Contraception has only been entirely legal in all 50 States for less than 50 years. There are still people fighting to take us backwards.

I’ve said for several years now that a large fraction of the Anti-Choice/Anti-Abortion lobby isn’t so much against abortion per se, but against ‘illicit’ sex and ‘recreational’ sex, even among married couples. Until Pro-Choice and Pro-Birth Control advocates understand that, they will never be able to properly fight the so-called ‘Pro-Lifers’.

The so-far invisible fracture lines in the anti-Choice movement — Anti-abortion, anti-recreational sex, and anti-birth control — must be split apart in the public discourse. These are distinct groups even though there is obvious overlap, and they have made common cause.

Many Americans are sympathetic to some aspect of the Pro-Life argument, but most part company with the opponents of birth control and non-reproductive (i.e., ‘recreational’) sex. The vast majority of Americans want to manage their fertility and control the number of children they have. (the “planning” part of Planned Parenthood).

Once these distinct groups are exposed as individual interest groups that have made common cause, the Pro-Choice fight might be more successful.

– Mike

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“In 1965, the Supreme Court ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut that it was unconstitutional for the government to prohibit married couples from using birth control. In 1967 activist Bill Baird was arrested for distributing a contraceptive foam and a condom to a student during a lecture on birth control and abortion at Boston University. Baird’s appeal of his conviction resulted in the United States Supreme Court case Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), which extended the Griswold holding to unmarried couples, and thereby legalized birth control for all Americans.” ~ Wikipedia

“When Sanger appeared before the judge, he waved a cervical cap from the bench and argued that no woman should have “the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception.” She went to jail for 30 days.” ~ Charlotte Alter @charlottealter, Oct. 14, 2016 (TIME.com)

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How Planned Parenthood Changed Everything

by Charlotte Alter @charlottealter, Oct. 14, 2016 (TIME.com)

Underwood Archives / Getty Images Women and men sitting with baby carriages in front of the Sanger Clinic in Brooklyn, N.Y., October 1916.

The first birth-control clinic in the U.S. opened 100 years ago, on Oct. 16, 1916

More than one hundred years ago, Sadie Sachs tried to give herself an abortion. The 28-year-old mother of three knew she and her husband could not afford another child. So one hot July day in 1912, Sadie’s husband Jake came home from work to find her unconscious in their bed, their three children screaming. Jake called a doctor, who called a nurse, who was named Margaret Sanger.

Sanger and the doctor worked for three weeks to fight Sadie’s sepsis and nurse her back from the brink of death. When she was finally getting better, Sadie asked the doctor if there was anything she could do to prevent another pregnancy. In her memoir, Sanger later wrote that the doctor advised Sadie to resist “any more such capers,” and then this happened:

“I know, doctor,” she replied timidly, “but,” and she hesitated as though it took all her courage to say it, “what can I do to prevent it?”

The doctor was a kindly man, and he had worked hard to save her, but such incidents had become so familiar to him that he has long since lost whatever delicacy he might once have had. He laughed good-naturedly. “You want to have your cake and eat it too, do you? Well, it can’t be done.” Then picking up his hat and bag to depart he said, “Tell Jake to sleep on the roof.”

I glanced quickly at Mrs. Sachs. Even through my sudden tears I could see stamped on her face an expression of absolute despair. We simply looked at each other, saying no word until the door had closed behind the doctor. Then she lifted her thin, blue-veined hands and clasped them beseechingly. “He can’t understand. He’s only a man. But you do, don’t you? Please tell me the secret, and I’ll never breathe it to a soul. Please!”

Three months later, Jake Sachs called Sanger again. This time, Sadie died ten minutes after Sanger arrived. That’s when Sanger decided: “I was finished with palliatives and superficial cures; I was resolved to seek out the root of the evil, to do something to change the destiny of mothers whose miseries were vast as the sky.”

[See full article HERE.]