Looking back, moving forward
The McGill students who made contraception accessible

http://www.mcgilltribune.com/birth-control/
Publisher:  McGill Tribune
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23369

Students at McGill published the Birth Control Handbook in 1968 when it was still illegal to distribute information about birth control. It was a watershed moment for sexual health but students today still fight obstacles to access birth control.

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During a period when contraception was scarce, and literature on the subject even more so, McGill students collaborated on a campaign to educate young people about reproductive health. In their mission to make contraception available on campus, the McGill Students' Council commissioned a manual to distribute across campus: the Birth Control Handbook. First published in 1968, the Birth Control Handbook, was initially commissioned by McGill's student government. Though its publication would be illegal until 1969, when the section of the Criminal Code that made it illegal to advertise or sell birth control was overturned, McGill students were resolved to educate their peers on the subject. The publishers later distributed the manual to universities across North America and offered young people information on reproductive health, abortion, and hormonal birth control....

Working alongside Montreal-based doctors Thomas Primrose and Robert Kinch, Cherniak, Feingold, and their team of fellow students compiled the handbook to address the lack of information about birth control available to students.

"We were not doctors," Feingold said. "We were not medical students even, and we spent a month studying enough to produce the first edition of the Birth Control Handbook [...], and we tapped into this huge demand that we actually didn’t fully appreciate."