Forced Contraception Challenged
An order by a county court judge in California, requiring a woman to use Norplant as a condition of probation, raised the issue of forced contraception.
An attorney for the ACLU of Northern California challenged the judge’s ruling on this day, citing a 1984 California case in which an appellate court ruled that requiring contraception as a condition of probation was unconstitutional.
Norplant, a birth control device that is implanted under the skin, had only recently been approved by the FDA. The woman in this case had been convicted of beating two of her four children with a belt, and faced a four-year prison sentence if she refused to have the Norplant device implanted.
Learn about the history of forced contraception here.
Learn more at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project: https://www.aclu.org/reproductive-freedom
Learn more at Planned Parenthood: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/