A Brief History Of The Birth Control Movement

The birth control movement started in the United States around 1910

, and was part of the women's right movement. Despite the stringent anti-obscenity laws that were prevalent at the time, the movement's leaders advocated that women had the right to control reproduction. They lobbied for both the distribution of contraceptive devices as well as public education about contraception.

Many birth control movement advocates wrote and distributed articles about contraception. They were constantly tried and convicted based on the provisions of the Comstock Law.

More than fifty years passed before women could legally obtain contraceptive devices.

The Comstock Law

The National Women's History Museum maintains that the Comstock Law held up the birth control movement. The Comstock Law, drafted by Anthony Comstock in 1873, was an anti-obscenity law that was designed to curtail lewdness and premarital sex.

This law deemed that informational pamphlets about birth control were obscene. It also legally banned contraception.

The Suffrage Movement

In 1920, as a result of the suffrage movement, women gained the right to vote. At that point in time the women's rights movement started to focus on getting more equal rights for women. To prove that women could make a choice about having a fulfilled life without having to become a parent the movement advocated that women should gain freedom over their lifestyle choices, sexuality, and their bodies.

Margaret Sanger

Margaret Sanger, who was a nurse during the early part of the twentieth century, is considered to be the leader of the birth control movement. During the 1910s she published pamphlets and articles about birth control and in 1916 she opened a birth control clinic.

The clinic was open for only nine days before Margaret Sanger was thrown into jail for thirty days, after being charged with the distribution of contraception.

In 1922 she founded the American Birth Control League. As a result, in 1923, the first legal birth control clinic was opened. This clinic was permitted to distribute diaphragms and condoms - but only to married couples.

The Dark Side of the Birth Control Movement

According to "The American Experience", a PBS series, the birth control movement advocated the eugenics movement during the 1920s and 1930s. The American eugenics movement tried to limit "unfit" classes such as minorities and the handicapped from procreating. They were attempting to form a "perfect society" through selective breeding.

The Supreme Court's 1936 Decision

It wasn't until 1936 that the Supreme Court made it legal to distribute contraception information. Doctors were given the right to give their patients information about contraception as a result of the United States v. One Package to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision.

The first birth control pill was developed in 1960. Five years later, in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to use contraception is a constitutional freedom.

by: Wendy Moyer

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