Right to birth control.

Throughout American history, midwives and health professionals have always recorded ways in which couples could restrict or prevent pregnancies. In the nineteenth century, however, increasingly stringent moral standards and emphasis on women’s domesticity led reformers to identify the prevention of pregnancy as a moral evil. Such moral views were made a legal formality in 1873, when Anthony Comstock pressed for legislation that made illegal the possession, sale, or gift of any obscene materials or articles for the prevention of conception (Comstock Act). Comstock was made an assistant postal inspector, which gave him expanded power to investigate and prosecute the dissemination of literature dealing with planned parenthood through the mail. In the 1870’s and 1880’s, several states passed similar laws, making the use of contraceptives and the spread of information about pregnancy prevention punishable under obscenity statutes.