June 12, 2013 • 23 mins
For the second "Boys of Summer" episode, Caroline and Cristen discuss the life and legacy of John Rock, a devout Catholic and co-inventor of America's first birth control pill.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And today's boy of Summer is
John Rock, who we could call the father of the
birth control pill, or maybe like co father control pill.
(00:27):
He's like he's co parenting the pill. Yes, yes, But
before we get into who John Rock is, because y'all
he has a pretty fascinating bio he does. Uh, let's
start out with a question about the pill. And it
was something that I hadn't really thought too much about
(00:48):
before studying up on John Rock. And the question is
why do women on the pill still get a period,
which is called withdrawal bleeding? Mm hmm, Yeah, I wondered
this too, and over at go ask Alice from Columbia. Uh,
they talk about how it was sort of designed as
a way to make the pill more acceptable back in
(01:11):
the mid twentieth century, because honestly, having a period on
the pill serves absolutely no purpose. Yeah, there is zero
biological purpose to having a period. But the developers of
the first birth control pill in it, John Rock and
George Pinkas, specifically designed the pill to mimic a woman's
(01:35):
twenty eight day menstrual cycle in the hopes of making
it more palatable not just for the American public, but
specifically to the Catholic Church and the whole Catholic element
of this is one of the most fascinating aspects of
John Rock's legacy because not only was he a gynecologist
(01:56):
and co developer of the birth control pill, but he
was so a devout Catholic. UM. A lot of bios
of him talk about how he had a crucifix that
hung over his desk, he went to Mass every Monday. Um.
And he became essentially the face of the you know,
a Catholics argument in favor of birth control. And to
(02:20):
just give you an idea as we get into information
about him, how important he was to the development of
this pill and be pushed to make it accepted. Um.
In the biography The Fertility Doctor John Rock and the
Reproductive Revolution by Margaret marsh and Wandern, Are they right
knowingly or not Rock subverted conventional sexual attitudes in the
(02:42):
name of perpetuating conventional family values. Yeah, because Rock wasn't
any kind of political radical, right, He wasn't revolutionary, and
he definitely thought that the fight surrounding the birth control
pill was getting to be too feminist. But he was
so instrumental in getting birth control pills on the market
because his partner, Gregory Pinkus, was the biochemist who did
(03:07):
a lot of the scientific leg work. He really figured
out that it was gonna be progester own to be
the key hormone that could block ovulation. But Rock was
so important to the process because it was Rock's name
and his reputation. That quote gave ultimate validity to the
claims of the pill would protect women against unwanted pregnancy.
(03:28):
And that's coming from a biography of Rock by Lauretta McLaughlin.
So if that groundwork established, let's find out more about
who John Rock really was. Yeah, and a big part
of why he is such a fascinating figure. I mean, yes,
he played a large part in getting the birth control
pill on the market. You know, Yes, he advocated for
(03:48):
healthy women, healthy birth, healthy families. But what's so fascinating
is the evolution is to watch him from the nineteen
twenties all the way to the nineteen fifties and beyond
start to change his idea of what was important about
the birth control pill or about contraceptives in general. Really,
So starting out in ninety John rock starts as director
(04:09):
of the infertility clinic at the Free Hospital for Women
in Boston. So right off the bat, you're like, wait, infertility, right,
he's treating women to help them actually be able to
have more children. And in nineteen thirty one you're thinking, okay, well,
now maybe he's starting to get radical. We'll just hold on.
