Discover how Anthony Comstock’s 151-year-old chastity laws still affect women’s reproductive rights and choices today. Learn more here.
As recently as 1960, America’s legal system was inhospitable to the very concept of birth control.
Thirty American states had statutes on the books prohibiting and/or restricting the advertisement and sale of contraceptive products. These laws, meant to legislate sexual morality, dated back nearly a century; the underlying American belief being that any topic relating to the subject of contraception was lewd and immoral, promoting promiscuity.
Enter Anthony Comstock.
Comstock was destined to become the driving force behind the original anti-birth control statutes in New York.
Comstock himself was born in rural Connecticut in 1844, later serving in the Union infantry during the American Civil War; he then moved to New York City and found work as a salesman.
Comstock, a devout Christian, was appalled by what he witnessed in the city’s streets. His perception was that the NYC was teeming with prostitutes and pornography.
This galvanized him into action.
By the late 1860s, Comstock had begun supplying the New York City Police Department with information, enabling them to facilitate raids on merchants of the sex trade. These actions catapulted him and his anti-obscenity crusade to prominence.
But Comstock didn’t stop there.
He was also offended by explicit advertisements for birth control devices, Comstock soon identified the burgeoning contraceptive industry as his next target, certain that the availability of such devices promoted lust and lewdness.
It seemed that national lawmakers agreed with his assessment.
Birth Control became a Federal Crime in 1872, thanks to Comstock’s anti-obscenity bill, including a ban on contraceptives, which he had drafted himself and taken with him to Washington, DC.
On March 3, 1873, Congress passed the new law, later referred to as the Comstock Act. The statute defined contraceptives as obscene and illicit materials, making it a federal offense to disseminate birth control through the U.S. mail or across state lines.
The statute was the first of its kind in the Western world; however, the American public did not pay much attention to the new law at the time. For his part, Anthony Comstock was jubilant over his legislative victory. Soon afterward, the influence of the federal law spread Comstock’s crusade to twenty-four states, who in turn enacted their own versions of the morality laws to restrict the contraceptive trade on a state level.
New England residents lived under the most restrictive versions of these laws in the entire country. In Massachusetts, anyone disseminating contraceptives — or even information about contraceptives — not only faced stiff fines, but possible imprisonment.
However, the most restrictive state by far was Connecticut, where the very act of using birth control was prohibited by law. Even married couples could be arrested for using birth control in the privacy of their own bedrooms, and thus could be subjected to a one-year prison sentence. Although agents of law enforcement often ‘looked the other way’ when it came to these anti-birth control laws, the statutes remained on the books.
Enter Margaret Sanger.
The restrictive laws remained unchallenged until birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger made it her mission to challenge the Comstock Act. The first successful challenge to the laws came out of Sanger’s 1916 arrest for the crime of opening the first birth control clinic in America.
The case that grew out of her arrest resulted in the Crane Decision of 1918, which allowed women to use birth control for therapeutic purposes.
Changing Laws for Changing Times.
The next amendment of the Comstock Laws came with the 1936 United States Circuit Court of Appeals decision, United States v. One Package. This decision made it possible for doctors to distribute contraceptives across state lines.
This time, Margaret Sanger had been instrumental in maneuvering behind the scenes to bring the matter before the court. While this decision did not eliminate the problem of the restrictive “chastity laws” on the state level, it proved to be a crucial ruling.
Physicians could legally mail birth control devices and information throughout the country, paving the way for the legitimization of birth control by the medical industry and the general public.
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