A Look Back in Time: Could Women Be Trusted With Their Own Pregnancy Tests?

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Could Women Be Trusted With Their Own Pregnancy Tests?
Unmarried teenagers would jump off bridges, and other
crazy reasons at-home kits weren’t approved until the late 1970s.
By PAGAN KENNEDY | JULY 29, 2016


In 1967, Margaret Crane was a 26-year-old product designer at Organon Pharmaceuticals, sketching face-cream bottles and ointment jars. One day, as she walked through a lab at the company’s headquarters in New Jersey, she spotted rows of test tubes on shiny racks that twinkled under the industrial lights.

“What are these?” she asked one of the scientists.

Pregnancy tests, he said. A doctor would collect urine from his patient and send it to the company’s lab for analysis. The results would be sent back to the doctor, who would then inform the patient.

But Ms. Crane immediately saw another possibility: Why not cut out the doctor entirely?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/31/opinion/sunday/could-women-be-trusted-with-their-own-pregnancy-tests.html

[marybourg]

1. Eary pregnancy tests

involved injecting the patient's urine into a rabbit. Hence the expression "the rabbit died", meaning "I'm pregnant". It would have been a little unwieldy to do this at home. Besides it would be hard to keep it a secret with the rabbit hopping around. I mean, a dead giveaway. Right?

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2. That is interesting.

I did not know that. Thanks for your reply.