He signed a petition with fifteen other prominent Boston physicians
(04:30):
urging the repeal of the Massachusetts law prohibiting the sale
of contraceptives. Now, he was the only and the first
Catholic to do so, and this was a big deal
because oral contraceptives and the Catholic Church do not get along, right,
And at this time, the time that he signed the petition,
he really only accepted the use of contraception for valid
(04:53):
health and medical reasons, not as a tool for women's autonomy,
although as we'll see, his views would evolve as years
went on. Now, even though the Catholic Church has never
really been on board with oral contraceptives, they have been
on board officially with using the rhythm method as a
(05:13):
form of quote unquote natural birth control. And if you
want more information on what the Rhythm method is. We've
done an entire podcast about it. But in nineteen thirty six,
Rock opened up the Rhythm Clinic at that free hospital
for women in Boston, which became the state's first free
clinic for providing contraceptive advice. So as we move into
(05:35):
the late thirties early forties, Rock is really earning his
reputation as a giant in the research field in gynecology,
and in nineteen forty four he and his colleague Miriam
Lincoln make headlines for the first successful in vitro fertilization
of a human of them And at the end of
the nineteen forties, so moving forward a little more um,
(05:57):
he's already at this time considered to be the as
prominent infertility expert of his era. But in dealing with patients,
talking to women who are coming to him, he really
sympathized with those women who had too many children and
too little money. And the more he saw, the more
he really became convinced that every couple should be able
to choose the number of children that they wanted. And
(06:20):
this was a radical idea in Catholicism, because, I mean,
the point is rocket really witnessed in his practice a
lot of suffering, collapsed wounds, premature aging, but also just
the desperation of how do I provide for all of
these children? And with his issue of family planning kind
of rolling around in his mind. Gen Rock co wrote
Voluntary Parenthood, which was a guide for the general reader
(06:40):
on birth control methods in nineteen forty nine, and he
talks a lot about how overpopulation was threatening world peace
and stability, and he became an advocate at that time
for population control, and in the meantime was backing away
from his earlier defense of a large family, and at
the same time, he increasingly came to regard sexual expression
(07:03):
within marriage as essential to health and happiness. Right, So
he's not arguing that a young woman or a woman
before marriage should have access to birth control. He's saying
within marriage, within the confines of marriage, a family should
be able to make decisions about how many children they want.
And there was a nineteen seventy three article that I
(07:25):
found on Rock that interviewed his daughter and she was
talking about how she would get into arguments with him
because he initially did not want to prescribe birth control,
even to newly married couples, so there's still some you know,
he's he's definitely not a super liberal guy. But speaking
of super liberal people, Margaret Singer, who founded Planned Parenthood
(07:49):
in nineteen fifty one, enters the picture where she approaches
birth control pioneer Gregory Pinkis, who was an agricultural scientist
turned biochemist with a small grant because she wanted him
to start hormonal contraceptive research. So this very same year
(08:10):
that Margaret Sanger and Gregory pink Is kind of team up.
Pope Pious the twelve says that the rhythm method is
an okay method of family planning for Catholics. So moving
forward to nineteen fifty two, Uh, Pinkas brings John Rock
into the fold. And the thing is they'd admired each
other's work from AFAR for years, and Pinkas's work on
(08:34):
animals and animal studies had actually inspired some of Rock's
earlier studies on fertilizing eggs in his own lab, and
so to dodge the state's anti birth control law as
that we mentioned earlier, Pinkas and Rock tout their human
trials as a fertility studying, not as birth control. Yeah,
(08:54):
this is going on in Massachusetts, and at the time,
Massachusetts had some of the harshest laws against birth control
and uh publicizing anything about birth control, so they had
to do a little bit of funagel ing. So based
on the information they get from these human trials and
more development that goes on, uh in n s John
(09:16):
Rock and Gregory pink Is finally settle on the drug
maker sirles in Avid progester own formulation, so Inovid becomes
the first brand of oral contraceptive that the FDA approves
for women in the United States. But the thing is, though,
before while it's going through the FDA trials again, due
(09:39):
to anti birth control laws, they had to conduct their
human trials on inn of it in Puerto Rico, and
some critics have complained that the participants in Puerto Rico
didn't provide informed consent with their signatures, but that was
not standard operating procedure at the time. And also, um,
you know, they point out that the women were informed
(10:01):
of what can happen and there I don't think that
there were a lot of negative side effects that were
going on. And they had to do that because they
legally couldn't do it within the Continental United States. So
in nineteen fifty seven, the f d A green lights
the use of inovid, but not as a contraceptive right.
(10:22):
It was for minstrreul disorders, and the medicine actually had
to carry a warning that it's suppressed ovulation, and so mysteriously,
from nineteen fifty sevent to about nineteen fifty nine, a
lot of women suddenly began to develop mysterious menstrual disorders,
and by nineteen sixty the FDA finally okays innovids contraceptive claims.
(10:45):
But meanwhile, though for John Rock, this wasn't the end
of the battle. Sure, they developed innovid and they got
the FDA approval and everything, but for him the battle
was still with the Catholic Church. The pope had okay
the rhythm method, but they were waiting for a papal
(11:07):
verdict on oral contraception because he truly believed that the
pill could solve birth control problems for Catholics, and he
wasn't looking for a revolution and sexual behavior at all.
