Dennett’s echo1

Catherine Dennett Spaulding

n the spring of 1922, the newly appointed U.S. Postmaster General Dr. Hubert Work ordered the placement of this Ibulletin in every post office across the United States: IT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE To Send or Receive Obscene or Indecent Matter by Mail or Express The author is a member of the Class of 2014 at the The forbidden matter includes anything printed or writ- Georgetown University School of Medicine and the great- ten, or any indecent pictures, or any directions, drugs or great-granddaughter of the essay subject. This essay articles for the prevention of conception, etc.2p52 won first prize in the 2013 Helen H. Glaser Student Essay Competition. Except as noted, all illustrations are courtesy of Taken from Section 480 of The Postal Laws and Regulations the family archives of Sharon Spaulding, great-granddaughter of the United States of America of 1913,3 this abridged version of Mary Ware Dennett. of the federal criminal code reflected the sentiment of the Dennett’s echo

male-dominated hierarchy of the day. The purpose was to could not provide financial support, Dennett strove to avoid enforce the Comstock Act of 1873, a series of federal laws the notoriety that Sanger actively sought. Instead, Dennett that banned the dissemination of any “obscene, lewd or advocated for the legalization of through political lascivious” materials containing information on the prevention action—protesting, lobbying, and rallying public support by of conception.4 Commonly known as the Laws, the expressing her opinion in journals such as the Birth Control Comstock Act rendered all information on and Herald, a newspaper she edited from 1922 to 1925. Even though birth control illegal in America from 1873 to 1972. Dr. Work she expressed sympathy to the hundreds of women who wrote had been a Republican state chairman and former president to her pleading for birth control information, Dennett believed of the American Medical Association, and believed that the it was not her role to distribute such material until she could do distribution or mailing of materials such as pamphlets on so legally. Her response to these women was always the same: family planning encouraged sexual activity for reasons other than procreation—reasons that he, and many others of the era, It is absolutely illegal to mail any contraceptive information considered sinful and spiritually weakening. At the time he was anywhere in the country: and in many of our states . . . it is appointed Postmaster General in 1922, Dr. Work would have illegal to give information by any means whatever. . . . been well aware of the growing desire among his constituents . . . . That is why it is time to repeal [the Comstock Act]. to overturn the Comstock Act. By ordering the prominent I hope you will help us accomplish it.5 display of the federal law, he made it clear that he intended to ensure that such laws remained in force. She ended her letters by encouraging her writers to direct fur- The story of the fight to legalize contraception and eliminate ther questions to their physicians. the censorship of sex education is a heroic and impassioned one While many have heard of , almost no one that is virtually unknown today despite current debates about knows about Mary Ware Dennett. Almost uniformly, Dennett’s birth control. The American birth control movement arose achievements are either credited to Sanger or left out entirely. from the fires of the women’s suffrage movement of the early Even though Dennett was referenced over a hundred times twentieth century and