Morals: Sex & the Pembroke Girl

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Latest bench mark on U.S. manners and morals:

Dr. Roswell Johnson, director of health services at Brown University and its women's college, Pembroke, last week acknowledged that he had prescribed birth-control pills for "a very, very small" number of girls (perhaps as many as five) in his official capacity. The girls were over 21 and intending to be married. He emphasized that he had had lengthy consultations in each case, because "I want to feel I'm contributing to a solid relationship and not to unmitigated promiscuity."

Brown President Barnaby Keeney stoutly backed his health director. Dr. Johnson's position, said Keeney, "implies discretion to treat cases as seems best to him. After examination of the circumstances, he decided to prescribe contraceptive pills. It is common practice to do so before marriage."