John Rock (American Scientist) - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Rock was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University medical school in 1918 and founded his own medical practice a few years later. Rock and his wife raised five children.

Rock was a pioneer in in vitro fertilization and sperm freezing. He helped many of his patients achieve pregnancy and became known as a "ground-breaking infertility specialist."

As his career progressed, Rock also became known for his acceptance of birth control. (Birth control was illegal in Massachusetts until the 1965 Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut.) In the 1930s, he founded a clinic to teach the rhythm method, the only birth control accepted by the Catholic Church. In 1931, Rock was the only Catholic doctor to sign a petition to legalize birth control. In the 1940s, he taught at Harvard Medical School - and included birth control methods in his curriculum. Rock also coauthored a birth control guide for the general reader, titled Voluntary Parenthood and published in 1949.