culminated in the striking down of the and wrote several letters to the editor in the Times, last remnants of the Comstock Act in the 1970s. Its heroines a recent article from the newspaper mistakenly credits Sanger, are Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett, two feminists not Dennett, with the founding of the National Birth Control and radical thinkers to whom the birth control movement owes League (NBCL).6 Very few American history textbooks actually much of its success. Revolutionaries in their day, these women mention Dennett’s name, and as Constance M. Chen points began the fight as colleagues but became rivals as their visions out in her biography of Dennett, one book, Federal Censorship: diverged. Dennett strove to legalize contraception for all men Obscenity in the Mail, even spells her name incorrectly.7pxi and women, both rich and poor, while Sanger insisted that such Dennett’s story has thus been buried in history and er- information be accessible to the public only at the discretion roneously deemed unsuccessful. But she was hardly a failure. of a physician. For years, Dennett tried to convince Sanger From 1919 to 1926, Dennett fought to push a “clean repeal” bill that such a “medical monopoly” on contraceptive information through Congress to reverse the ban on mailing and distribut- would prevent birth control from reaching the hands of women ing birth control by striking the words “preventing conception” in poverty, who perhaps needed it the most.2p203 Dennett and from the obscenity laws. The bill eventually died in committee, Sanger never agreed on this point, and this disagreement but she was the first person not only to attempt to dismantle created a chasm that eventually splintered the movement. the Comstock Act, but also to bring the taboo topic of birth While the significance of Sanger’s work is without ques- control to the floors of the House and the Senate for debate. tion, her flamboyance overshadowed Dennett’s contributions, Several years later, in 1929, Dennett found herself tried and many of which were critical to the eventual disbandment of the convicted of violating the very laws she had sought to repeal; Comstock Laws and the legalization of contraception. Sanger the verdict was overturned a year later on appeal. The over- thrived in the spotlight: in 1914, she was charged with nine in- turn set a new legal precedent and led to several of the most dictments for the distribution of a pamphlet on contraception monumental rulings on censorship of the time, including the (though such charges were later dismissed), and in 1916, she defeat of the Customs ban on James Joyce’s in U.S. vs. spent thirty days in jail after opening the country’s first birth One Book Called Ulysses and the defeat of the government in control clinic.2 In contrast, Dennett made a concerted effort to the 1936 case U.S. vs. One Package of Japanese Pessaries. Each remain within legal boundaries for both personal and philo- of these rulings helped to pave the way for the eventual full sophical reasons. After surviving the public shame and scrutiny legalization of contraception in the United States in the 1970s. of a highly publicized divorce in 1913, Dennett was granted While many of Dennett’s achievements have been obscured by sole custody of her two young boys. In an era in which divorce time, her victories are real, measured not through the passing for any reason was scandalous and custody was almost always of new federal legislation but by the effect her voice had on awarded to the father based on the assumption that a woman shifting the public discourse.