He was still like a very morally inclined kind of guy,
but so so he wanted to take things a step further.
(11:27):
So in nineteen sixty one, the drug maker gets the
green light finally to market enovid as an oral contraceptive,
and this spurs other drugmakers to immediately get to work
on their own versions of oral contraceptives. So in nineteen
sixty three, going back to John Rock, he you know,
is doing the best that he can. He's putting all
(11:48):
of his effort into convincing the church that birth control
contraceptives are the way to go as far as family
planning is concerned, and he publishes his book The Time
Has Come, in which he makes the argument that the
pill is a way more precise method of following the
rhythm method. It's natural, it has all of the same
(12:10):
hormones already present in a woman's reproductive system. It's simply
extends that safe period where you will not get pregnant,
well will not, you know that, but the chances of
getting pregnant are much lower. But that's the exact reason though,
why that argument that hey, look, Catholic Church like everything
(12:32):
is totally natural. It's totally fine. That's the exact reason why.
From the get go, he and Pinks designed the pill
to mimic that twenty eight day menstrual cycle, and as
a result of coming out as a Catholic doctor in
favor of birth control, having developed this birth control pill.
Of course, he caught a ton of flag from some
(12:53):
people in the Catholic community. For instance, Boston's archdiocese and
paper The Pilot warned Rock to quote watch his step
or else. Not only that, Monseigneur Francis W. Carney later
called him a quote unquote moral rapists. And there was
even an anecdote in that nineteen seventy three newspaper article
that I found about how two of Rock's kids were
(13:16):
getting a ride home from uh like a Catholic church
member or something like, they had like common friends, and
once the parents found out whose kids they were, they
stopped the car and told the kids to get out. WHOA. Yeah,
it was serious. Yeah, but I mean there were Catholics
who agree with him, Unfortunately they were in the minority. Uh.
(13:37):
In nineteen sixty four, Father Louise Jansen's, who is the
professor of moral theology at the University of Louvaine, credited
Rock's book with providing a way for the Catholic Church
to change its birth control policy. Like, here's a way
to help Catholic families do the best they can, right,
But obviously all of the effort that John Rock put
into kind of trying to pave the way for the
(14:00):
Vatican too. Okay, oral contraceptives was not enough, because in
nineteen sixty eight Pope Paul the Fourth said nope to
the pill. Yeah, rhythm method are nothing but stateside. On
a more positive note for birth control, in nineteen seventy two,
the Supreme Court ruling Eisenstadt versus Barred, struck down the
(14:21):
law prohibiting birth control sales to unmarried women because even
though the f D a greenlit in Avid in nineteen
fifty seven, it wasn't until the seventies that doctors could
prescribe it to unmarried women. Well, so we mentioned rocks evolution,
(14:42):
his evolution of thought, and how he certainly was no
feminist throughout the whole of his career and he didn't
promote the birth control pill as a way to liberate women,
and some of his early thoughts on the subject are
a little touchy. For instance, he said that nature intended
(15:05):
motherhood to be a woman's career and anything which diverts
her from her prime purpose is socially wrong. But the
thing is the partnership between him and Margaret Singer during
the development of the birth control pill, because that research
was funded via Singer and the donor Katherine McCormick, who
(15:26):
funded really a lot of their research. Um was also
a relationship that evolved as well to where they started
out kind of on opposite sides of the table, and
then as John Rock moved in a little bit more
towards the center, Sanger realized that, oh, you know what,
this guy is totally fine. His Catholicism is not actually
(15:49):
hindering his, you know, medical research into the birth control
and actually, because he is almost so conflicted about it,
there was a sincerity I think that came along with
it that made him such a prime spokesman for birth control. Yeah,
(16:10):
I think you're exactly right. And he Rock also impressed
Singer with a nineteen speech in which he called for
massive increases for funding for research on reproduction and to
discover new contraceptives to stem population growth. And he actually
had a quote about, you know, if just like a
tenth of the funding that went towards developing a nuclear
(16:31):
weapon went towards reproduction and contraceptives, then we would have
a great aid in preventing overpopulation in this world. And
over at New York University they have the Margaret Singer
Papers Project, and in one of the articles about the
relationship between Singer and John Rock and pink Is, they
talked about how uh Singer really grew to like Rock
(16:56):
on a personal level, because apparently Gregory pink Is, the biochemist,
was a little bit more of a loose canon, a
little bit more radical, a little bit pushier with the
birth control agenda, whereas John Rock was just a bit
more of a smooth operator and apparently incredibly handsome. At
