THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506220587
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY LENORE HART
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
THE PILL
A Biography of the Drug That Changed the World
BERNARD ASBELL
Random House. 411 pp. $25.
AROUND 1 A.D., world population numbered 275 million. By 1975, humanity zoomed to 4 billion. By 2000 it will double to a seething 8 billion. By 2050 we can expect a world population of 21 billion. Half of us, according to author Bernard Asbell, may be around to see it. And as these figures slouch toward reality, the Pill and other contraceptive methods still divide major religions, schools of medical thought, even feminist groups.
Several male scientists have been called ``father of the Pill.'' Actually, its invention was commissioned in 1951 by two women in their 70s: Margaret Sanger, the Planned Parenthood founder who coined the term and championed ``birth control'' from 1914 until her death, and Kathleen McCormick, a Midwestern heiress who paid for initial research.
Sanger, sixth child in her family, watched her compulsive mother suffer 12 more pregnancies (seven miscarried) before dying, old at 50. Margaret rebuked her father over her mother's coffin: ``You caused this.'' Huge impoverished families meant ``poverty, toil, unemployment, drunkenness, cruelty, fighting, jails.'' As a New York visiting nurse, Sanger was begged by sick, overburdened mothers: ``Tell me the secret. . . what rich women use.'' And later she was called to nurse the same desperate women, dying on blood-soaked floors after illegal abortions.
McCormick earned a biology degree from MIT and married artist Stanley McCormick, International Harvester heir. Two years later, he became hopelessly schizophrenic. Kathleen, fearing hereditary illness, devoted her last half-century to finding ``a perfect way to control conception.''
Asbell also looks at four men whose research led to the Pill: Russell Marker, maverick Penn State professor who made synthetic progesterone from a Mexican root; Carl Djerassi, chemical genius whose hormone research made him wealthy; John Rock, Harvard gynecologist and devout Catholic who first applied both their discoveries to curing infertility; and Gregory Pineus, the research scientist Sanger and McCormick funded to create their perfect contraceptive.
Within a decade the Pill was produced, field-tested and approved. Many rejoiced, but a firestorm exploded - hostile drug companies, convoluted legal battles, heated religious controversy. When it became clear that many Catholics were using contraceptives anyway, an international commission of theologians and laypeople assembled in Rome in 1965 to determine the Church's stand on birth control.
The commission ascertained that the Pill works not by aborting fertilized eggs, but by preventing conception. One theology professor stated, ``Just as (in) the rhythm method. . . a woman taking the Pill is simply helping extend a natural process.'' A Belgian cardinal recalled Catholicism's scientific blunder in 1633: ``I urge you. . . let us avoid a new Galileo case. One is certainly enough in the history of the church!''
The commission voted in favor; Pope Paul seemed agreeable. Then a few celibate members of the Vatican hierarchy overrode the majority and convinced the pope to reject the Pill in 1968's Humane Vitae. Asbell exposes political machinations rivaling any sleazy secular scandal.
Did the Pill cause the sexual revolution? Later studies show it's the choice of many married or unmarried couples in relationships. Those engaging in sporadic sex, especially teenagers, found the required planning ``unromantic,'' too calculating. Then, as now, lack of protection was little deterrent for the impulsive.
Despite reliability, the Pill never became ``the perfect contraceptive.'' Some users misunderstand directions. Some vilify it as a chemical plot to sexually enslave women. And there are still some risks, especially for smokers.
Research plods on for a ``men's'' Pill (immobilizing thousands of sperm, rather than one egg, is tricky). Asbell reviews the next generation of contraceptive technologies: Norplant, Depo-Provera and abortifacients such as RU 486, complete with their own controversies, from ``pro-life'' condemnation to claims of minority genocide plots.
Did this drug ``change the world''? More than its detractors wanted, but not to the extent its champions hoped. Detective story, biography, political intrigue, human drama, scientific treatise, Asbell's highly readable account labels the drug ``the first medicine ever destined for a purely social, rather than therapeutic, purpose.'' (Not counting alcohol, perhaps.) But what could be more therapeutic than avoiding a future world bursting at the seams, starving for food, shelter, breathing space? MEMO: Lenore Hart, the author of ``Black River,'' lives on the Eastern Shore,
where she is at work on her second novel. by CNB