14 years ago in Perspectives.

As Malcolm Potts, then head of Family Health International, saw it in 1988, U.S. women had too few contraceptive options, and as a result of "medicolegal and product liability fears," the prospects for introducing new methods were not as bright as one might have wished. All told, it is difficult to say whether the picture is any happier today than it was 14 years ago, when Potts lamented U.S. women's lack of "formal access" to postcoital contraception, the slim chance that medical abortion would become available and the possible threat to the availability of legal abortion. Surely, progress has been made, and evidence offered in the preceding pages of this issue of Perspectives suggests that more is to come. But much remains the same, and Potts's conclusion still resonates: "It would be an enormous loss if the dust from the battles over the politics of birth control or the unreasonably high barriers created by litigation were to obscure a new horizon. That horizon--the scientific manipulation of human reproduction so that individuals achieve their fertility goals and have a reduced risk of reproductive cancers or AIDS--may be a long way off, but it is one of the most exciting opportunities in all of medicine."

Source: Potts M, Birth control methods in the United States, Family Planning Perspectives, 1988, 20(6):288-297.