Customs Admits Some Birth Control Material, Bans Others
U.S. Customs authorities on this day admitted two birth control books but refused to admit nine other books and magazines. There appeared to be no logic to the distinctions authorities made between the different publications.
The books admitted included The Rhythm of Sterility and Fertility in Women and What is Constructive Birth Control. Excluded material included Biological and Medical Aspects of Contraception, Therapeutic Contraception, and several issues of Birth Control News.
The struggle to obtain access to birth control information and devices in the U.S. has been a long one. Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in America on October 16, 1916. She was arrested a week later, on October 25, 1916, and served a month in jail. On July 18, 1931, a federal court ruled that the book Contraception, by the English birth control pioneer Dr. Marie Stopes, was not obscene and could be imported into the U.S. And in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut on June 7, 1965 the Supreme Court declared the Connecticut birth control law unconstitutional and established a constitutional right to privacy.
View a timeline of the history of birth control in the U.S. here
Learn more at the Planned Parenthood web site here
Read a biography of birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger: Ellen Chesler, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (1992)