American Birth Control League

The American Birth Control League (ABCL) was founded on April 26, 1923, by Margaret Sanger. The ABCL's issues included legalizing birth control in the United States as well as other global issues, such as world population growth, disarmament, and world famine. Sanger gave the American birth control movement a jump start in 1916, when she opened the first birth control clinic in the United States in Brooklyn, New York. Sanger and her collaborators were arrested and indicted under the Comstock law, which defined contraceptive information and materials as being obscene. Sanger's establishment of the ABCL in 1923 led to the opening of the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau that same year in New York City. Here, licensed physicians prescribed contraceptives and studied their effects on women's health in hopes of broadening the interpretation of the Comstock law.

Sanger has been quoted as saying, “No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body.” Upon establishing the ABCL, she also created a set philosophy of principles and goals. The ABCL stated that a woman's right to control her own body is central to her human rights, that every woman should have the right to choose when or whether to have children, that every child should be wanted and loved, and that women are entitled to sexual pleasure and fulfillment.

In 1925, the first manufacturing of diaphragms in the United States occurred when Sanger's second husband, J. Noah Slee, aided in financing the manufacturing of the contraceptive devices. The following year, Sanger, serving as president of the ABCL, joined forces with Sir Bernard Mallet, the Secretary of the International Federation of Birth Control Leagues, to organize the first World Population Conference at Geneva, Switzerland. In 1929, the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau was raided by police due to direct violation of the Comstock law. The bureau's physicians and nurses were arrested, and all confidential medical records and documents were seized by the police. Outrage and protest followed the defendants' discharge from authorities. Sanger fought back and founded the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control in order to overturn the Comstock law.

The ABCL's efforts and influence proved to produce a real successful change in 1936, when a judge liberalized the Comstock laws in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. The following year, the [Page 29]American Medical Association recognized birth control as being an integral part of medical practice and education. In 1939, the ABCL came together with the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau to form the Birth Control Federation of America. The Birth Control Federation of America became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942 and today operates more than 850 high-quality medical service establishments nationwide.