Sanger's outspoken advocacy for birth control attracted the attention of Katherine McCormick, wife of Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the mechanical harvester. McCormick's husband had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and she was concerned about passing the disease onto children, so she supported birth control and provided financial backing for research.

This funding eventually helped Gregory Pincus develop an oral contraceptive in 1951 and nine years later, Enovid - the first Pill was approved. The Pill, manufactured by the Searle drug company, was incredibly successful, but also highly dangerous - side effects included life-threatening blood clots. Further investigation found the doses were 10 times too high. Adjustments were made and the Pill received greater popularity. Four years after the FDA approved the Pill, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Comstock law.


In recent years, further innovations have been made to the Pill. At the start of the millennia the FDA approved Ortho Evra, the first birth control "patch," but the Pill still enjoys greater popularity. More recently, the first continuous birth control pill was introduced that limits a woman's menstrual periods to four per year. Researchers are working on pills that would reduce that number to one per year. Things have come a long way from fennel.

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