A Brief History of the Birth Control Movement in the United States

1
A Brief History of the Birth Control Movement in
the United States

• 1837 Charles Goodyear vulcanizes
• rubber
• 1848 process patented to
• manufacture
• hollow rubber articles

Charles Goodyear
2
A Brief History of the Birth Control Movement in
the United States

• 1860s Purity Movement develops in US
• New York Society for
• Suppression of Vice -
• President Anthony Comstock
• 1873 Comstock Act passed by
• Congress

3

• 1883 Margaret Higgins (Sanger) born in
  Corning, NY
• 1900 Margaret marries William Sanger
• 1912-13 Margaret Sanger involved in textile
  workers strikes

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A Brief History of the Birth Control Movement in
the United States
Sanger

• 1914 Margaret Sanger founds National Birth
  Control League
• -publishes The Woman Rebel, Family Limitation
• -charged with violation of Comstock Act
• -flees to Europe

Ellis
5
1915

• Margaret Sanger continues to publish Family
  Limitation from abroad
• -10 million copies in circulation
• Comstock poses as desperate husband to William
  Sanger
• William mails him copy of Family Limitation
• William arrested, refuses to give over
  information about Margaret

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1916-1917

• William goes to trial
• Comstock dies
• Margaret returns to open the first birth control
  clinic in US
• Clinic closed after 30 days
• Margaret sues to
• re-open clinic

7
Margaret Sanger is shown with admiring supporters
as she left Brooklyn Court of Special Sessions
after her arraignment, January 4, 1917.
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A Brief History of the Birth Control Movement in
the United States

• 1918 Physicians given right to
• prescribe contraceptives
• 1926 Sanger is a prime organizer of
• the first World Population Conference in
  Geneva

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A Brief History of the Birth Control Movement in
the United States

• 1936 In U.S. v. One Package of Japanese
  Pessaries, court found that birth control
  could be no longer classified as obscene.
• 1937 AMA recognizes birth control as a part
  of medical service

10
A Brief History of the Birth Control Movement in
the United States

• 1942 Margaret Sanger founds Birth Control
  Federation of America -later changes
• name to Planned
• Parenthood

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A Brief History of the Birth Control Movement in
the United States

• 1947 AMA American Journal of
• Obstetrics Gynecology
• refuses to publish article on
• IUDs

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A Brief History of the Birth Control Movement in
the United States

• 1960s The Pill available
• in US
• 1965 In Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme
  invalidates state laws prohibiting physicians
  from providing
• contraception advice
• -upholds right to privacy

Dr. G. Pincus
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1970

• Congress passes Title X Family Planning Program
  to ensure that the uninsured working poor women
  and teens who are not eligible for Medicaid have
  access to family planning and other reproductive
  health care services.

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Inflation-adjusted Title X funding has decreased
60 since 1980
Table 14, p. 47
15
1988-1990 --NCHS Survey
80s 90s

• Among women 15-44 years at risk for unintended
  pregnancy, the proportion not using contraception
  increased from 7 tp 12 percent.
• The percent of sexually experienced teenage
  females who were sexually active, but did not use
  contraception in the month prior to the survey
  increased from 8 to 22 percent.

16
Women getting contraceptives from Title X-
supported clinics avoided almost 20 million
unintended pregnancies over the last 20 years
19.0
5.5

Table 13, p. 46
17
Most clients of Title X-supported clinics are
poor . . .
. . . but few are covered by Medicaid
Female clients of Title X-supported clinics (4.2
million)
Table 11, p. 46
18
Health departments run most Title X-supported
clinics
Clinics with Title X funding (4,300)
Table 12, p. 46
19
The small proportion of women who do not use
contraceptives . . .
. . . account for roughly half of all unintended
pregnancies
Women at risk of unintended pregnancy (42
million)
Women experiencing unintended pregnancies (3
million)
Table 4, p. 44