Dr. Marion Powell talks about the future of contraceptive healthcare

An interview with Dr. Marion Powell talking about the future of contraceptive healthcare.

Duration: 1:53 minutes.

[Title card reads: Dr. Marion Powell talks about the future of contraceptive healthcare] [An older woman wearing a pink blouse and a black blazer is seated in front of a gray curtain. She is speaking to an interviewer who is off camera.] I think we need, there still needs to be a lot of work. We still don’t have the ideal contraceptive, and we’ve changed over the 30 years I have been involved, 40 years I have been involved with it where we were primarily concerned with the prevention of pregnancy in these young women. We’re now looking at an epidemic of sexually transmitted disease. We’re still looking at a tremendous job to be done in selling, marketing contraception. We need to have better improved contraception. And I think the high technology, reproductive technology is very exciting to deal with, but you’re looking at a fairly small segment of the population that this is going to serve and there are 80 90% of the women from 15 to 40 whose primary concern is still with prevention of pregnancy, prevention of STDs and let’s not forget those women as we get involved in more and more high tech. I think that the challenge right now is for better reproductive, better contraception. It’s not glamorous anymore but you know in the face of all this, these new super technology things, it’s not really important to talk about better pills and better condoms and better diaphragms, but that’s where the bottom line is. And I would hope that Women’s College won’t lose the vision of looking for better access to contraception, better access to prevention. I think rather nostalgically of those days when the kids used to file into the auditorium, and we’d talk to them. Maybe we can’t turn the clock back, but I think we’ve got to look at the new and different ways.