Quotes Supporting Illegal Activities from the Birth Control Review

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Quotes Supporting Illegal Activities from the Birth Control Review
1917

"Against the State, against the Church, against the silence of the medical profession, against the whole machinery of dead institutions of the past, the woman of to-day arises. She no longer pleads. She no longer implores. She no longer petitions. She is here to assert herself, to take back those rights which were formerly hers and hers alone. If she must break the law to establish her right to voluntary motherhood, then the law shall be broken."

Margaret Sanger. "Shall We Break This Law?" Birth Control Review, Volume I, Number 2 (February 1917), page 4.


1918

"Kitty Marion [a member of the Birth Control Review staff] has no apology to make for her violation of a dark age statute [New York State anti-contraceptive laws]. Neither have we one to make for her. We approve of her generous courage and we are proud of the unselfishness and fortitude with which she undergoes the penalty imposed by law for her work for women."

Margaret Sanger. "Judges With Small Families Jail Kitty Marion." Birth Control Review, Volume II, Number 11 (November 1918), page 5.


1924

"We also encourage, in every way in our power, the establishment of Birth Control clinics, both as specialized establishments and also in connection with hospitals and Health Centers. In order that this may be done we are obliged in many states to engage in agitation for the repeal of repressive laws, which forbid the imparting of physicians of Birth Control information.

"Perhaps the greatest progress that the movement has made this year is progress that is largely due to these men and women. Through constant propaganda, through speeches and writings, America, and indeed the whole world has begun to think of Birth Control."

"Editorial." Birth Control Review, Volume VIII, Number 7 (July 1924), pages 195 and 196.


1930

"I believe you should open a Birth Control clinic here tomorrow. The more prominent among you, socially, politically and financially, should sponsor the opening. You should accept responsibility for it. Your position in the community would make prejudiced cranks think twice

about raiding the place or trying to close it by police force. When it is closed, as it probably would be, your position would make the Courts view the breach of law more tolerantly. But the clinic might not be closed."

Mrs. Donald R. Hooker, quoted in "Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Birth Control Federation." Birth Control Review, Volume XIV, Number 1 (January 1930), page 23.


"My own point of view is that the statutes in question are so vicious and immoral that no form of attack on them should be overlooked. But I think it is obvious that Margaret Sanger's open violation of the law did more to focus public attention upon its iniquities than all the legislative campaigns that have been waged."

Carol Weiss King. "Use All Forms of Attack." Birth Control Review, Volume XIV, Number 11 (November 1930), page 311.


1931

"CANADA: Reverend Canon Lawrence Skey, rector of St. Anne's Anglican church in Toronto recently issued a statement that he would give birth control information to any young woman in his parish about to be married. Giving his reason for this defiance of Canadian law, he said: "I cannot permit women to go to their deaths from bearing too many children because doctors and governments will not inform them." No action was taken against the Canon."

"News Notes." Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 7 (July 1931), page 219.


"GERMANY: A nation-wide campaign for removal of all legal restrictions on birth control is being launched in Germany under the leadership of Frau Dr. Else Kienle-Jakobowski of Stuttgart. A "Committee for Self-Incrimination" has been formed, whose purpose it is to collect so many affidavits from violators that the courts will be swamped, and prosecutions impossible."

"News Notes." Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 7 (July 1931), page 219.


"But so great has become the mass production of laws in the last few years, that people are now beginning to reflect that a law that is not or cannot be enforced is a stench in the nostrils of human progress. Thinking people in constantly increasing numbers believe that there is all the difference in the world between evils that are essentially and by common consent deleterious to human society ) such as murder, rape, robbery and the like ) and actions that are declared wrong by legislation, about which there may be a division of opinion. The old common law used to describe this difference as mala in se and mala prohibita. People are becoming more and more convinced that no law can be enforced or should exist that does not have behind it a practically united public sentiment, and are setting off against our traditional law-mindedness a steadily increasing emphasis on personal liberty.

"The old cry that a law is a law, and just for that reason must be blindly obeyed, has no place in the modern forward-looking, liberty-loving humanitarianism of present day life.

"The opposition in the present instance is confined, practically, to a single very powerful and magnificently disciplined church, but it is a very real opposition, and one that the eagle-eyed politician will always respect. Until that church can be persuaded to change its view ) and there, in my judgment, should be the focal point of attack ) all attempts to change this spuriously termed "moral" law will prove abortive."

George Packard. "Is Birth Control Legal?" Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 9 (September 1931), pages 248 to 250.


"... And Mr. Packard seems to believe that the medical men are in some way capable of being policemen of our private affairs. Is it not just as "benighted, illogical and absurd" for one to assume that contraception can, or ought to be, restricted to married people as it is to oppose all ideas of birth control? ... I sympathize immensely with nullification [mass disobedience of the law]. All liberals must practice such nullification of many laws ..."

Gordon McWhirter of Berkeley, California. Letter to the Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 10 (October 1931), page 302.


1933

"The O'Malley anti-birth control bill, introduced into the Wisconsin legislature in March, was given a hearing before the Committee on Public Welfare on April 18th ... Supporting the bill were Catholic organizations, and petitions bearing 90,000 signatures according to newspaper accounts. Opposing the bill and denouncing it as a `vicious admixture of religion, politics, and ignorance' were church leaders, lawyers, members of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, social workers, club women, doctors and mothers. Several educators and ministers stated that if the bill became a law they would consider it their duty to disregard it. Professor E.A. Ross of the University, (member of the editorial board of the [Birth Control] Review) summed up the opposition to the bill, saying: "Through ignorance you have created a monstrous bill ) one of the most shocking I have ever heard of. Pass this bill and you will have a nation of morons in 200 years.""

"Editorial." Birth Control Review, Volume XVII, Number 5 (May 1933), page 116.