family planning
Family planning is a term that was created in the mid-twentieth century to refer to the ability to control reproduction through access to contraception, abortion, sterilization, and information and education. Reproductive control allows a woman to determine when and whether she will have children. A woman's ability to control the birth and spacing of her children has a direct impact on her educational, economic, and social opportunities, and a woman's enjoyment of heterosexual activity can be affected by the fear of becoming pregnant because she lacks information about and access to contraception and abortion.
Women have found ways to control their reproduction since the earliest days of recorded history. However, those methods were not always safe or effective. With industrialization, urbanization, and the advent of new reproductive technologies, there was a shift away from women's ability as individuals to control their reproductive lives. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the regulation of contraception and abortion began in earnest in the United States. In 1873 Congress passed the Act of the Suppression of Trade In, and Circulation Of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use (Comstock Law), which was named for the U.S. postal agent Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), who lobbied for the bill's passage. The law criminalized, among other things, the distribution through the U.S. Mail of information and materials related to contraception and abortion. By 1900 every state had criminalized abortion in most circumstances.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, social activists such as Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) and some members of the medical profession initiated a campaign for legalized contraception. By the mid-1930s contraception was more widely available in the United States, whereas abortion remained illegal until the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade in 1973. Sanger's organization, the American Birth Control League (formed in
Women have found ways to control their reproduction since the earliest days of recorded history. However, those methods were not always safe or effective. With industrialization, urbanization, and the advent of new reproductive technologies, there was a shift away from women's ability as individuals to control their reproductive lives. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the regulation of contraception and abortion began in earnest in the United States. In 1873 Congress passed the Act of the Suppression of Trade In, and Circulation Of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use (Comstock Law), which was named for the U.S. postal agent Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), who lobbied for the bill's passage. The law criminalized, among other things, the distribution through the U.S. Mail of information and materials related to contraception and abortion. By 1900 every state had criminalized abortion in most circumstances.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, social activists such as Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) and some members of the medical profession initiated a campaign for legalized contraception. By the mid-1930s contraception was more widely available in the United States, whereas abortion remained illegal until the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade in 1973. Sanger's organization, the American Birth Control League (formed in