6 The Pharos/Spring 2014 The Pharos/Spring 2014 7 The birth control movement in the United States in class. This was America in 1910.7pix the early 1900s Such discussions about sex and contraception had been The U.S. birth control movement arose in the West Village illegal since the last quarter of the nineteenth century in large of Manhattan around 1910, an area filled with the leading in- part because of the work of (1844–1915), a tellectuals, feminists, and patriots of the day. Known as “Little young man shocked by the promiscuous behavior of Civil War Bohemia,” on a stroll through Washington Square one might soldiers. Comstock became consumed with worry over the strike up a conversation with the feminist writer Charlotte moral indecency of the American public, and joined the Young Perkins Gilman or listen to an impassioned speech on anar- Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), seeking comfort in their chist philosophy by . Turning right onto West use of Christian principles to foster the “spiritual, intellectual Fourth street towards the Hudson, one could purchase a print and physical well-being of individuals.” 8 In the spring of 1873, by a follower of William Morris, the founder of the Arts and he founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Crafts Movement, or hope to sneak a pamphlet on family an organization solely concerned with purging society of its planning from Margaret Sanger. This was the neighborhood “morally indecent” characters. Several months later, Comstock Dennett was welcomed into when she first moved to New York convinced a unanimously unopposed Congress to sign into in 1910. federal law the infamous legislation that became known as the While Dennett was surrounded by radicalism and progres- Comstock Act. The bill rendered illegal the discussion, dis- sive thought, most of America was shrouded in conservatism tribution, or mailing of any scientific or common knowledge and censorship. Imagine a world in which a mother could not of birth control. The penalty for noncompliance included five legally talk to her daughter about the methods of family plan- years in jail, a fine of $5000, or both. Comstock spent his life ning2p3-4, 7pix or a physician could not discuss contraception ensuring that laws such as this were not ignored, even if they with his patients, let alone distribute any such materials.2p5-6 were unenforceable. It is reported that on his deathbed in 1915 Imagine a world in which a high school teacher would be ar- he boasted that he had convicted enough people to fill a pas- rested for speaking about reproduction in a high school biology senger train of sixty-one coaches with sixty people in each.7pxiv

