A report by John Maddox from last week's Royal Society conference on contraception.
' Since natural selection has always operated in the past to maximise reproductive potential, women are physiologically ill-adapted to spend the greater part of their reproductive lives in the non-pregnant state.'
Will the contraceptives of the future enable fertile women to cope better with their non-pregnant state? What are the possibilities for a satisfactory male ' pill '? What are the fertility control needs of the developing world? Are the benefits of oral contraceptives on balance worth the hazards they pose?
Editor David PATERSON