The Pill
Sexual Revolution and Women’s Rights
The invention of reliable contraception, such as the pill, enabled people from the 1960s on to prevent pregnancy effectively. That not only heralded a sexual revolution, but also contributed towards the emancipation of women. The gynaecologist Ferdinand Peeters played an important role in the development of the pill.
Up to the 1960s there were few ways of preventing pregnancy. Couples resorted to periodic abstinencea method of contraception in which sexual intercourse is limited to the woman’s infertile period. or coitus interruptuswithdrawing the penis from the vagina before ejaculation. , two rather unreliable methods. Less common were the condom and the pessarya cap or ring that closes the cervix and excludes sperm. . Moreover, since 1922 advertising contraceptives and providing information on how to use them had been prohibited in Belgium. For many people everything connected with sex was taboo. The 1960s brought big changes. The invention of the pill allowed women to regulate their own fertility in a reliable way.
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The feminist movement Dolle Mina (Mad Mina), seen here in discussion in 1978, was active in the 1970s in Antwerp, Ghent, Leuven, Ostend and Brussels, around key figures such as Roos Proesmans (1943-2002) and Nadine Crappé (1935-1999).
Sexual Revolution and Women’s Rights
Being able to choose whether or not to have children, when and how many, made women more independent and increased their chances in the labour market. The pill was a crucial step in the sexual liberation of women and men. The fact that sex and pregnancy were no longer inextricably linked, changed the way people dealt with sexuality. In the 1960s that ‘sexual revolution’ was a significant and quite sudden social change. It formed part of a broader international evolution in which students, women, the LGBTQ+ community and people of colour questioned the established order and demanded rights. The legendary student revolt of May 1968 in Paris was one of the expressions of this.
In Flanders from the end of the 1960s both the traditional Catholic and Socialist women’s organisations and more radical feminist groups came up with new demands. They fought for equal pay, affordable childcare, more educational opportunities, a stronger presence in politics, changes in legislation on marriage, inheritance and parenthood, and so on.
Step by step from the 1970s on legislation brought change. Particularly new women’s organisations, such as Dolle Mina and the Women’s Consultative Committee (today Furia), put the free distribution of contraceptives and the right to abortion on the political agenda.
Focal points
Family Archives
Doctor Ferdinand Peeters (1918-1998) was silent from the 1970s on about his contribution to the development of the pill. According to his biographer, this was because he feared for his position in a Catholic hospital. He is seen here at a conference in Malta.
Ferdinand Peeters and Catholic Morality
The first hormonal contraceptive pill was developed in the 1950s in the United States of America. However, it had serious side effects. In search of better medication the gynaecologist Ferdinand Peeters from Turnhout began experimenting. His work heralded a breakthrough and in 1961 a German firm launched Peeters’ formula under the brand name Anovlar. In order to circumvent the Belgian ban on the distribution of contraceptives, the product went on the market in Belgium in 1965 as a remedy for ‘menstruation problems’.
In the 1960s many GPs still refused to prescribe the pill. Under the influence of Catholic morality the dominant conviction was that sex within marriage should focus on reproduction. Sex before marriage was totally unacceptable.
Ferdinand Peeters was a socially motivated Catholic doctor. In his practice he saw the results of unwanted pregnancies: miscarriages, stillborn children, death in childbirth and dangerous, clandestine abortions. Peeters even went to Rome to persuade the pope to allow family planning. The church was deaf to his plea and that of other doctors, scientists and theologians and rejected artificial birth control. However, fewer and fewer Catholics were prepared to follow that course. In 1973 the Belgian government abolished the ban on the distribution of contraceptives. Nowadays children and young adults are extensively informed at school about relationships, sexuality, pregnancy prevention and safe sex.
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Lucienne Herman-Michielsens in parliament, 1990.
Abortion Comes Out of the Shadows
As recently as the 1960s doctors, quacks and women at home carried out thousands of abortions per year. Scores of women died in the process. The pill brought an improvement, but not enough. For that reason more and more voices were raised in favour of legalising abortion. A turning point in the abortion debate was the arrest of Willy Peers in 1973. This Walloon doctor was charged with having carried out three hundred abortions. The court wanted make an example of him, but that had the opposite effect. With posters, demonstrations, testimonies and much press attention, action groups demanded his release and the legalisation of abortion. The central issue was women’s right to decide for themselves, with the slogan ‘Baas in eigen buik’ (Boss in our own Belly).
In 1977 the Flemish liberal senator Lucienne Herman-Michielsens, with the French-speaking Socialist Roger Lallemand, tabled a bill to bring abortion out of the shadows. She referred to women’s right to decide for themselves, but also hammered on the question of prevention. She defended abortion as an ‘emergency solution’, with a view to public health. Parliament rejected the bill.
In the 1980s a number of major abortion trials of medical staff were given much media attention. In 1990 parliament passed a bill which made abortion possible under strict conditions. The Christian-Democrats and some Catholic groups opposed this and invoked the right to life. King Boudewijn refused to sign the bill; it was finally signed by the Council of Ministers. In 2018 abortion was scrapped from the criminal code.
Discover more on this topic
Journaal
Bron: VRT archief, Screensavers Films – 4 apr 2014
Non-fiction
Nog altijd baas in eigen buik? Een kritische doorlichting van de Belgische abortuswetgeving en – praktijk
VUBPress, 2013.
Zou men armoe lijden?: een eeuw kroostrijke gezinnen in Vlaanderen
WPG, 1990.
De engeltjesmakers: abortus toen het nog niet mocht
Van Halewyck, 2009.
Hoe dol was Dolle mina? Een geschiedenis van de Dolle Mina’s in Vlaanderen
Gent, 2006.
Abortus, het taboe nog niet voorbij?
Kramat, 2016.
Vlaanderen vrijt! 50 jaar seks in Vlaanderen
Steam, 2006.
De echte vader van de pil: het verhaal van de man die de vrouw bevrijdde
De Bezige Bij, 2014.
Clara
Heibrand, 2008. (Levensverhaal van Turnhoutse vroedvrouw Clara Dresselaers).
Fiction
De liefde van Annie Mols/Het nieuwe onkruid/Als het onkruid bloeit
De Arbeiderspers, 2005.
De Metsiers
Manteau, 1950.
Anovlar
Manteau, 1969. (Kortverhaal in de bundel Indian Summer).
Little black spiders
Davidsfonds, 2012. (13+)
Little Black Spiders
(2012)