8 The Pharos/Spring 2014 Illustration (by L.M. Glackens) depicts the ‘St Anthony Comstock, the Village Nuisance’ from Puck, 1906. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

At the time of Comstock’s death, one of every hundred rough animal hides, or as the famous Italian lover Giacomo women died in childbirth. Yet many remained vehemently op- Casanova described them in his Memoires, “petit habit d’une posed to the use of contraception.9 According to the Centers pellicule transparente d’environ huit pouces,” 11 which roughly for Disease Control and Prevention, up to forty percent of translates to “a little dress with a transparent film of eight pregnancy-related deaths in 1900 occurred as a result of sepsis inches.” Diaphragms were initially developed by a German from poor obstetrical care during delivery or during an il- gynecologist in the 1880s, and appeared in the United States as legally induced .9 Those who did survive often faced early as 1916. Though not formally studied and written about life-threatening complications, including significant hemor- until the 1930s, the basics of the rhythm method had been long rhage and toxemia. Even more staggering, one in five children observed by Dennett’s time. died before the age of five and, in some U.S. cities, up to thirty Yet, in a world in which a woman’s sole purpose in life was percent of infants never lived to see their first birthday.9 Many to bear and raise children, the notion that sex could exist for pregnancies were unwanted, with families that could barely any reason other than procreation was both sacrilegious and support the financial demands of a family of six or eight. As contrary to social norms. Arguing that the use of contracep- Dennett said in a report for the Twilight Sleep Association, tion was against the will of God, Comstock and his followers “Childbirth, with its attendant agonies, horrors, fears and pos- testified that the discussion and distribution of information sible blessings, has been the predominant thought of women about birth control would lead to greater immorality. Such for centuries.” 10 discomfort with contraception did not start and end with Contraception and family planning were not radically new religious conservatives. U.S. Representative Warren Gard of concepts in the twentieth century. Spermicidal concoctions Ohio stated that he “saw no difference between abortion and were first documented in ancient Egypt in the seventeenth contraception,” 7p232 while others in Congress such as Senator century BC and were further developed by Greek physicians Thaddeus Caraway of Arkansas worried that “every fourteen- in the second century. The first appeared during the year-old schoolgirl would get a hold of this information and eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and were composed of begin experimenting.” 7p232 The discussion of sex itself was

The Pharos/Spring 2014 9 Dennett’s echo

taboo and far too risqué a topic to discuss in the political arena. Dennett’s interest in contraception may have arisen from her personal struggles with bear- ing children. She gave birth three times, each a traumatic experience, and her second child died in infancy. The birth of her last son, Devon, almost took her life. In 1913, with the development in Germany of a scopolamine-morphine mixture that induced amnesia and a semi-narcotic state to reduce the pain of childbirth, Dennett co-founded the Twilight Sleep Association and served as its president and subsequently as vice president. She resigned in 1915 to divert her full attention to contraceptive reform. Dennett’s personal interests in the birth control movement had been brewing for some time, and her formal introduction took place in 1914 over lunch with Sanger, who at this time regarded Dennett as colleague. After their meeting, Dennett must have realized that birth control was the key to bettering the lives of women, but she shied away at first, hoping instead to focus on raising her sons. However, in the months that fol- lowed, Sanger was forced to flee to England after her arrest for the distribution of her pamphlet, Family Limitation, which left the movement in disarray. Realizing it was time to act, Dennett set her reservations aside. Having served as the elected com- mittee secretary of the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA), as a board member of the Women’s Peace Party, as the executive secretary of the Women’s Section of the Democratic National Committee, and as the organizer for the radical antiwar group the People’s Council, Dennett was well equipped to handle the challenges of leadership. In 1915, she founded the first American birth control organization, the National Birth Control League (NBCL). The organization’s motto was a line Dennett repeated throughout her life: “The first right a child should have is that of being wanted.” 7p194 Though its political message evolved over the years, Dennett used the NBCL to advocate for the free distribution of contra- ceptive information. The founding of the NBCL moved Dennett to the forefront of the birth control movement. By the time Sanger returned to the United States in 1916, the movement was largely in the hands of Dennett, a change Sanger did not welcome. Consumed with a sense of ownership, Sanger had long believed the movement to be her own.7p186 Although Dennett offered Sanger an execu- tive position in the NBCL, Sanger refused. From 1917 to 1919, the NBCL lobbied for the legalization of birth control in the New York state legislature. After two years without success and little financial support, Dennett reorganized and refocused the NBCL into the Voluntary Parenthood League (VPL), believing that she needed to use a national approach to reform. Like the NBCL, the VPL had two aims clearly expressed in a “clean

