{"id":2742,"date":"2021-12-13T16:55:20","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T21:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=2742"},"modified":"2021-12-13T18:04:18","modified_gmt":"2021-12-13T23:04:18","slug":"the-health-care-systems-control-of-the-reproductive-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/bhaskar\/the-health-care-systems-control-of-the-reproductive-process\/","title":{"rendered":"The Health Care System’s Control of the Reproductive Process: A Look at Doctors’ Control of Birth Control Information"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Alice Wolfson\u2019s \u201cHealth Care May Be Hazardous to Your Health\u201d was published in the inaugural, June 1970 issue of Up From Under. In this essay, Wolfson critiques the health care system, while also educating women about their various birth control options.<\/p><\/div>\n

During Second-Wave Feminism, women desired control over their own reproductive process. Consequently, Up From Under\u2019<\/em>s inaugural issue, published in 1970, features essays that challenge the healthcare system\u2019s conversations about birth control. For example, in one of the essays titled \u201cHealth Care May Be Hazardous to Your Health,\u201d author Alice Wolfson describes the healthcare system\u2019s exploitation of women who use birth control pills. The FDA approved birth control pills for nationwide use on May 9, 1960 (History.com Editors). At the time of the FDA\u2019s approval, however, the pill\u2019s side-effects were not fully known. Wolfson warns women about their potential exploitation as guinea pigs. As she writes, \u201c8.5 million American women taking the Pill [were] participating in the largest experiment ever conducted\u201d (Wolfson 8). Wolfson, a pioneer of the women\u2019s health movement, played a pivotal role in Congressional hearings that upended the healthcare system\u2019s deceit about birth control. The hearings began in 1970 when U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson challenged the pharmaceutical industry after reading Barbra Seaman\u2019s book titled The Doctor\u2019s Case Against the Pill<\/em> (“Senate Hearings on the Pill”). Seaman\u2019s book details the safety hazards of taking \u201cthe Pill\u201d through testimonials from physicians, medical researchers, and women who had used oral contraceptives. After witnessing the hearings, Wolfson wrote \u201cHealth Care May Be Hazardous to Your Health,\u201d as she felt that although \u201cthe Pill hearings in Congress revealed shocking facts about the dubious safety of these drugs,\u201d many women remained uninformed by their doctors (Wolfson 8). Here, she highlights that the system retained control by withholding information from patients. Additionally, in her critique of the healthcare system, Wolfson underlines doctors\u2019 control over abortions, further highlighting women\u2019s lack of control over their own reproductive health. Prior to Roe v Wade (1973), abortions were illegal. In an exaggerated statistic, Wolfson explains the implications of abortion\u2019s criminalization. She proclaims \u201cif the D.C. General had performed the service the women wanted, there would have been 4,000 abortions [of the 5,000 babies delivered in 1968] instead of the seven actually completed\u201d (Wolfson 9). Although Wolfson may exaggerate the number of abortions, a 1965 study conducted by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America suggests that in their sample of 889 women, a total of 74 women \u201csaid that they attempted to abort one or more pregnancies; of these, 31 reported the attempt successful\u201d (Polgar 125). Women were consistently denied abortions. Yet, not only did society deny women abortions, they, also, did not provide adequate access to information about contraceptives. Without information, knowledge, or access to their options, mothers and women alike remained at the mercy of a flawed system.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

Albert, Marilyn, et al., editors. Up From Under,<\/em> vol. 1, no. 1, 1970, pp. 1\u201357.<\/p>\n

Wolfson, Alice. \u201cGiving Birth in Dignity .\u201d Up From Under<\/em> , vol. 1, no. 1, 1970, pp. 6-10.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenate Hearings on the Pill.\u201d PBS<\/i>, WGBH Educational Foundation, https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/americanexperience\/features\/pill-senate-holds-hearings-pill-1970\/.<\/p>\n

History.com Editors. \u201cFDA Approves \u2018The Pill.\u2019\u201d History.com, A&amp;E Television Networks, 9 Feb. 2010, https:\/\/www.history.com\/this-day-in-history\/fda-approves-the-pill.<\/p>\n

Polgar, Steven, and Ellen S Fried. \u201cThe Bad Old Days: Clandestine Abortions Among the Poor in New York City Before Liberalization of the Abortion Law.\u201d Family Planning Perspectives<\/i>, vol. 8, no. 3, 1976, pp. 125\u2013127.<\/p>\n

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During Second-Wave Feminism, women desired control over their own reproductive process. Consequently, Up From Under\u2019s inaugural issue, published in 1970, features essays that challenge the healthcare system\u2019s conversations about birth control. For example, in one of the essays titled \u201cHealth … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2642,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bhaskar"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2642"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2742"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2794,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742\/revisions\/2794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}