Section 1145 of the state’s penal code declared that physicians could distribute contraceptive information for the cure and prevention of disease. Margaret knew that, legally, the law was intended for men; to protect them from the diseases acquired through sexual contact, but she believed that the law could be interpreted to include women who were susceptible to disease and death from too much childbearing. She was in desperate need of money and turned to rich women like Mrs. George Rubilee and Mrs. Charles Tiffany, who responded by forming the “Committee of 100″ to help fund Margaret’s movement (Miller 221).
The trial, which had been postponed several times, opened in January of 1917. Margaret was offered leniency in return for a promise that she would never break the law again. Margaret replied, “I cannot promise to obey a law I do not respect” and was sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse (Douglas 122).
On January 8, 1918, the decision that Margaret had been waiting and hoping for finally came; Judge Crane of the N.Y. Court of Appeals interpreted section 1145 of the penal code to include the health of married women which permitted doctors to give them birth control advice. In the months that followed, Margaret focused her energy on her new monthly publication The Birth Control Review. Aside from asking for money from the wealthy elites of her time, this was the first real break that Margaret had with her straightforward grassroots past. After the end of World War I, there was a worldwide urge to suppress the radical left. Margaret, astute as always, realized this and decided to gain support for her birth control movement by “promoting it in the basis of medical and public health needs”. Despite her efforts, Margaret faced a rising tide of opposition on from the Church, which, apparently, could control both the government and the police force of New York. Still, the public, the press, and the medical profession were all backing her now and, in 1921, she founded the American Birth Control League.
The League was part of Margaret’s campaign to educate the general public and gain more mainstream support for birth control. In what seemed almost a contradictory move, Margaret sought the support of the liberal wing of the eugenics movement. In retrospect, it seems like a logical next step as she was also seeking support from the socialist reform movement at the time. Also, it is in keeping with the views that Margaret held at the time; she rationalized birth control as a viable means to reducing, what she felt to be, genetically transmitted mental or physical defects. In her more radical moods, Margaret would even advocate sterilization for the mentally incompetent, though she never felt that birth control should be supported or implemented solely on the basis of class, ethnicity, or race.
Also around this time Margaret met and was courted by Noah H. Slee. Mr. Slee was the president of a successful oil company, wealthy, and in love with Margaret Sanger. After following her around the globe on one of her many speaking tours, Noah proposed marriage to Margaret. Not eager to make the same mistake twice, Margaret set forth some conditions (that included financial and sexual independence as well as the use of her own last name). Slee agreed to her terms and they were wed in 1922; it is not surprising that he also became the main founder of Margaret’s birth control movement (Miller 228-229).
Aware that the current resources available to women were not enough, Margaret soon realized that she would need an extension of the Brownsville Clinic in order to handle the influx of patients and requests for information. Margaret decided to strike while the iron was hot and take the opportunity to found a research bureau that could be used as a model for future clinics. For months Margaret labored to bring together a skilled and prominent group of physicians and scientists, even going so far as to obtain a sociologist and a psychologist. The end result was a group that was to be the board for her new clinic; all she needed now was a doctor willing to take the risk of heading up the clinic staff. Dr. Dorothy Bocker accepted the position and in January of 1923, the Clinical Research Bureau opened at the same Fifth Avenue address as the American Birth Control League, though they were to be kept separate so that the League might escape criticism when the Bureau came under attack. The opening was not publicized, in fact, it was not even announced publicly for two years; patients were referred directly from the League. The Bureau soon became a center of study for doctors and scientists from all around the country. The number of patients grew so fast that the Bureau soon had to relocate to larger facilities (Miller 230).
In 1928, Margaret Sanger angrily resigned as the head of the American Birth Control League due to conflicts within the organization. The “conservatives” had come to resent Margaret’s leadership; they felt that it was too personal and impulsive. Margaret, in turn, condemned them for being women of high social position who always took the easy way out to save themselves. After her resignation, the only position that Margaret actually held was that of director of the Clinical Research Bureau (Miller 231).
