Contents
PART I
WHAT SORT OF LAWS HAVE WE NOW?
CHAPTER PAGE
The actual situation under federal and state law—Not even parents can lawfully inform their married children about how to space their babies—No doctor can lawfully or adequately study the control of conception—Provisions of the federal law—Scope of state laws—Clinics under state laws—Access to birth control information not only criminal, but classed with obscenity—Control of conception confused with abortion—Precise meaning of term birth control in modern application—Not a crime to control parenthood but a crime to find out how—What if that principle were applied to some other scientific knowledge, making automobiles, for instance?
How it came about that information concerning one item of science became a criminal indecency—Anthony Comstock’s blundering bequest to the people—Congress an unwitting partner—States hastily followed suit—United States the only country to class contraceptive information with penalized indecency—Legislation aimed at indecency but hit science—Europe laughs at our “Comstockery”—Documentary proof that Comstock and his successor, Sumner, did not expect laws to prevent doctors from giving and normal people from using contraceptive instructions.
Relatively few indictments in over fifty years—Ulterior motive in many of those—Post Master General Hays’s leaning toward revision—Post Master General Work’s gesture for enforcement—Clinic reports and medical research data unlawfully published and mailed—Misleading criminal advertisements go unpunished—Government itself breaks the law—Forbidden books found in Congressional Library—Senators and Congressmen willing to break law, but hesitate to revise it.
PART TWO
WHAT CHANGES IN THE LAWS HAVE BEEN PROPOSED?
The big repeal petition of 1876 started by National Liberal League—Comstock’s obscenity exhibit wins again—Sanger arrests crystallize growing movement for repeal of law—National Birth Control League founded March, 1915, first organization of the sort in the United States—Repeal bills drafted—Petitions circulated—Noted English sympathizers help.
Interest caused by Mrs. Sanger’s arrests caused much activity despite war-time conditions—First repeal bill initiated by National Birth Control League in New York Legislature—Law makers mostly in favor privately, but publicly opposed or evasive—Dr. Hilda Noyes’s experiment in New York village proving that ordinary people want laws changed—Legislator justifies state repressive laws so long as federal law stands as example—Bills introduced in New York, California, New Jersey and Connecticut—The “doctors only” type of bill appears—Further limitations—Efforts toward freedom stimulate reaction toward stiffer repression in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Virginia—All fail—Fallacy that limited bills win legislators more than freedom bills.
1919 sees first concerted effort to repeal federal law—Initiated by Voluntary Parenthood League, an outgrowth of National Birth Control League—Disbanding of earlier organization and merging of forces—Opposition from birth control advocates on “doctors only” basis arises later—The long hunt for a sponsor—Cummins-Kissel Bill introduced in January, 1923—Re-introduced in next Congress as Cummins-Vaile Bill—Survey of six-year struggle in Congress—Significant characteristics of Congressional reaction—Fear and embarrassment inhibit even those in favor of measure—Suggestions for keeping repeal “dark”—Alternate appeals to logic and humanity—Public opposition (mostly Catholic) relatively slight—Sponsor in Senate received 20 letters for bill to every one against.
Delay in arranging hearings analogous to delay in sponsoring bill—Joint
hearings by Senate and House Judiciary Sub-Committees held on April 8 and May 9, 1924—Mr. Vaile in opening remarks pleads for restoration of American freedom to acquire knowledge, which was taken away 50 years ago—Birth rate in United States proves that people want and get some information in spite of law—Catholic speakers discuss birth control, not the bill—Wages of government employees quoted as reason for passing bill—Prof. Field shows historically that suppression does not suppress—Mrs. Glaser argues for freedom for scientists to learn and teach regarding control of human fertility—Mrs. Carpenter shows how federal law operates to prevent Chicago Clinic—Prof. Johnson gives eugenic view-point—Hearing reopened at request of Catholics—Lengthy irrelevancies—Congressman Hersey heckles the witnesses—Report of Senate Sub-Committee a sop to the workers for the bill—Unique effort to get vote of full Committee before adjournment, as aid to reducing inhibition in next Congress.
