Comstock Act

The Comstock Act is a federal statute (17 Stat. 599) that attempted to limit obscenity. Specifically, the law made it a crime for anyone under U.S. federal jurisdiction to, or offer to,

The act was named after Anthony Comstock (1844–1915), a social reformer from Connecticut. A devout Congregationalist Christian, he fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. After serving, he found employment in New York City, where he lived in a boarding house. It was there that the social reformer encountered a world of immorality that served as a catalyst for his crusade against vice. In 1873, he helped persuade the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) to create the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. He was able to convince the U.S. Congress to pass stricter antiobscenity legislation, culminating in the Comstock Act.

Although the Comstock Act is still in effect, portions of it have been amended or overturned by legislative acts and court opinions. In 1936, for example, in United States v. One Package, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals permitted physicians to prescribe and provide contraceptives to patients free of federal interference. Similarly, the U.S. Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) struck down that state's Comstock-like anticontraceptive statute based on the right of privacy, which the Court found in part in the principles on which the Fourth Amendment is based. In 1971, Congress removed the act's ban on the mailing of advertisements of contraceptives.