Censored pain : a look into Irene Vilar's Memoirs and the Birth Control Trials of 1956

Abstract

This paper offers a study of the first large scale human trials of the oral contraceptive that took place on the island of Puerto Rico during the 1950's, an analysis of the literature connected to these events and what it tells us about the topics of race, gender, class, their "intersectionality" and the discourse surrounding them. By providing an in-depth analysis of the real-life testimonies of the survivors and their families, this paper seeks to gain a better understanding of the physical and psychological trauma that the bodies and psyches of these Puerto Rican women were subjected to and the never-healing scars that exist to this day.