1931 July 18

“Contraception” Not Obscene

 

U. S. District Court Judge John M. Woolsey ruled on this day that Dr. Marie C. Stopes’ book, Contraception, was not obscene or immoral, thereby overturning a ban on the book by U.S. Customs. Stopes was a British physician and pioneer on birth control (see the international organization in her honor, below).

The case was one of the milestones in the long struggle to win the right to discuss birth control in public, to send both birth control information and devices through the mails, and to import information and devices through U.S. Customs. See, for example, the evening of April 16, 1929, when Margaret Sanger was banned from speaking in Boston and she appeared on stage with a gag over her mouth. See also the court decision on December 7, 1936, that allowed the importation of Japanese contraceptive devices.

Judge Woolsey had a strong record on censorship issues. On April 6, 1931, he overturned a ban on Stopes’ book, Married Love. He is most famous for ending the Customs Department’s ban on James Joyce’s classic novel Ulysses on December 6, 1933. The appellate court upheld his decision regarding Ulysses on August 7, 1934.

Read a short biography of Stopes: http://john.curtin.edu.au/womenshealth/stopes.html

Learn more: June Rose, Marie Stopes and the Sexual Revolution (1992)

Learn about the work of Marie Stopes’ International today: http://www.mariestopes.org.uk/

Read: Linda Gordon, The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America, 3rd ed. (2007)

Watch historian Linda Gordon discuss the history of birth control: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ2ymfXxN5

Learn more: Paul S. Boyer, Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America (1968)

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