THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Barbara Seaman
September 11, 1935 – February 27, 2008
“My goal was simply to try and give women plain facts that would help them to make their own decisions.”
Author, activist, journalist. Principal founder of women’s health feminism movement. Brought issue of women’s reproductive health to wide public attention. First book, The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill, 1969, argued that oral contraceptives, with high doses of estrogen, posed serious, possibly fatal, health risks – and that doctors routinely failed to inform women of those risks. Became the basis for U.S. Senate hearings, 1970, on the safety of oral contraceptives. As a result of hearings, birth control pills were required to carry printed warnings. Cofounder, National Women’s Health Network, 1975.
Photo 1. Barbara Seaman, The Pill Hearings, 1975. Photo 2. with Eleanor Pam, President of Veteran Feminists of America. Home page photo credit: Henry Grossman, 2007.
More About Barbara:
- Obituary, New York Times
- “Remembering Barbara Seaman,” Our Bodies Ourselves Today
- Barbara Seaman, National Women’s Health Network
- Papers
- Veteran Feminists of America
- Salute to Feminist Writers at Barnard College, NYC, VFA event, April 26, 2002
- Barbara’s remarks, Salute to Feminist Educators & Women’s Studies Founders, June 9, 2001
- Select Interviews/Videos
- Amy Goodman speaks with Judith Hennessee, Marlene Sanders, Barbara Seaman on the day of Betty Friedan’s funeral, February 6, 2006. Courtesy of democracynow.org.
- The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women, Barbara Seaman joins Rebecca Lubetkin, New Directions for Women, Morris County (NJ) NOW, 2004.
- Barbara Seaman, Eldridge & Co.
- Barbara Seaman, C-SPAN.org
- Barbara Seaman, Wikipedia
- Cited in Barbara Love’s book, Feminists Who Changed America, 1963 – 1975, page 414