The Birth Control Movement During The 1900's

The birth control movement took place during the early to mid 1900s. The movement was a social reform to gain women the reproductive rights they were denied of. The use of contraception or discussing contraception, as well as practicing abortion, was frowned upon and could result in an expensive fine or arrest. During the nineteenth century, women gave birth to more babies than their families could care for. Women were taught to please their husbands, regardless of if their families could afford them or not. Women were told right from wrong by men, who were always superior to them. Women did not have rights to their bodies, the use of contraception, or abortion, for what was said to benefit the country. Society mainly followed the idea of puritanism,

Comstock played a big role on why women felt the need to start fighting for their birth control rights. In 1872, Comstock went to Washington with an anti-obscenity bill, with a ban on contraceptives. Congress passed the “Comstock Act” on March 3, 1873 which restricted the trade or distribution of contraceptives and the knowledge of anything connected with sexuality. This prohibited the use, speech, or access of contraceptives, causing more women to have unwanted pregnancies. The pressure of puritanism and the comstock act caused women to fear going to clinics for help because they had no access to contraceptives, and made it easier for them to get pregnant. This initiated the birth control movement because women shouldn't have felt the need to harm themselves in reaction to their pregnancies. Margaret Sanger used the story of a woman struggling with her amount of children in her book My Fight for Birth Control saying, “‘When I was married,’...‘the priest told us to have lots of children, and we listened to him. I had fifteen. Six are living. Nine baby funerals in our house. I am thirty-six years old. Now look at me! I look sixty’”(438). Religion made it harder for women to say no to large amounts of children because there was the belief that a woman’s main purpose in life was to bear children. Therefore, preventing children would go against god’s will

Sanger Illustrates, “Many were low wage jobs not allowing families to escape poverty. The children thus carelessly produced undermined the health of the mother, deepened the family's poverty, destroyed the happiness of the home, and disheartened the father; all this in addition to being future competitors in the labor market. Too often their increasing number drives the mother herself into industry, where her beggarly wages tend to lower the level of those of her husband (Sanger, Women and the New Race).” This demonstrated how even if one tried to work it wasn’t helpful because it would be bringing down the wages for someone else in the family. Education couldn’t replace the importance of how having children can economically harm the family. As many didn’t have any time for any real education because they had to go out and work for their families because they were living in poverty. This influenced the movement because women believed that one shouldn’t have to suffer that much to keep a child just because they were prohibited from preventing