one point she wrote to Martha Baard Rockefeller that Rock
(17:20):
was quote as handsome as a god like easy Margaret Singer,
and by nineteen sixty the Papers project talks about how
she viewed John Rock's faith actually as an asset, and
that he was a skillful negotiator with drug companies and
that he had so much influence within the medical profession
that it helped raise the profile of oral contraceptives and
(17:44):
inavid that first approved birth control pill. Right, I think
having somebody, as you know, solid and steady and respected
as John Rock promoting the birth control pill, despite his faith,
despite his background and upbringing, I think it gave it
a lot of a lot of support well, and they
also had to have a clinical doctor like Rock in
(18:09):
the birth control of search in order to conduct any
kind of human trial, because that was a requirement from
the FDA. George Pinkus, as more of a lab scientist,
would not be able to on his own conduct any
sort of human trial. So, I mean Rock was really
kind of the center of of all of it, and
(18:29):
in he passed away and left behind this, you know,
obviously like a huge but still I feel like it's
such a conflicted legacy. Right well, by the end of
his life, he was just so over it. Not to
sound flip, but in his last interview, you know, he
was like they asked him what the best part of
his life was, and he said right now, because he
(18:50):
lived in this little, you know, forest cabin in New Hampshire,
and he said, you know, I get to I get
to experience peace and quiet every day. And they asked
him about his faith and he was basically like, you know, yeah,
that's something I believed when I was younger. What, yeah,
I can imagine that, you know, with the kind of
(19:11):
pinnacle at the pinnacle of your career simultaneously being called
a moral rapist because that that phrase, the moral rapist
is something that was sited over and over again. It
was a SoundBite that continued was like, ah, it's still
in the kind of you know, new cycles that we
have today. But you know, with that label being affixed
to you as well, I can imagine that maybe maybe
(19:33):
birth control was a chapter that he Rock wanted firmly
in the past. Yeah, it could be, but in you know,
in helping it evolve and enter the market. I mean
he's he changed the world. Yeah, absolutely certainly changed women's lives.
So that's our Boys of Summer for this week. If
(19:56):
anyone would like to write into us, as usual, mom
Stuff at Discovery dot Com is where you can send
your letters. You can also hit us up on Facebook
or tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And we've got
a couple of letters to read, which we'll get to
right after a quick break. And now back to our letters. Well,
(20:16):
I've got one here from SHAWNA. And she is a
PhD student and wrote into us in response to our
episode on whether female politicians are better for women, and
she writes, I'm working on my doctorate in political science
and I love this episode on female politicians, as it
completely sums up my research agenda. I had actually been
(20:36):
planning to request this topic, so thanks for reading my
mind and giving me an easy thirty minute overview of
what I studied to share with my mom. I thought
you did a great job of discussing the impact of
female politicians around the world and not just those in
the United States. I'm currently focusing on an under research
aspect of this topic, which is do female citizens participate
(20:56):
more in politics when there is a greater percentage of
female politicians in the legislature. So far, I found that
the presence of female politicians does not increase female political participation. Hopefully,
in the next few years I'll be able to explain
this phenomena and maybe it will make a good addition
to an update on female politicians. Thanks so much for
(21:17):
your awesome podcast, and thanks for your awesome research and insight.
It's an interesting correlation and I am curious to find
out what she digs up on that relationship. Yeah, so
keep us posted this letters from Hannah. She says, I
just listened to the Child Caretaker's podcast from last fall,
and I has a thought that it might be interesting
(21:37):
to do a podcast on disability and parenting, or on
the effects on children of disabled parents. I've never been
a child caretaker, but my mother is legally blind, which
has led to other types of responsibilities being put on
me growing up to help her compensate for her impaired vision.
I never knew any other kids with disabled parents, so
I never really thought about myself as part of a
(21:58):
demographic growing up. But I'm very interested to know if
there is any research on this topic, such as if
disabled people are less likely to have kids, if kids
have disabled parents tend to have different strengths or issues,
and things like that. I have no idea if this
has been a topic of interest to researchers, or if
support systems even exist. As I said, I never access them,
(22:19):
but I think it could be a great topic to explore.
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(22:39):
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Welcome to stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And today's boy of Summer is
John Rock, who we could call the father of the
birth control pill, or maybe like co father control pill.
