The formal roll-out of services across Scotland in 1974 comes in the wake of the revolution in social attitudes triggered by the advent of the oral contraceptive pill in 1961.
Scotland has a tradition of pioneering approaches to family planning.
Edinburgh-born Marie Stopes was an early pioneer in birth control, opening the first clinic in London in 1921. The first Scottish family planning clinic opened in Glasgow in 1925.
Sir Dugald Baird in Aberdeen championed a woman’s right to “fifth freedom” – freedom from the tyranny of excessive fertility.
More recent studies at Edinburgh University have gone on to develop a male contraceptive pill.