'The Doctor Made Clear His Utter Contempt of Me, and I Can Remember It Still': Unmarried Women's Experiences of Accessing the Pill in Scotland c. 1968-1980.

Abstract

In 1968, the barrier of marital status was removed from oral contraception. This meant that for the first time, unmarried women could legally access contraception for both social and medical reasons. As a biomedical drug, the pill required women to engage more frequently with the medical profession, purportedly redefining the patient-practitioner dynamic. However, despite the removal of legislative barriers to family planning services, societal attitudes towards the use of the pill by unmarried women continued to regulate individual behaviours and restrict their contraceptive choices. This was heightened in Scotland, which lagged behind the rest of mainland Britain in implementing family planning services. Using oral testimony, coupled with archival evidence, this article traces the implementation of family planning services by the Scottish state. It then examines unmarried women's early experiences of accessing the pill, and the impact of societal attitudes, gender inequalities and medical hostilities on their reproductive autonomy.