What is the theme in Calm Down Mother by Megan Terry?

Birth control is a major theme in the play. When Calm Down Mother was written and first produced in the 1960s, birth control devices, other than prophylactics, were just beginning to be mass-produced. A hormonal birth control pill had been introduced in the 1950s, but it was used as a regulator of the menstrual cycle, not as a way of preventing birth. Such was the social, political, and religious environment at the time of the original staging of the play. Thus, in choosing to develop a theme of birth control in her play, Terry was stepping on very controversial territory.