(00:27):
He's like he's co parenting the pill. Yes, yes, But
before we get into who John Rock is, because y'all
he has a pretty fascinating bio he does. Uh, let's
start out with a question about the pill. And it
was something that I hadn't really thought too much about
(00:48):
before studying up on John Rock. And the question is
why do women on the pill still get a period,
which is called withdrawal bleeding? Mm hmm, Yeah, I wondered
this too, and over at go ask Alice from Columbia. Uh,
they talk about how it was sort of designed as
a way to make the pill more acceptable back in
(01:11):
the mid twentieth century, because honestly, having a period on
the pill serves absolutely no purpose. Yeah, there is zero
biological purpose to having a period. But the developers of
the first birth control pill in it, John Rock and
George Pinkas, specifically designed the pill to mimic a woman's
(01:35):
twenty eight day menstrual cycle in the hopes of making
it more palatable not just for the American public, but
specifically to the Catholic Church and the whole Catholic element
of this is one of the most fascinating aspects of
John Rock's legacy because not only was he a gynecologist
(01:56):
and co developer of the birth control pill, but he
was so a devout Catholic. UM. A lot of bios
of him talk about how he had a crucifix that
hung over his desk, he went to Mass every Monday. Um.
And he became essentially the face of the you know,
a Catholics argument in favor of birth control. And to
(02:20):
just give you an idea as we get into information
about him, how important he was to the development of
this pill and be pushed to make it accepted. Um.
In the biography The Fertility Doctor John Rock and the
Reproductive Revolution by Margaret marsh and Wandern, Are they right
knowingly or not Rock subverted conventional sexual attitudes in the
(02:42):
name of perpetuating conventional family values. Yeah, because Rock wasn't
any kind of political radical, right, He wasn't revolutionary, and
he definitely thought that the fight surrounding the birth control
pill was getting to be too feminist. But he was
so instrumental in getting birth control pills on the market
because his partner, Gregory Pinkus, was the biochemist who did
(03:07):
a lot of the scientific leg work. He really figured
out that it was gonna be progester own to be
the key hormone that could block ovulation. But Rock was
so important to the process because it was Rock's name
and his reputation. That quote gave ultimate validity to the
claims of the pill would protect women against unwanted pregnancy.
(03:28):
And that's coming from a biography of Rock by Lauretta McLaughlin.
So if that groundwork established, let's find out more about
who John Rock really was. Yeah, and a big part
of why he is such a fascinating figure. I mean, yes,
he played a large part in getting the birth control
pill on the market. You know, Yes, he advocated for
(03:48):
healthy women, healthy birth, healthy families. But what's so fascinating
is the evolution is to watch him from the nineteen
twenties all the way to the nineteen fifties and beyond
start to change his idea of what was important about
the birth control pill or about contraceptives in general. Really,
So starting out in ninety John rock starts as director
(04:09):
of the infertility clinic at the Free Hospital for Women
in Boston. So right off the bat, you're like, wait, infertility, right,
he's treating women to help them actually be able to
have more children. And in nineteen thirty one you're thinking, okay, well,
now maybe he's starting to get radical. We'll just hold on.
He signed a petition with fifteen other prominent Boston physicians
(04:30):
urging the repeal of the Massachusetts law prohibiting the sale
of contraceptives. Now, he was the only and the first
Catholic to do so, and this was a big deal
because oral contraceptives and the Catholic Church do not get along, right,
And at this time, the time that he signed the petition,
he really only accepted the use of contraception for valid
(04:53):
health and medical reasons, not as a tool for women's autonomy,
although as we'll see, his views would evolve as years
went on. Now, even though the Catholic Church has never
really been on board with oral contraceptives, they have been
on board officially with using the rhythm method as a
(05:13):
form of quote unquote natural birth control. And if you
want more information on what the Rhythm method is. We've
done an entire podcast about it. But in nineteen thirty six,
Rock opened up the Rhythm Clinic at that free hospital
for women in Boston, which became the state's first free
clinic for providing contraceptive advice. So as we move into
(05:35):
the late thirties early forties, Rock is really earning his
reputation as a giant in the research field in gynecology,
and in nineteen forty four he and his colleague Miriam
Lincoln make headlines for the first successful in vitro fertilization
of a human of them And at the end of
the nineteen forties, so moving forward a little more um,
(05:57):
he's already at this time considered to be the as
prominent infertility expert of his era. But in dealing with patients,
talking to women who are coming to him, he really
sympathized with those women who had too many children and
too little money. And the more he saw, the more
he really became convinced that every couple should be able
to choose the number of children that they wanted. And
(06:20):
this was a radical idea in Catholicism, because, I mean,
the point is rocket really witnessed in his practice a
lot of suffering, collapsed wounds, premature aging, but also just
the desperation of how do I provide for all of
these children? And with his issue of family planning kind
of rolling around in his mind. Gen Rock co wrote
Voluntary Parenthood, which was a guide for the general reader
(06:40):
on birth control methods in nineteen forty nine, and he
talks a lot about how overpopulation was threatening world peace
and stability, and he became an advocate at that time
for population control, and in the meantime was backing away
from his earlier defense of a large family, and at
the same time, he increasingly came to regard sexual expression
(07:03):
within marriage as essential to health and happiness. Right, So
he's not arguing that a young woman or a woman
before marriage should have access to birth control. He's saying
within marriage, within the confines of marriage, a family should
be able to make decisions about how many children they want.
