Celebrate National Condom Week!
National Condom Week began on this day as a student-sponsored event at the University of California, Berkeley. It is now an annual event celebrated across the country, with a special focus on February 14th, Valentine’s Day.
The fight for public access to birth control devices and information was a long one. See, for example, the notorious 1973 Comstock Act (passed on March 3, 1873), which outlawed the distribution of devices and information for many decades.
Margaret Sanger, the greatest birth control advocate in American history, opened the first birth control clinic in America on October 16, 1916. She was arrested a week later and served a one month jail term for her crime.
The Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law banning birth control devices on June 7, 1965, and established a constitutional right to privacy. Congress passed the first law providing federal funds for family planning services on December 24, 1970.
Learn more about National Condom Week: http://www.nationalcondomweek.com/
Learn How to Use a Condom from Planned Parenthood of Illinois: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b0H3RQYP4g
Read: Linda Gordon, The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America, 3rd ed. (2007)
Learn more at the “covert history of condoms”: http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/getting-it-on-the-covert-history-of-the-american-condom/