You've Come a Long Way, Baby—but Not Far Enough

Gail Collins celebrates tomorrow's 50 anniversary of The Pill winning FDA approval, giving thanks that we no longer live in an age when birth control advice includes "wearing the testicles of a weasel." Nor are people imprisoned anymore for the crime of spreading information on the subject. All good stuff, but there's a but.

"Over the last 20 years, protests from the social right have made politicians frightened of mentioning birth control and school boards frightened of including it in the curriculum," Collins writes in the New York Times. This means teens get Gossip Girls on TV and no sex ed in schools. And "the terror of mentioning birth control is so great that the humongous new health care reform act has managed to avoid bringing it up at all." (More birth control pill stories.)