Gender and Social Change

Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement

Upon her return to the United States, Sanger faced trial on obscenity charges for the publication of The Woman Rebel. [1] Sanger’s trial was delayed after the sudden death of her five-year-old daughter. Sanger was deeply depressed and the prosecution had to contend with the problematic public relations of dragging a grieving mother to trial. The trial was ultimately delayed. [2] However, by 1916 Sanger felt recovered enough to publicly encourage the government to go ahead with the trial. Eventually, the prosecutors decided to drop all charges against Sanger. Afterwards, at the celebratory rally held in her honor, Sanger thanked the grand jury for indicting her and the federal government for prosecuting her, saying that “[they] have done wonders to arouse interest in birth control.” [3] Now without the extensive press coverage a trial would have provided, she began a nationwide public speaking tour on birth control. [4]

Still, Sanger had even more ambitious plans than that. She had decided to open the first birth control clinic in the United States, modeled after those she had seen during her travels in Europe. [5] She attempted to find a doctor to work at the clinic to provide it with more legal cover, but no doctors she knew were willing to risk the legal risks. At this time, the medical establishment was hostile or indifferent to birth control; many doctors also lacked the practical knowledge to overcome this even if they had the will to do so. Ultimately, Sanger recruited her sister, Ethel Byrne, who was a registered nurse. [6]

On October 16, 1916, those plans became a reality when she opened an entirely-woman operated birth control clinic in a working-class neighborhood in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The clinic served more than 450 patients before it was raided by the police only ten days after its opening. [7] Sanger, her sister and another employee of the clinic, Fania Mindell, were arrested. [8] Out on bail, Sanger attempted to reopen the clinic on November 13 but was arrested again, after which the clinic was permanently shut down. Ethel Byrne was tried first. Her guilt was openly admitted by both herself and the attorney who represented the three women pro bono, Jonah J. Goldstein, because they attempted in court to show that the law was unconstitutional, not that it had not been broken. This was unsuccessful and Byrne was sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse, where she immediately announced that she would go on a hunger strike, generating more press coverage for birth control activism. Byrne was ultimately given a pardon so she could be released early, as she was near death as a result of her hunger strike. [9]

At Sanger’s trial, Goldstein encouraged subpoenaed clients of the clinic to tell why they had come to the clinic. The judge ultimately ended witness testimony early, claiming that he was exhausted after hearing so many stories of poverty, illnesses, miscarriages and infant death. Sanger and Mindell were both found guilty; Sanger was sentenced to 30 days in prison and Mindell given a $50 fine, while Goldstein continued to appeal their cases. In 1917, after the publicity from the trials and Byrne’s hunger strike, organizations promoting birth control spread across the country. [10]

Still, for Sanger, there was more to be done to promote her cause. Sanger helped create a documentary film about her work, Birth Control, though the film was ultimately suppressed by the New York state government and never publicly released. [11] Also in 1917, Sanger founded the monthly magazine Birth Control Review, a spiritual successor of sorts to The Woman Rebel, which would remain in publication until 1940. Birth Control Review promoted birth control in a similar fashion as Sanger’s previous efforts, though more consistently. From the March 1919 issue was an article titled “Hard Facts,” written by Sanger, said to be relating true stories from a nurse working among immigrant families in the Lower East Side. The article tells of poor women whose lives have been ruined by not having access to birth control. For example, the nurse states that she treated one woman who had “five living children out of eleven pregnancies…not one of the five is sound physically. Three died during infancy, and three criminal abortions were performed. At the present time she is in a very unhealthy condition and barely escaped death after the last abortion.” [12]

By the end of 1917, Sanger and Mindell’s appeals had worked their way through the court system. Mindell’s conviction was overturned, though Sanger’s was not. While the constitutionality of the state’s Comstock laws were upheld, one of the appeal judges noted that the state law contained an exception that could be interpreted to allow doctors to prescribe contraceptives. Though the exception had been intended to allow physicians to allow the use of condoms to prevent (male) venereal disease, it could be interpreted more broadly to allow “physicians who in good faith [give] such help or advice to a married person to cure or prevent disease.” The judge also extended this allowance to pharmacists and vendors working with doctors. The decision was not the clear victory Sanger had hoped for, but it was a good start. [13]

Sanger had informally operated a small clinic out of the Birth Control Review office since the end of her jail sentence. She continued to circulate new editions of Family Limitation out of the clinic. [14] For the next few years, she continued to publish Birth Control Review and publicly advocate for birth control. Eventually, she had decided to take advantage of the 1917 legal exception for doctors to prescribe birth control, as she had felt doctors had largely failed to do so in the intervening years. [15] In 1923 she founded the first legal birth control clinic, the Clinical Research Bureau. By 1930, there were 30 birth control clinics nationwide, though the Clinical Research Bureau was by far the largest. [16]

In 1936, after continued failure for legislators to act on birth control, there would be another legal victory for Sanger and the movement. Dr. Hannah Stone, a physician working at the Clinical Research Bureau, ordered a new type of diaphragm (pessary) to be imported from Japan. It was then seized by the federal authorities under the Comstock laws. In United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries, it was ruled that physicians could order and prescribe contraceptives to their patients “for the purpose of saving life or promoting the well being of their patients.” For the medical establishment, it was finally clear that they had a right to prescribe birth control to any patient as they saw fit. [17] In 1921, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League (ABCL), intended to be the successor of the shuttered National Birth Control League. The ABCL would later be renamed the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. [18] By the 1950s, there would be over 200 birth control clinics across the country, most of which were operated by Planned Parenthood. [19]

[1] Engelman, Peter. A History of the Birth Control Movement in America. (Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger, 2011), 57.

[2] Engelman, 59.

[3] Engelman, 62.

[4] Chesler, Ellen. Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 140-141.

[5] Engelman 57-58.

[6] Engelman, 80.

[7] Chesler, 150-151.

[8] Engelman 83.

[9] Engelman 86-87.

[10] Engelman, 90-92.

[11] Engelman, 94-95.

[12] Sanger, Margaret. “Hard Facts.” March 1919. https://documents-alexanderstreet-com.mutex.gmu.edu/d/1000687567.

[13] Engelman, 101-102.

[14] Engelman, 103.

[15] Mundt, Ingrid. “Margaret Sanger, Taking a Stand for Birth Control.” The History Teacher 51, no. 1 (2017): 127.

[16] Chesler, 230.

[17] Engelman, 167-169.

[18] Chesler, 199.

[19] Mundt, 127.