FACT #21: Birth Control Was Once Illegal in the U.S.

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FACT #21: Birth Control Was Once Illegal in the U.S.

In 1873, Congress passed the Comstock Act which made providing birth control devices or information through the mail illegal. A lot of other states jumped on the bandwagon and also outlawed advertisement, sale, and distribution.

In 1916, New York prosecuted and sentenced Margaret Sanger to 30 days in jail for opening the first birth control clinic in the country. After failing to get Congress to repeal the Comstock act, she challenged the law by mailing a birth control device to a doctor. The stunt proved successful and the court deemed it okay if it helped a doctor’s patients.

In 1952, she opened the American Birth Control League, which would eventually become Planned Parenthood. She partnered with a doctor and helped develop the very first birth control pill.

While many states had reversed course and legalized birth control by the 60’s, many of them still prohibited circulation information on birth control. Some states outlawed possession of birth control.

That all changed in 1965 with Griswold v. Connecticut. The court ruled that the state’s prohibition of birth control was unconstitutional as it violated one’s privacy. Although a breakthrough, this only applied to married couples.

In 1971, Congress repealed major parts of the Comstock act. The next year, the Supreme Court ruled in Eisenstadt v. Baird that if privacy was a right, it applied to both married and unmarried couples.

Today, nearly 13% of women aged 15-49 use the birth control pill.

REFERENCES:
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-17
https://www.findlaw.com/family/reproductive-rights/birth-control-and-the-law-basics.html
https://www.verywellhealth.com/griswold-v-connecticut-1965-906887
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db327.htm