And there was a nineteen seventy three article that I
(07:25):
found on Rock that interviewed his daughter and she was
talking about how she would get into arguments with him
because he initially did not want to prescribe birth control,
even to newly married couples, so there's still some you know,
he's he's definitely not a super liberal guy. But speaking
of super liberal people, Margaret Singer, who founded Planned Parenthood
(07:49):
in nineteen fifty one, enters the picture where she approaches
birth control pioneer Gregory Pinkis, who was an agricultural scientist
turned biochemist with a small grant because she wanted him
to start hormonal contraceptive research. So this very same year
(08:10):
that Margaret Sanger and Gregory pink Is kind of team up.
Pope Pious the twelve says that the rhythm method is
an okay method of family planning for Catholics. So moving
forward to nineteen fifty two, Uh, Pinkas brings John Rock
into the fold. And the thing is they'd admired each
other's work from AFAR for years, and Pinkas's work on
(08:34):
animals and animal studies had actually inspired some of Rock's
earlier studies on fertilizing eggs in his own lab, and
so to dodge the state's anti birth control law as
that we mentioned earlier, Pinkas and Rock tout their human
trials as a fertility studying, not as birth control. Yeah,
(08:54):
this is going on in Massachusetts, and at the time,
Massachusetts had some of the harshest laws against birth control
and uh publicizing anything about birth control, so they had
to do a little bit of funagel ing. So based
on the information they get from these human trials and
more development that goes on, uh in n s John
(09:16):
Rock and Gregory pink Is finally settle on the drug
maker sirles in Avid progester own formulation, so Inovid becomes
the first brand of oral contraceptive that the FDA approves
for women in the United States. But the thing is, though,
before while it's going through the FDA trials again, due
(09:39):
to anti birth control laws, they had to conduct their
human trials on inn of it in Puerto Rico, and
some critics have complained that the participants in Puerto Rico
didn't provide informed consent with their signatures, but that was
not standard operating procedure at the time. And also, um,
you know, they point out that the women were informed
(10:01):
of what can happen and there I don't think that
there were a lot of negative side effects that were
going on. And they had to do that because they
legally couldn't do it within the Continental United States. So
in nineteen fifty seven, the f d A green lights
the use of inovid, but not as a contraceptive right.
(10:22):
It was for minstrreul disorders, and the medicine actually had
to carry a warning that it's suppressed ovulation, and so mysteriously,
from nineteen fifty sevent to about nineteen fifty nine, a
lot of women suddenly began to develop mysterious menstrual disorders,
and by nineteen sixty the FDA finally okays innovids contraceptive claims.
(10:45):
But meanwhile, though for John Rock, this wasn't the end
of the battle. Sure, they developed innovid and they got
the FDA approval and everything, but for him the battle
was still with the Catholic Church. The pope had okay
the rhythm method, but they were waiting for a papal
(11:07):
verdict on oral contraception because he truly believed that the
pill could solve birth control problems for Catholics, and he
wasn't looking for a revolution and sexual behavior at all.
He was still like a very morally inclined kind of guy,
but so so he wanted to take things a step further.