Then one day, as it had all happened before, her clinic was raided. It happened on March 29, 1929 without warning or proper warrant. The staff was all taken to jail, the case files confiscated, and the patients bullied into leaving. The medical community was outraged, though the magistrate admitted there had been a mistake made. While the physicians defended themselves on the grounds that there was a doctor/patient privilege to be upheld, Margaret seized the opportunity to have the Crane decision enlarged to establish birth control clinics as essential to the public health of women.
The outcome of the court battle was a decision that favored birth control. The judge ruled that birth control clinics were “an important public health measure and a valuable aid in the conservation of family health” (Miller, p.233). Encouraged by this victory, Margaret set up the National Committee on Federal Birth Control Legislation; it’s goal: to lobby for the passing of legislation favorable to the birth control movement. The gem of the Committee was a “Doctor’s Bill” that had been written from the ground up, starting on a local level and gaining support until it was introduced by Senator George Norris in 1931. In the years between 1931 and 1935, the bill was killed in Congress more than 5 times, each time by the direct influence of the Roman Catholic Church. At one hearing for the bill, after hours of expert and emotional personal testimony, the opposition took the stand in the form of Father Charles Coughlin; his only comment being “All this bill means is how to fornicate and not get caught” (Miller, p. 235). The bill failed that time as well. The time spent lobbying in Congress was not wasted, though, as Margaret and her movement came to have the backing of the entire medical profession and a majority of the population (who, by that time, was in the midst of the Great Depression).
It became apparent to Margaret that the movement would go no further if it depended on what happened in Washington D.C., and so, when a package from Japan containing contraceptives was confiscated and not delivered to her, she saw another golden opportunity. Margaret quickly wrote to Japan and had another package with the same contents mailed to the head physician of her Clinical Research Bureau, Dr. Stone. The package was again confiscated and Margaret knew that her showdown with the Comstock Laws had finally come. She and Dr. Stone took the matter to court in December of 1935; their attorney argued “The government cannot prevent contraceptive material from being mailed to a physician, even from a foreign country, when it is to be used to safeguard the life and health of mothers and children” (Miller 237). The court ordered the package delivered. The government appealed, but lost. In January of 1937, it was announced by the Supreme Court that the government would not challenge the second ruling. In a case that came to be known as U.S. v. One Package, Margaret and her birth control movement had their long awaited day in court and won. With this decision, the Comstock law lost a great deal of footing in the federal arena, so much so that the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control disbanded, considering itself no longer necessary.
Though elated over her victory, Margaret realized that the poorest women were the ones that still had to be reached. She took the field organization of the newly disbanded Committee and made it a part of the Bureau, creating the Educational Department. The first target of the Department was the impoverished South, from there it moved on to the dustbowl of the Southwest. Then, in 1939, the Department merged with the Bureau to become the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (Miller 237).
With that done, Margaret tried to turn her attention to the world effort, but was interrupted by World War II. After that there was a string of personal tragedies in Margaret’s life that conspired to keep her from actively participating in the birth control movement, the most detrimental of which was the stroke that her husband suffered in December of 1941. They both moved to Tucson, Arizona in the hopes that the warm weather and sunshine would help Noah, but he died less than a year later. It seemed to those around Margaret that, at 60, she was content to live the life of a wealthy socialite (Miller 238).
In actuality, Margaret was simply biding her time until the end of the war and the time when she could once again focus her efforts on the rest of the world. The first trip after her semi-retirement was to Japan. Then, in 1952, Margaret went to India for the first meeting of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. She then returned to the States to turn the Clinical Research Bureau over to a board of directors to ensure its continuance; the clinic was renamed the Margaret Sanger Research Bureau (which was fundamental to the development of The Pill). In her 80’s, Margaret Sanger threatened to leave the country when she head that a Catholic (JFK) would be elected President. Fortunately, John F. Kennedy was the first U.S. President to recognize the world’s population problem. Margaret Sanger lived to see the right to privacy triumph in the courts in 1965 with Griswold v. Connecticut. Margaret died a year later in September of 1966, just 8 days after her 87th birthday (Miller 238-239).
At first glance, Margaret Sanger’s career seems much like that of any dedicated heroine of her time; Dorothea Dix, Bessie Hillman, and Carrie Chapman Catt were all women with a cause. Upon closer inspection, though, Margaret stands out as a woman who, not only had a cause to fight for, but also had a movement to found and a life of example to live.