitted and known dangers so that they can make an "informed decision" about its use. Nelson was all in favor of direct education of women. Guttmacher insisted that it was the doctors who should be educated. If the hearings have prodded more U.S. physicians into prescribing the Pill more carefully and insisting upon examining their patients every six months, as Guttmacher urges, they will have done some good as well as much...