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Last July, in a win for reproductive justice advocates, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill. This week, the progestin-only pill, Opill, shipped to retailers like CVS and Walgreens. It’s expected to be available for purchase before the end of the month, at a price point of $20 per one-month supply or $50 for three months.

It’s difficult to underscore just how big a deal this is. For the first time since oral contraception was approved in 1960, it may mean an end to many of the difficulties that come with a doctor’s visit for the medication—taking time off of work, securing child care, paying appointment copays, and more—that particularly burden people of color, those who are disabled, young, or live in rural areas. As California Latinas for Reproductive Justice Communications Director Susy Chávez Herrera told me in 2022, an FDA approval would mark a “step forward in terms of expanding health care access, and folks in our community having bodily autonomy.”

To better understand the historical significance of an over-the-counter birth control option, I called Elaine Tyler May, a historian at the University of Minnesota and author of the 2010 book America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation. (As chance would have it, she was also a participant in some of the first trials for low-dose birth control pills.) In our nearly hour-long conversation, which happened ahead of the FDA’s decision, we covered a lot of ground, including how the Pill changed American sex lives and her own family’s history in helping........

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