No one answer covers all reasons—Quiet request to Congress for repeal might have succeeded twenty years ago, before sensational law-breaking created prejudice—Laws defied without first attempting their repeal—Speeches and writings of early agitation not calculated to induce Congressional initiative—Struggle announced in advance as likely to be long and bitter “fight”—Shortage of funds for publicity on behalf of bill the second reason for slowness of Congress—Third and most dominant reason found to be general embarrassment over subject—Distaste, inhibition and fear, in varying degrees almost universal among Congressmen—Striking instances—Fears covered careers, colleagues, families and constituents—Fear on behalf of young girls greatest of all—Political opposition to birth control legislation misinterpreted by “radicals”—Abortive attempt in Harding presidential campaign to use his tentative interest in this bill against him—Club women afflicted with inhibitions similar to those of members of Congress—It is leaders, not members, who hold back endorsement by large organizations—Organized labor women endorse repeal ahead of club women.
“Doctors only” federal bill followed straight repeal bill just as limited bills in states followed straight repeal bills—Advocated on Margaret Sanger’s initiative—Provides medical monopoly of extreme type—Arguments in its behalf analyzed and answered—Proponents of “doctors only” bill do not live up to own demands for limiting contraceptive instruction to personal service by doctors—Birth control periodical carries thinly veiled advertisements for contraceptives—Improved type of “doctors only” bill drafted by George Worthington—Not so many loopholes and inconsistencies as in first bill proposed, but still a special-privilege bill, and still leaves subject classed with obscenity—Worthless as means of curbing abuse of contraceptive knowledge—Clause permitting “reprints” from medical and scientific journals practically breaks down all restriction—Makes pretense at limitation a farce.
PART THREE
WHAT SORT OF LAWS DO THE PEOPLE REALLY WANT?
Probably most physicians have not yet thought what sort of laws they want—Resolutions by medical associations depend largely on way subject is presented and by whom—Doctors have no interest in retaining obscenity connection, as such—Only few want “doctors only” bill for mercenary reasons—Endorsement proposed for American Medical Association in 1920, side-tracked in department—President of A. M. A. cordial to idea of straight repeal—American Institute of Homoeopathy and various local medical associations endorse Cummins-Vaile Bill—Only two medical associations have endorsed “doctors only” bill—New York Academy of Medicine took “doctors only” stand on recommendation of small sub-committee when many members are for straight repeal—Conferences of doctors and lawyers in Chicago and New York advise against all limited legislation—Dr. Pusey, President of American Medical Association in 1924, warns against “silly legislation”—Straight repeal the only recommendation of conference of doctors and lawyers—Unfair to attempt to hold medical profession legally responsible for moral use of contraceptives—Doctors on the whole more interested in professional prestige and credit for devising contraceptive methods than in any exclusive control of their use.
People’s first individual want is reliable contraceptive information—Strong probability that people prefer decent enforceable laws to those which are dirty and unenforceable—Choice can not be put up to United States town-meeting fashion—Reader asked to make own choice by elimination of what he does not want—Do you consider contraception indecent?—Should laws penalize the decent majority in order to reach the depraved few?—Should the control of conception itself be made a criminal act by law?—Abstinence as method of birth control has no legal standing in the U. S.—Do you want unenforceable laws?—Can “doctors only” laws accomplish their own aims?—Are they enforceable?—Do all contraceptives require personal medical instruction?—Proponents of “doctors only” bill admit that they do not—English birth control organizations disapprove “doctors only” stand—Best known English authority on birth control is biologist, not M.D.—Are laws to curb improper advertising of contraceptives practicable?—Average citizen too occupied to analyze legislative proposals—Proponents of limited legislation backward about explaining their bills to the public—They refuse to debate openly or confer privately with proponents of freedom bill.
Congress will do what the people want if the request is made clearly and forcibly enough—Inhibitions are waning—Later generations will not bless birth control workers or Congress if legislation is bungled now—Danger of blundering as Comstock blundered—Those who mean well regarding legislation must do well—Present laws unconstitutional—First class legal opinion deems all “doctors only” laws unconstitutional also—Time to discard governmental distrust of the people.