The FDA approves the first oral contraceptive pill
On this day · 9 May 1960
With little fanfare, federal regulators cleared Enovid for birth control, handing women a discreet daily pill and reshaping society.
On May 9, 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Enovid, made by the G.D. Searle Company, as the first oral contraceptive. The agency announced the clearance with almost no publicity, an understated end to a decade of research and fierce social debate.
The project had been championed by birth-control pioneer Margaret Sanger and bankrolled by heiress Katharine McCormick. Biologist Gregory Pincus and physician John Rock developed the formula, using synthetic hormones to suppress ovulation. Enovid had already been on the market since 1957 for menstrual disorders, a route that quietly revealed how many women wanted it for contraception.
Uneasy about long-term safety, the FDA initially sanctioned contraceptive use for no more than two years at a stretch. The caution did little to slow demand. Within a few years millions of American women were taking “the Pill,” giving them unprecedented control over family planning and helping to redraw the landscape of work, marriage, and reproductive medicine.
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