Disruption: D.C. Women's Liberation Group is Now in Session!
On the first day of the ‘pill hearings’ in January 1970, a D.C. Women’s Liberation group known as “The Daughters of Lilith” learned that the hearings would not include any sort of female testimony. [23] All women in the collective had taken the pill and had experienced some sort of minor side-effect that encouraged them to all discontinue using the birth control pill. Since during this time the Senate hearings were open to the public, “The Daughters of Lilith,” decided to sit in on the hearings. After hearing one expert say, "Estrogen is to cancer what fertilizer is to wheat,” [24] the women had enough. They started demanding questions such as “ “Why are you using women as guinea pigs?” and “Why are you letting the drug companies murder us for their profit and convenience?” ” [25] The disruptions caused by “The Daughters of Lilith,” attracted media attention immediately. As a result from the media coverage of the disruptions, 87% of women across America watched the Nelson pill hearings. [26] The use of oral contraceptives did decline for the three months following the hearings but it did not last long. [27]. However, decreasing the use of the pill was not the demonstrators objective.
In March of 1970, disturbed that no pill users were witnesses, the D.C. Women’s Liberation addressed the Senate subcommittee. These women were protesting because “over the past ten years women throughout the world have been taking a pill which they knew little or nothing.” [28] The group was not trying to ban the use of the pill but rather were demanding informed consent from their doctors and from pharmaceutical companies. In their statement, The D.C. Women’s Liberation stated that “Our mission, if it can be called, is to rise up as women, and demand our human rights, We will no longer tolerate intimidation by white-coated gods, antiseptically directing our lives.” [29] However, their main objective was “to offer the facts so that women can exercise a truly free choice and make decisions for themselves. And we are trying to create a forum here for meaningful discussion of these facts.” [30]
Alice Wolfson, a member of “The Daughters of Lilith” stated that “the disruption of the Senate hearings on the birth control pill, born out of a pure and burning anger over the lack of control women had over their bodies and their lives, has been described as “one of the most important feminist actions since the riots for the vote fifty years earlier.” " [31]
The Pill hearings created a new movement in the second wave of feminism which allowed women like Alice Wolfson and Barbara Seaman to create long lasting effects to women's rights and freedoms around the United States. Born out of the disruptions of the Nelson pill hearings, informed consent in the doctor-patient relationship was expected by every patient, male or female. To encourage and an open sphere where individuals could talk freely about their reproductive health, the Women's National Health Network was created to provide medical information that could be accessed to all women across the nation.