Articles > Government magazines > Applied and Social Sciences magazines > West's Encyclopedia of American Law entries

Article: Birth Control

Article from:
West's Encyclopedia of American Law
Copyright

BIRTH CONTROL

A measure or measures undertaken to prevent conception.

In the 1800s, temperance unions and anti-vice societies headed efforts to prohibit birth control in the United States. Anthony Comstock, the secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, advocated a highly influential law passed by Congress in 1873. It was titled the Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use, but known popularly as the comstock law or Comstock Act (18 U.S.C.A. § 1416-62 [1964]; 19 U.S.C.A. § 1305 [1964]). The Comstock Act prohibited the use of the mail system to transmit

obscene materials or articles addressing or for ...

Read all of this article with a FREE trial

Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles:

Article: Comstock Act (1873)
Major Acts of Congress;      700+ words ...Comstock Act (1873) Sandra Rierson The brainchild ... Congregationalist, Anthony Comstock, the Comstock Act (17 Stat. 599) was passed after little ... law. His efforts culminated in the Comstock Act, which was signed into law by Ulysses ...

Article: Birth Control Movement
Dictionary of American History;      700+ words ... ... that discussed birth control or abortion. The Comstock Act provided punishment ... foremost leader of the birth control movement in the ... which formed birth control leagues all over ... Sanger and the Comstock Act In 1911 Margaret ...

Article: "The Sex Side of Life": Mary Ware Dennett's Pioneering Battle for ...
The Historian;  September 22, 1998 ;     700+ words ... ... over the direction of the birth control movement prompted Dennett ... was the repeal of the Comstock Act, which outlawed the mailing of birth control information and devices ... convicted of violating the Comstock Act because she mailed copies ...

Article: Birth control brought us out of dark ages Couples ...
Chicago Sun-Times;  June 6, 2005 ;     700+ words ... ... 1942. I reasoned that birth control would spare my life ... jailed for sending birth control information through ... Congress passed the first Comstock Act in 1873, and many ... arrested for using birth control in their own homes ...

Article: Honoring the forgotten history of birth ...
Feminist Collections: A Quarterly of Women's Studies Resources;  September 22, 2006 ;     700+ words ... ... A HISTORY OF THE BIRTH CONTROL MOVEMENT IN WISCONSIN ... were. Houck says that birth control and abortion were of ... passage of the federal Comstock Act in 1873, followed ... states that lumped birth control information and devices ...

Article: The Hartford Courant, Conn., Susan Campbell column: Squeamishness ...
Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT);  October 11, 2006 ;     700+ words ... ... doing it? As long as birth control is legal in the state ... and a state flower, birth control seems to be our state ... responsible for the federal Comstock Act, which limited what ... Contraband included birth control or other "things intended ...

Article: Any Friend of the Movement: Networking for Birth ...
Nursing History Review;  January 1, 2006 ;     700+ words ... ... by opponents to prohibit use of birth control because it was seen as a form of ... was in direct opposition to the Comstock Act. Meyer captures the defiant efforts ... different way of looking at the birth control movement and can be distinguished ...

Article: The birth of a notion: Media coverage of contraception, 1915-1917
Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly;  October 1, 1998 ;     700+ words ... ... debate. This early coverage of birth control emphasized its scientific ... was also illegal under the Comstock Act.' Even the radical Socialist ... Sanger's crusade against the Comstock Act.2 The birth control movement's early propaganda ...

 
 
Newsweek Harper's Magazine The Washington Post Chicago Tribune Crain's Chicago Business PRNewswire Pediatric News The Nation Advertising Age The Economist (US) A FREE trial gives you access to over 80 million articles! Access over 6,500 publications with a FREE trial!

Find articles, research, and archives