From these roots, he extracted a syrupy potion which led to the invention of the Pill. Without his discovery, the birth control pill as we know it could not have been created. (Asbell 4) Another scientist who led another step on the way to chemical birth control was Carl Djerassi. His research on steroids paved the way for the discovery of birth control.
However these discoveries would be un-significant and go by unnoticed if it had not been for the two main advocates of the birth control pill: Margaret Sanger and Katharine McCormick.
From the moment they came on stage in the saga of its development, they took command of the scene. They did no less than commission the eminent male scientists who were to be the principals in its emergence, to make or find them an oral contraceptive. The women made it plain that what they wanted was a pill -like an aspirin- that would be cheap, plentiful, and easy to use moreover, the women virtually directed the men to be quick about it. (Asbell 6) .
Margaret Sanger was a long time advocate of birth control. She, concerned with poverty in the world, lived a life of teaching birth control methods to the poor. Katharine McCormick was a millionaire woman suffragist that wanted to help the birth control movement. In 1950 McCormick wrote to Sanger.
Two questions that are much with me these days: A) Where do you think the greatest need of financial support is today for the National Birth Control Movement; and B) What are the present prospects for further birth control research and by research I mean contraceptive research. (Gray 9).
Sanger wrote back.
I consider that the world and almost our civilization for the next twenty-five years, is going to depend upon a simple, cheap, safe contraceptive to be used in poverty stricken slums, jungles, and among the most ignorant people. I believe that now, immediately there should be national sterilization for certain dysgenic types of our population who are being encouraged to breed and would die out were the government not feeding them.
