Medicine: The Pill Trial (Contd.)

Ostensibly, the hearings before Senator Gaylord Nelson's monopoly subcommittee in Washington last week did not constitute a trial, either of the Pill or of its proponents. The Wisconsin Democrat repeatedly expressed his resentment of any suggestion that they were so intended. But the atmosphere in the hearing room was tense with ill-concealed hostility between the Pill's attackers and its defenders. The give-and-take between Senators and witnesses, and even between Senators, had the tone of courtroom adversary procedure. The reason was clear: no new medical evidence had been presented in Nelson's first hearings (TIME, Jan. 26), but wide publicity and scare headlines given to one side of the argument had created what some witnesses called a public panic.

Dr. Alan F. Guttmacher, president of Planned Parenthood-World Population and elder statesman of the birth-control movement, tried to turn the tables with a medical metaphor. "There have been undesirable side effects from these hearings," he said. "They have created a sense of great alarm." Guttmacher cited polls indicating that almost one-fifth of the American women who had been using the Pill had abruptly abandoned it, while as many more were thinking of doing so.

"I don't think anyone is saying that your hearings are impregnating women," Guttmacher told Nelson, "but the adverse publicity has caused many women to quit the Pill." Kansas Republican Robert J. Dole interrupted to voice the hope that the resulting babies will not all be named for subcommittee members. But Guttmacher, like a committee of 19 Planned Parenthood physicians that met recently, had a more serious concern. By no means all the unwanted pregnancies will result in babies. As many or more will result in abortions (see following story), most of them illegal, with the attendant hazard of serious illness or death.

Pregnant Brides. Guttmacher insisted that his intention was not to whitewash the Pill but "to place this matter in proper perspective." The Pill, he declared, is "a prophylaxis against one of the gravest sociomedical illnesses—unwanted pregnancy." Experts estimate, he said, that from 200,000 to 1,000,000 abortions are performed in the U.S. each year, with a death rate of 100 per 100,000 illegal abortions performed by non-medical operators. At least one out of six U.S. brides is pregnant when married, and among teen-age brides, one out of two. No fewer than 300,000 illegitimate births are predicted for 1970. At least 750,000 children born each year are unwanted.