10 The Pharos/Spring 2014 repeal” bill Dennett drafted for Congress: 1) to make con- traceptive information available to all women by removing the words “preventing conception” 7p212 from the Comstock About Catherine Spaulding laws and 2) to provide reproductive education to all so that Originally from Sandy, Utah, all children might be wanted. From 1919 to 1926, Dennett I graduated from Vanderbilt lobbied unsuccessfully on the Hill in an effort to bring her University in 2010 with a major in “clean repeal” bill to the attention of legislators. neuroscience and a minor in mu- By this time, Sanger and Dennett had parted ways. sic performance. Three years later While Dennett fought for the “clean repeal” of the contracep- I am a fourth-year medical student at Georgetown tive clause in the Comstock Act, Sanger lobbied for a “doctor’s University. I plan to pursue a combined residency pro- only” bill that would allow physicians—and only physicians—to gram in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. discuss and distribute contraception. Dennett considered this I spent my childhood summers in an ancient fam- “class legislation,” 2p201 pointing out that Sanger’s proposed ily house in New Hampshire that was filled with the legislation eliminated birth control to those unable to af- letters, journals, and associated papers of my great- ford physician care.2p202 Further, Dennett argued that while great-grandmother, Mary Ware Dennett. Though my Sanger’s bill permitted “the doctor to dispense the obscene family would regale me with stories about this pas- information without penalty,” the mailing of such informa- sionate and fearless woman, more recently her story tion between a mother and daughter or a discussion between became of greater interest to me as I discovered how a high school teacher and pupil would remain “criminally public health, censorship reform, and the fight for indecent.” 2p203 To Dennett, this was unacceptable. In her com- women’s equality have been so intimately entangled ments regarding Dennett, Sanger said that she had “once, too, throughout our country’s history. Though I never met been naïve” enough to believe birth control could be in the her, Mary still seems a powerful force in our family. hands of the masses.7p214 It is unclear why Sanger adamantly opposed Dennett’s attempts for a “clean repeal,” since many of Sanger’s actions would have become legal, and thus more easily accomplished, with the passing of Dennett’s bill. Sanger, in fact, had become widely known for her brazen distribution health care. It is more likely, however, that the bill failed of vaginal diaphragms and contraceptive information in spite because of its content. While many congressmen privately of not being a physician. By 1921, the divide between Dennett admitted their support, none were apparently willing to and Sanger was so great that Sanger exclaimed, “A sanitarium risk the political suicide that would result from a forthright is the proper place for [Mary Ware Dennett].” 7p221 Their dislike discussion on sex. As one congressman told Dennett, the of each other splintered the small number of birth control sup- solution was to “get the men to move beyond the stage where porters and curtailed Dennett’s ability to achieve measurable their embarrassment inhibited them.” 7p232 Since birth control success in Congress. was synonymous with indecency, the battle in Congress was Ignoring Sanger, Dennett forged on. In 1919, she began as much about reshaping attitudes on the discussion of sex as her search for a representative to introduce her “clean repeal” it was about reforming the Comstock Act. Unfortunately for bill to Congress, one of the most difficult struggles in her Dennett, one victory could not exist without the other. life. After four years without any support, Dennett convinced Senator Albert B. Cummins to introduce the bill in the Senate The turning point and Representative William Vaile to sponsor the bill in the By the spring of 1925 Dennett was exhausted. The previ- House. In an attempt to distance the bill from the radicalism ous six years of work in the congressional arena had failed. associated with the birth control movement, she presented the In need of a break, she resigned from the board of the NBCL. matter as being one of civil rights, stating that the “main issue But Dennett’s days on the frontlines were far from over. The of the Cummins-Vaile Bill is the right of the citizen to access woman who had sought to bring about change by working to knowledge.” 7p234 Though the bill was found by the Judiciary within the confines of the law was arrested in 1929 for send- sub-committee of the Senate to be “without prejudice,” 2p156 it ing “obscene” literature through the mail. In 1915, Dennett had failed to make it to either the floor of the Senate or the House written and illustrated a twenty-four-page pamphlet, The Sex for a final vote. Side of Life: An Explanation for Young People. Dissatisfied with Perhaps it was Sanger’s vocal opposition that slowed the the literature of the time, she had scoured medical textbooks bill’s passage. Or perhaps it was Dennett’s disingenuousness to help her understand and explain human sexuality in basic regarding the nature of her bill—although she publicized it physiologic and biologic terms. The essay included drawings as censorship reform, it actually represented a fundamental of human anatomy and was written to dispel adolescents’ hazy change in the beliefs surrounding sex education and women’s notions about sex. In a book review by Time Magazine, one

