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Planned Parenthood funds medical experimentation for the birth control pill.

1951

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Planned Parenthood awards a grant to Gregory Pincus, John Rock, and M.C. Chang to undertake research for the development of a birth control pill. Katharine Dexter McCormick, a leader in the suffrage movement and the League of Women Voters, oversees the research process. She also donates the majority of the financial resources needed for this research.

Some of the research takes place at a state hospital where 16 female mental health patients are given prototypes of the birth control pill, and then have their uteruses surgically opened to track the drug's effect on ovulation.