Emma Goldman Arrested for Promoting Birth Control
Emma Goldman stood on stage in New York and told a crowd of women how not to get pregnant. She was arrested mid-lecture. The charge: distributing information about contraception, which was illegal under the Comstock Act — the same law that classified birth control pamphlets as obscenity, alongside pornography. She'd been doing this for months, daring police to stop her. They finally did. She was 46, already deported once, already imprisoned for inciting riots. She told the judge she'd do it again. Birth control was still illegal in 30 states when the Pill was approved in 1960. Goldman had been dead for 20 years by then.
February 11, 1916
110 years ago
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