The morning after
Subtitle: a history of emergency contraception in the United States
By: Heather Munro Prescott
Series: Critical issues in health and medicine
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New Brunswick, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 163
ISBN-13: 9780813551623; 9780813551630
Subjects: Birth control; Emergency contraceptives; History
Description: Since 2006, when the "morning-after pill" Plan B was first sold over the counter, sales of emergency contraceptives have soared, becoming an $80-million industry in the United States and throughout the Western world. But emergency contraception is nothing new. It has a long and often contentious history as the subject of clashes not only between medical researchers and religious groups, but also between different factions of feminist health advocates. The Morning After tells the story of emergency contraception in America from the 1960s to the present day and, more importantly, it tells the story of the women who have used it. Side-stepping simplistic readings of these women as either radical feminist trailblazers or guinea pigs for the pharmaceutical industry, medical historian Heather Munro Prescott offers a portrait of how ordinary women participated in the development and popularization of emergency contraception, bringing a groundbreaking technology into the mainstream with the potential to alter radically reproductive health practices.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: A second revolution in birth control; title: Courageous volunteers; title: Feminist health activism and the feds; title: Balancing safety and choice; title: Building consensus; title: Mainstreaming emergency contraception; title: From paternalism to patient empowerment; title: Conclusion: coming full circle?