The Pharos/Spring 2014 11 Dennett’s echo

author wrote: “The Sex Side of Life differs from other books found in grocery store aisles and a discussion of sexual health on the subject in its brevity, clearness, completeness, lack of and safety are a routine part of any visit with the doctor. Sex hokum.” 12 Dennett’s pamphlet provided no information on education is a mandatory part of most high school curricula. contraception, nor did it advocate for sex outside of marriage. Thanks to organizations like , access to Applauded by medical experts everywhere, the pamphlet was contraceptive methods and information is no longer limited to published in the Medical Review of Reviews in 1918 and was the affluent, but is available to those without health insurance. reprinted several times until it was judged obscene by the Post Mary Ware Dennett could only imagine such a world. Office in 1922.7p207 Yet despite all this, the American political scene is still In 1929, Dennett was arrested, tried, and found guilty for plagued by intense debate regarding the accessibility and violating the Comstock Act after she mailed the pamphlet to delivery of birth control. Much of the country opposes ac- an apparently genuine correspondent. By this time, more than tions such as federal funding for Planned Parenthood and 25,000 copies of the essay had been sold nationwide.12 With over-the-counter distribution of the emergency contraceptive newspapers headlines such as “Grandmother Found Guilty in (EC) pill. Until the recent passage of the Patient Protection Sex Life Pamphlet Trial,” 13 the conviction made her an instant and Affordable Care Act (ACA), the birth control pill was not celebrity. However, within a year the press revealed that Dennett considered a form of preventive medicine, a fact that prevented had been entrapped by a member of the Daughters of the many women from using various forms due to a lack of cover- American Revolution who had requested a copy of the pamphlet age by insurance. Even now many insurance companies, espe- under a fictitious name.14p85 With the support of the American cially those associated with religious organizations, refuse to Civil Liberties Union, Dennett’s case was widely publicized and pay. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology now the verdict overturned. Judge Augustus Hand ruled that The Sex proposes that the birth control pill should be distributed with- Side of Life wasn’t Comstockery, but instead meant to “promote out a prescription—an action that many pro-life conservatives understanding and self-control.” 14p85 The appellate decision argue will only increase the number of . in U.S. vs. Dennett was crucial to the birth control movement Thus, the history of the birth control movement is perhaps because it set a precedent that led to the fragmentation of the more relevant today than ever before as we once again ask Comstock Act in subsequent trials,15 such as the 1933 defeat of the question Mary Ware Dennett and her colleagues asked in the Customs Ban on James Joyce’s Ulysses14p86 and the govern- the 1920s: Who should have access to birth control? Last year ment’s defeat in the 1936 case U.S. vs. One Package of Japanese religiously affiliated corporations and businesses battled the Pessaries. In this landmark ruling the Comstock Laws were rein- administration, stating their objections to paying for employ- terpreted to allow physicians to distribute contraceptive devices ees’ contraception, as mandated by the ACA. They argue that and information at their own discretion. such laws are “forcing them to violate core tenets of their faith” Though Dennett did not achieve complete success in her and thus, constitute a violation of religious tolerance.16 Others fight for full access to contraceptive information, the political such as political commentator Rush Limbaugh argue that con- landscape was forever changed. In just over a decade, Dennett traception is akin to promiscuity. He claimed that insurance had begun the revolution against censorship. She campaigned coverage of contraception would allow a “woman to exercise for access to information that was purely scientific, pointing to no self-control” 17 and accused one advocate of birth control of the undeniable improvement it would bring in the health and forcing the “taxpayers to pay her to have sex.” 18 safety of families across America. Her unwavering conviction The current political debates on insurance coverage of birth for a clean repeal of the Comstock Laws laid the foundation for control echo many of the arguments used against the EC pill. future victors of the birth control movement by fostering the Known as the “morning-after pill,” the EC pill was approved seeds of change in the minds of Congress and the public. The by the Food and Drug Administration for prescription use in Sex Side of Life altered society’s perception on sexuality and, for 1999. Ten years later, the U.S. judicial system ruled that the pill the first time in the United States, allowed the exploration of the should be easily accessible to all men and women over the age relationship between contraception and free speech. Perhaps of seventeen. Today it is available at most retail pharmacies, most significantly, Dennett’s acquittal led the series of rulings in though at an average cost of $50, its “accessibility” is debatable. the 1930s that led to the dismantling of Comstockery. Dennett Many have pushed for elimination of the age limit and the left her mark on history by bringing central issues about both behind-the-counter restriction, but opponents insist that easy civil rights and sex education to the forefront of American poli- access to the EC pill will lead to a rise in unprotected sex and tics—many of which remain politically relevant today. consequently an increase in the number of unwanted pregnan- cies and abortions. The birth control movement today Even today many echo the anticontraception rhetoric Today, almost a century later, we have come a long way of Dennett’s time, linking contraception with promiscuity. from the initial battles fought by Dennett. Purchasing a pack Although Dennett could not prove her arguments, recent of condoms is as easy as buying gas. Spermicidal creams can be population data suggests that increased access to the EC pill