(11:27):
So in nineteen sixty one, the drug maker gets the
green light finally to market enovid as an oral contraceptive,
and this spurs other drugmakers to immediately get to work
on their own versions of oral contraceptives. So in nineteen
sixty three, going back to John Rock, he you know,
is doing the best that he can. He's putting all
(11:48):
of his effort into convincing the church that birth control
contraceptives are the way to go as far as family
planning is concerned, and he publishes his book The Time
Has Come, in which he makes the argument that the
pill is a way more precise method of following the
rhythm method. It's natural, it has all of the same
(12:10):
hormones already present in a woman's reproductive system. It's simply
extends that safe period where you will not get pregnant,
well will not, you know that, but the chances of
getting pregnant are much lower. But that's the exact reason though,
why that argument that hey, look, Catholic Church like everything
(12:32):
is totally natural. It's totally fine. That's the exact reason why.
From the get go, he and Pinks designed the pill
to mimic that twenty eight day menstrual cycle, and as
a result of coming out as a Catholic doctor in
favor of birth control, having developed this birth control pill.
Of course, he caught a ton of flag from some
(12:53):
people in the Catholic community. For instance, Boston's archdiocese and
paper The Pilot warned Rock to quote watch his step
or else. Not only that, Monseigneur Francis W. Carney later
called him a quote unquote moral rapists. And there was
even an anecdote in that nineteen seventy three newspaper article
that I found about how two of Rock's kids were
(13:16):
getting a ride home from uh like a Catholic church
member or something like, they had like common friends, and
once the parents found out whose kids they were, they
stopped the car and told the kids to get out. WHOA. Yeah,
it was serious. Yeah, but I mean there were Catholics
who agree with him, Unfortunately they were in the minority. Uh.
(13:37):
In nineteen sixty four, Father Louise Jansen's, who is the
professor of moral theology at the University of Louvaine, credited
Rock's book with providing a way for the Catholic Church
to change its birth control policy. Like, here's a way
to help Catholic families do the best they can, right,
But obviously all of the effort that John Rock put
into kind of trying to pave the way for the
(14:00):
Vatican too. Okay, oral contraceptives was not enough, because in
nineteen sixty eight Pope Paul the Fourth said nope to
the pill. Yeah, rhythm method are nothing but stateside. On
a more positive note for birth control, in nineteen seventy two,
the Supreme Court ruling Eisenstadt versus Barred, struck down the
(14:21):
law prohibiting birth control sales to unmarried women because even
though the f D a greenlit in Avid in nineteen
fifty seven, it wasn't until the seventies that doctors could
prescribe it to unmarried women. Well, so we mentioned rocks evolution,
(14:42):
his evolution of thought, and how he certainly was no
feminist throughout the whole of his career and he didn't
promote the birth control pill as a way to liberate women,
and some of his early thoughts on the subject are
a little touchy. For instance, he said that nature intended
(15:05):
motherhood to be a woman's career and anything which diverts
her from her prime purpose is socially wrong. But the
thing is the partnership between him and Margaret Singer during
the development of the birth control pill, because that research
was funded via Singer and the donor Katherine McCormick, who
(15:26):
funded really a lot of their research. Um was also
a relationship that evolved as well to where they started
out kind of on opposite sides of the table, and
then as John Rock moved in a little bit more
towards the center, Sanger realized that, oh, you know what,
this guy is totally fine. His Catholicism is not actually
(15:49):
hindering his, you know, medical research into the birth control
and actually, because he is almost so conflicted about it,
there was a sincerity I think that came along with
it that made him such a prime spokesman for birth control. Yeah,
(16:10):
I think you're exactly right. And he Rock also impressed
Singer with a nineteen speech in which he called for
massive increases for funding for research on reproduction and to
discover new contraceptives to stem population growth. And he actually
had a quote about, you know, if just like a
tenth of the funding that went towards developing a nuclear
(16:31):
weapon went towards reproduction and contraceptives, then we would have
a great aid in preventing overpopulation in this world. And
over at New York University they have the Margaret Singer
Papers Project, and in one of the articles about the
relationship between Singer and John Rock and pink Is, they
talked about how uh Singer really grew to like Rock
(16:56):
on a personal level, because apparently Gregory pink Is, the biochemist,
was a little bit more of a loose canon, a
little bit more radical, a little bit pushier with the
birth control agenda, whereas John Rock was just a bit
more of a smooth operator and apparently incredibly handsome. At
one point she wrote to Martha Baard Rockefeller that Rock
(17:20):
was quote as handsome as a god like easy Margaret Singer,
and by nineteen sixty the Papers project talks about how
she viewed John Rock's faith actually as an asset, and
