WI: The FDA doesn’t approve oral contraceptives in the 1960s?

[Sevarics]

As the tin says, what if the FDA refused to permit Envoid to be marketed as an oral contraceptive in the 1960s? How long could the FDA conceivably refuse to permit an oral contraceptive pill? What is the implication of the delay?

 

[EWHM]

They could refuse approval as long as they wanted. It isn't like oral contraceptives don't have side effects---they have an awful lot of them, some of them useful, some decidedly less so. Approval is at the bottom a political decision. The FDA could opt to let other countries 'beta test' oral contraception like they did other drugs like Thalidomide.

 

[Cook]

There would be a thriving market for illegal oral contraceptives smuggled in from Canada.

 

[Sevarics]

They could refuse approval as long as they wanted. It isn't like oral contraceptives don't have side effects---they have an awful lot of them, some of them useful, some decidedly less so. Approval is at the bottom a political decision. The FDA could opt to let other countries 'beta test' oral contraception like they did other drugs like Thalidomide.

So what impact do you see of delayed oral contraceptives in the US? One thing is that Griswold v Connecticut doesn’t come about which was one of the first cases establishing the right to privacy that got us Roe v Wade and eventually even Lawrence v Texas, which said states can’t enforce sodomy laws.

 

[EWHM]

Likely with delayed oral contraceptives in the US you'll see a slowing of the sexual revolution and a slowing of TFR decline.