Why didn't your illiterate/hick family put your daughter on birth control?
That really isn't fair. The Pill existed, and had since 1960. Diaphragms also existed. But In the '60s, VERY few parents were enlightened enough to encourage their daughters to seek contraception. High school "sex education" courses--at least the one we had in my high school--were laughable, and focused on abstinence. And the danger of STDs. Which, as with the unwanted pregnancies, ruined the lives of girls. You see, the boys went to a Bad Part of Town, and were Taken Advantage Of by sluts. And then they went home and contaminated their innocent girlfriends, whom they'd persuaded to Go Too Far.
They moved on, but the girls could never be saved. Their fate was never revealed, but probably they ended up with tertiary syphilis.
Of course most of my high school classmates only pretended--the boys, that is--to have a real sex life. Necking was as far as most of the girls would go. We didn't want anything to screw up our college plans. But if we HAD wanted contraception, I have no idea where we'd have gone. To the family doctor? Hell no. And it really wasn't till the '70s that teenaged girls were encouraged to see a gynecologist at least once a year.
I first had sex when I was in college. I didn't want to take any chances, but Wellesley is in Massachusetts. At the time, NO form of contraception could be prescribed for unmarried women. And so I asked around, and was given the name of a doctor in town who was willing to write Pill prescriptions for women who said they were "engaged" and planned to marry in a few months. I made an appointment, and got my script.
But it was embarrassing, and should have been unnecessary.
