In 1968, a popular writer ranked the Pill's importance with the discovery of fire, among other things. Twenty-five years later, the Pill was still in the news, with The Economist, the leading British weekly, listing it as one of the seven wonders of the modern world. In the 1990s, over ten million women in the United States used oral contraceptives, "the Pill," as birth control. During the 1950s, Margaret Sanger, a nurse and feminist who championed birth control education and methods for women, played a pivotal role in finding research funding for the development of the birth control pill.

Shortly after chemist Carl Djerassi first synthesized the Pill, its widespread use helped to catalyze the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s, a time when people were exploring "free love"—sex with multiple partners, without traditional commitment. Because the Pill's accuracy rate in preventing pregnancy is almost 100 percent, it...