30 Year Anniversary of Legalized Birth Control in America - 03/22/02!

[Laurel]

I did not know this until someone sent me an email and told me, but tomorrow, March 22, 2002, is the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court case that made birth control legal for unmarried adults in the United States. Unbelievably, before that ruling, it was illegal for unmarried adults to use birth control in America. Not only that, but people were arrested for giving condoms to unmarried adults.

This was all news to me. Do some of you remember the days, before 1972, when birth control was illegal? That sounds so crazy. What about freedom and privacy and all that? How did they convince people that was a valid law for so long? I don't understand how people could ever support that oppressive way of thinking.

The Supreme Court case was called Eisenstadt v. Baird.

Here is some information about the case:

So on April 6, 1967 he delivered an inspiring speech on birth control and abortion to 2,500 Boston University students, the largest crowd ever at that college. He was arrested and ultimately convicted. His "crime" was publicly showing birth control and abortion devices and giving away free one condom and one package of contraceptive foam to an unmarried 19-year old student. He was sentenced to three months to the Charles Street jail, a dungeon built in 1851. It is now closed due to "cruel and inhumane" treatment of inmates.

His worst nightmare was realized when initially the U.S. Supreme Court would not hear his case. But then Justice William O. Douglas convinced his colleagues that it was a free speech issue. He said, "While the teachings of Bill Baird and Galileo may be of a different order, the suppression of either is equally repugnant."

Before the high court made its decision on March 22, 1972, to legalize birth control, Bill Baird was forced to suffer in the Charles Street Jail. He could have easily thrown the case and avoided this fate but his philosophy of "out enduring" and staying committed to one's principles made him continue.

However, before that could happen, he was placed in a 4'x8' cell where rats roamed freely, bugs crawled in his food and he contracted an eye infection from the lice on his blood stained mattress. An intensely private man, he was subjected to routine body searches and witnessed the horrors of brutality so often a part of prison life such as beatings and rape. He endured a prison fire in which an inmate was burned to death.

His historic case, Baird v. Eisenstadt took five years, 6 courts and 21 judges until finally on March 22, 1972 Justice Brennan issued these powerful words. He said, "If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally private as to whether to bear or beget a child."

http://www.prochoiceleague.com/history.asp

Here is the ruling from the court:
http://philosophy.wisc.edu/streiffer/BioandLawF99Folder/Readings/Eisenstadt_v_Baird.pdf

This is mind boggling.

 

[Ms_Lilith]

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[alexandraaah]

I'm always wowed by the freedoms I take for granted which were legalized in my lifetime.

 

[Guest]

What about freedom and privacy and all that?

The Constitution does not specifically mention a right to privacy. Though the Bill of Rights was never intended to be an exclusive list, it has functioned as one for most of its history. Even today many of our federal judges do not believe that the Constitution guarantees a right to privacy.

Before Eisenstadt, the federal government was content to let the states decide this issue for themselves. There were states before 1972 that allowed contraception to be sold to non-married people, but it was by no means universal.

 

[lavender]

Re: Re: 30 Year Anniversary of Legalized Birth Control in America - 03/22/02!

 

[Guest]

You are again speaking on a federal level. Not every state banned contraception for married or unmarried people prior to Griswold and Eisenstadt. It was made a federal issue through these cases, but the illegality beforehand was not universal.

A distinct right to privacy, separate from the other enumerated rights you mentioned, has been a point of contention. Even today we have judges sitting on the Supreme Court that question the validity of a separate right to privacy afforded on a federal level.

The laws were allowed on the books in states prior to these cases because the 10th Amendment reserves governmental functions to the states that are not specifically granted to the federal government, or denied the states. Policing power has traditionally been a state function, and this issue was previously classified as enforcement of the state's laws, not a privacy issue.

 

[CelestialBody]

Why are you

 

[Mischka]

I'm always wowed by the freedoms I take for granted which were legalized in my lifetime.

Last year I attended a round table discussion where an attorney said that when she first started practicing (in the 1970s), she was not legally allowed to sign filings with the court because of her gender. That blew my mind.

And it looks like 1972 was an important year in other parts of the world as well - Switzerland finally granted women suffrage that year. Imagine - a mere 30 years. Yeah, and gender inequality is non-existent these days.

(Lavender, how the hell do you remember all these case names? I consider myself ahead of the game by simply remembering Hadley v. Baxendale and Marbury v. Madison.)

 

[lavender]

 

[lavender]

 

[Cheyenne]

Does anyone else think it is odd that birth control and abortion were legalized so close together in time?

I was only a kid back in 1972 so I don't know what the birth control options were. It seems unlikely though that we went through the free love era of the 1960's without bc being used by unmarried couples.

 

[Mischka]

Does anyone else think it is odd that birth control and abortion were legalized so close together in time?

It wasn't a coincidence that abortion was legalized right after contraception. Actually, that quote from Justice Brennan - "If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally private as to whether to bear or beget a child." - fueled the argument to legalize abortion.

Though we take the right to privacy for granted in so many aspects of our lives today, it was a struggle to get the Court to articulate this right. Even after "right to privacy" was uttered by the Court, we've still had to chip away at government intrusion on our fundamentally private and personal matters. Laws against consenting adult sexual behavior still permeate the states; privacy in one's bedroom is still not completely covered by a right to privacy.

 

[scylis]

amazing! birth control is legalized and Laurel is born! what a great day for the world!!

i mean, what great DAYS, plural. somehow nine years snuck in inbetween them, but both were still great! er... yeah, that's it.