that he was a skillful negotiator with drug companies and
that he had so much influence within the medical profession
that it helped raise the profile of oral contraceptives and
(17:44):
inavid that first approved birth control pill. Right, I think
having somebody, as you know, solid and steady and respected
as John Rock promoting the birth control pill, despite his faith,
despite his background and upbringing, I think it gave it
a lot of a lot of support well, and they
also had to have a clinical doctor like Rock in
(18:09):
the birth control of search in order to conduct any
kind of human trial, because that was a requirement from
the FDA. George Pinkus, as more of a lab scientist,
would not be able to on his own conduct any
sort of human trial. So, I mean Rock was really
kind of the center of of all of it, and
(18:29):
in he passed away and left behind this, you know,
obviously like a huge but still I feel like it's
such a conflicted legacy. Right well, by the end of
his life, he was just so over it. Not to
sound flip, but in his last interview, you know, he
was like they asked him what the best part of
his life was, and he said right now, because he
(18:50):
lived in this little, you know, forest cabin in New Hampshire,
and he said, you know, I get to I get
to experience peace and quiet every day. And they asked
him about his faith and he was basically like, you know, yeah,
that's something I believed when I was younger. What, yeah,
I can imagine that, you know, with the kind of
(19:11):
pinnacle at the pinnacle of your career simultaneously being called
a moral rapist because that that phrase, the moral rapist
is something that was sited over and over again. It
was a SoundBite that continued was like, ah, it's still
in the kind of you know, new cycles that we
have today. But you know, with that label being affixed
to you as well, I can imagine that maybe maybe
(19:33):
birth control was a chapter that he Rock wanted firmly
in the past. Yeah, it could be, but in you know,
in helping it evolve and enter the market. I mean
he's he changed the world. Yeah, absolutely certainly changed women's lives.
So that's our Boys of Summer for this week. If
(19:56):
anyone would like to write into us, as usual, mom
Stuff at Discovery dot Com is where you can send
your letters. You can also hit us up on Facebook
or tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And we've got
a couple of letters to read, which we'll get to
right after a quick break. And now back to our letters. Well,
(20:16):
I've got one here from SHAWNA. And she is a
PhD student and wrote into us in response to our
episode on whether female politicians are better for women, and
she writes, I'm working on my doctorate in political science
and I love this episode on female politicians, as it
completely sums up my research agenda. I had actually been
(20:36):
planning to request this topic, so thanks for reading my
mind and giving me an easy thirty minute overview of
what I studied to share with my mom. I thought
you did a great job of discussing the impact of
female politicians around the world and not just those in
the United States. I'm currently focusing on an under research
aspect of this topic, which is do female citizens participate
(20:56):
more in politics when there is a greater percentage of
female politicians in the legislature. So far, I found that
the presence of female politicians does not increase female political participation. Hopefully,
in the next few years I'll be able to explain
this phenomena and maybe it will make a good addition
to an update on female politicians. Thanks so much for
(21:17):
your awesome podcast, and thanks for your awesome research and insight.
It's an interesting correlation and I am curious to find
out what she digs up on that relationship. Yeah, so
keep us posted this letters from Hannah. She says, I
just listened to the Child Caretaker's podcast from last fall,
and I has a thought that it might be interesting
(21:37):
to do a podcast on disability and parenting, or on
the effects on children of disabled parents. I've never been
a child caretaker, but my mother is legally blind, which
has led to other types of responsibilities being put on
me growing up to help her compensate for her impaired vision.
I never knew any other kids with disabled parents, so
I never really thought about myself as part of a
(21:58):
demographic growing up. But I'm very interested to know if
there is any research on this topic, such as if
disabled people are less likely to have kids, if kids
have disabled parents tend to have different strengths or issues,
and things like that. I have no idea if this
has been a topic of interest to researchers, or if
support systems even exist. As I said, I never access them,
(22:19):
but I think it could be a great topic to explore.
So thank you for the suggestion, Hannah, and thank you
for sharing your story, and thanks to everybody who's written
into Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot com. Don't forget to
head over to Facebook's check us out over there and
mike us while you're at it. You can follow us
on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast, and on tumbler stuff
(22:39):
Mom Never Told You Dot tumbler dot com, and don't
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we come up with a new show on YouTube, so
head over to YouTube dot com slash stuff Mom Never
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