12 The Pharos/Spring 2014 has had no effect on pregnancy rates and, if anything, has vard University. decreased the number of abortions. According to the Centers 6. Klein A. Staging Margaret Sanger’s return. New York Times for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2009—ten years after 1989 Aug 6. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/06/nyregion/theater- the FDA approved the EC pill—roughly 800,000 abortions staging-margaret-sanger-s-return.html. were performed in the United States, representing a decrease 7. Chen CM. “The Sex Side of Life”: Mary Ware Dennett’s Pio- of more than six percent since 2000.19 A recent randomized neering Battle for Birth Control and Sex Education. New York: New study in the Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology Press; 1996. demonstrated no change in the frequency of unprotected sex or 8. Challenge 21: Implications of the YMCA Mission. 1998. or hormonal contraception use among minority low- http://www.ymca.int/who-we-are/mission/challenge-21-1998/. income adolescents given access to emergency contraception 9. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Depart- compared to those without a prescription for the pill.20 In fact, ment of health and Human Services. Achievements in public health, the study demonstrated that in comparison to those given 1900–1999: Healthier mothers and babies. MMWR Weekly 1999 Oct instructions on how to obtain the EC pill, adolescents who 1; 48: 849–58. were given the EC pill prior to sexual activity were twice as 10. Twilight Sleep Association. New York. Folder 601, Box 37, likely to use it and more likely to take it sooner, thus increasing MWD papers. Boston: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Har- its efficacy.20 Other studies have found similar outcomes.21 vard University. Neither Sanger nor Dennett lived to see the end of birth 11. Casanova J. Mémoires de J. Casanova de Seingalt: Écrits par control politics. It was not until 1970 that the contraceptive Lui-Même. Edition Originale. Paris: Heideloff et Campé; 1832: 15. clause was formally stricken from federal legislation and it took 12. Books: Facts of Life. Time 1930 Apr 7; 15. http://content.time. an additional two years until birth control was fully legal. Fifty com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,787606,00.html. years after she ended her fight, Mary Ware Dennett’s greatest 13. Grandmother found guilty in sex life pamphlet trial. Daily ambition was finally realized. Her achievements have funda- News 1929 Apr 24. Folder 494, Box 28, MWD Papers. Boston: mentally changed the discussions about contraception and sex Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. education. But although we have taken significant strides since 14. Walker S. The First Victories, 1925–1932. In: In Defense of her death in 1947, many of the fundamental questions regard- American Liberties: A History of the ACLU. New York: Oxford Uni- ing access to health care and human sexuality still dominate versity Press; 1990: 72–94. political discussion. Is it possible to ever see the end of birth 15. Heins M. A birth control crusader. Atlantic Monthly 1996; control politics? Perhaps. But if Dennett’s story tells us any- 278: 116–21. thing, it is that the past is never far from the present. 16. Bronner E. A flood of suits fights coverage of birth control. New York Times 2013 Jan 26. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/ Acknowledgments health/religious-groups-and-employers-battle-contraception-man- I would like to express my appreciation to the Schlesinger Library at date.html?ref=ethanbronner&_r=0. Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, which 17. Saletan W. Pills for sluts? Six questions for Rush Limbaugh now houses many of Mary Ware Dennett’s letters, publications, and about sex, promiscuity, and contraception. Slate.com 2012 Mar papers. I also want to express my gratitude to Sharon Spaulding for 5. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_na- her editorial skills, unending guidance, and unwavering support. ture/2012/03/rush_limbaugh_vs_sandra_fluke_does_contracep- tive_insurance_make_you_a_slut_.html. References 18. Shahid A. Sandra Fluke, Georgetown student called a “slut” 1. Medicine: Dennett echo. Time 1929 Jun 3; 13. http://content. by Rush Limbaugh on birth control stance speaks out. New York time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,732473,00.html. Daily News 2012 Mar 2. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ 2. Dennett MW. Birth Control Laws: Shall We Keep Them sandra-fluke-georgetown-student-called-slut-rush-limbaugh-birth- Change Them or Abolish Them? New York: Grafton Press; 1926. control-stance-speaks-article-1.1031843. 3. United States of America Post Office Department. Postal 19. Pazol K, Creanga A, Zane SB, et al. Abortion surveillance— Laws and Regulations of the United States of America. Edition of United States, 2009. MMWR 2012; 61 (SS08): 1–44. 1913. Washington (DC): U.S. Government Printing Office; 1912: 20. Gold MA, Wolford JE, Smith KA, Parker AM. The effects 264–65. of advance provision of emergency contraception on adolescent 4. U.S. Congress. The Statutes at Large and Proclamations women’s sexual and contraceptive behaviors. J Pediatr Adolesc of the United States of America, from March 1871 to March 1873, Gynecol 2004; 17: 87–96. and Treaties and Postal Conventions. Volume XVII. Boston: Little, 21. Glasier A, Baird D. The effects of self-administering emer- Brown; 1873; 598–600. gency contraception. N Engl J Med 1998; 339: 1–4. 5. Dennett MW. Letter in response to request for contraceptive information from Iowan woman, April 30, 1928. Folder 371, Box 21, The author’s e-mail address is: [email protected]. MWD Papers. Boston: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Har-

The Pharos/Spring 2014 13