Women’s Rights and Birth Control

Birth Rates

• 1800 7.04 births per 1,000 women

• 1900 3.56

• 2000 2.0

Births per Woman

• 1700’s average of 8 children per woman

• 1900 average of 3 children per woman

• 1790 average household size of 5.7

• 2000 average household size of 2.6

Early Birth Control

• Condoms made from animal intestines until 1850

• What invention changed condom manufacturing after 1850?

Continued. . .

• Female douches (often harmful) *see advertisement

• Sponges (almost as effective as condoms but not widely used)

• Diaphragms (needed access to running water, privacy, and needed to be fitted by a doctor)

• Withdrawal and the Rhythm method (NOT EFFECTIVE !!!!)

Comstock Law of 1873

• A law against obscenity specifically mentioning birth control methods as obscene.

Class Bias

• Wealthy women had better access to these forms of birth control than poor or working class women because of money, privacy, access to doctors, and running water.

Abortion Laws

• By 1890 every state in the country had outlawed abortion except when the mother’s life was in danger. (therapeutic abortions)

How long does Comstock last?

• Margaret Sanger intentionally mails birth control pamphlets and is arrested. Her case is appealed to a federal court which overturns the Federal Comstock laws in 1938.

• Massachusetts and Connecticut were the last two states to appeal their state Comstock Laws in 1965 and did not appeal the outlawing of birth control for unmarried people until 1972.

The Pill

• Approved by the FDA in 1960, within five years it becomes the most popular form of birth control in the United States.

(still illegal in some states such as CT and MA)• How are people preventing STD’s?

Federal Funding

• 1965 federal government funds “family planning” making birth control available for free to women in poverty. (subsequently birth rates for these groups decline)

Roe v. Wade 1973

• States had begun to strike down abortion laws in the 1960s

• Supreme Court rules that doctors can perform abortions if requested by a woman. Abortion then becomes legal throughout the country.

• How are women’s rights and birth control linked?