Birth control helps give half the world鈥檚 population a life outside the home. But the women who made it possible in the 1950s were never told they were subjects in the pill鈥檚 first large human trial.
Las Borique帽as by Nelson Diaz-Marcano, on at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York, tells the story of five Puerto Rican women in the trial. They gossip and dream, but are restricted by limited family planning options: undependable partners, potentially deadly abortion or sterilisation.
The pill is a game-changer, but has severe side effects (the trial used much higher hormone levels than now). Their reports dismissed, the women realise they are guinea pigs. The play can get bogged down in exposition, but it makes clear the need for the pill, while asking who was really empowered by this medication.
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Fallout (Amazon Prime Video) is gorier, sillier, and its 鈥渟cience鈥� mostly fiction. I love the mutant monsters, corporate conspiracies, and parody of nuclear-age optimism, complete with jello cake.
Sophie Bushwick
Editor
New York
