THE PILL, JOHN ROCK, AND THE CHURCH: The Biography of a Revolution

by Loretta McLaughlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 17, 1982

They can't throw me out. I'll be a Catholic all my life and I'Il be a Catholic in eternal life."" So said John Rock in his seventies--hailed by the press, buffeted by Harvard, denounced by the conservative clergy for his ""damn"" pill. McLaughlin, a science reporter for the Boston Globe, has written an openly admiring, matter-of-fact personal-and-scientific biography. But what a good yarn it is, regardless. Rock is something of a Boston legend: son of colorful, enterprising Catholics, a little fancier than most; a Harvard alumnus, married in Grand Style by the cardinal of Boston--who then went on to become the Church's thorn in the flesh, the open advocate of loving sex in marriage, and of birth control. . . all the while remaining a faithful Catholic. The science is absorbing as well. So little was known, back in the Thirties, that Rock and his colleagues timed necessary hysterectomies on voluntary patients in hopes of recovering a ripened ovum or even a fertilized egg for laboratory study. (Since tests could not reveal pregnancies until weeks had passed, there was no dilemma about performing an abortion.) So it was that Rock, motivated to aid the infertile, began to study the newly discovered female sex hormones, especially progesterone--using large doses to ""rest"" the reproductive organs so that infertile women might become pregnant as a rebound phenomenon. Gregory Pincus, Carl Djerassi, and other luminaries combined their talents in reproductive biology and synthetic chemistry to develop more potent ""progestins"" that could be swallowed rather than injected. Enter, then: Margaret Sanger and Katherine Dexter McCormick, heiress to International Harvester--and the result was Enovid, Norlutin, and the many other versions of the pill that engendered the revolutions and rebounds of the '70s and '80s. Today Rock, a spry 92, lives in modest retirement in New Hampshire--a survivor of heart attacks, personal tragedies, unending ecclesiastical battles. Altogether: a remarkable story ripe for the telling.

Pub Date: Jan. 17, 1982

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1982

Categories: NONFICTION