Sanger vs. Sanger

On January 17, 1916, the eve of her scheduled obscenity trial, Margaret Sanger addressed a gathering of supporters. A political radical and former nurse who would go on to found Planned Parenthood, Sanger had been indicted for the distribution of her fiery paper "The Woman Rebel," which advocated contraception. More than a hundred guests attended a dinner to listen to the comely wife and mother who had caused such a stir. The prepared text of her speech proclaimed--with typographical fervor presumably matched in her delivery--"THERE is nothing new, nothing radical in birth control. Aristotle advocated it; Plato advocated it; all our great and modern thinkers have advocated it!"

It was true that contraception--Sanger and her comrades coined the term "birth control" in 1914--had been practiced, or attempted, for millennia; ancient Egyptians had blocked sperm with a paste made of crocodile dung. But in the United States at the time, birth control was legally restricted and widely inaccessible, especially for the poor. In the previous century, a thriving market in prophylactics had provoked a conservative crackdown. The federal Comstock Act, passed in 1873, made it illegal to send "obscene" materials, including contraceptive devices and information, through the mail. Although the manufacture and sale of the devices were generally allowed, various state laws prohibited advertisements, doctors' prescriptions and use. These legal constraints, combined with the expense and taboo, meant, for many couples, coitus interruptus or pregnancy--or, frequently, both.

Birth control's enemies worried that it would encourage fornication and subvert traditional gender roles. (Their fears were, of course, not unfounded.) According to the Catholic Church, sex, even in marriage, was for procreation alone, and contraception would debase conjugal relations. Some called it "child murder." Essentially, all of the objections to birth control anticipated those more familiar today in reference to abortion.

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