Dictionary Thesaurus Word Dynamo Quotes Reference Translator Spanish

Comstock laws

The Comstock Act, (ch. 258 enacted March 3,1873) is a United States federal law which made it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious" materials through the mail, including contraceptive devices and information. In addition to banning contraceptives, this act also banned the distribution of information on abortion for educational purposes following the ideal of "Hear no Evil, See no Evil." Twenty-four states passed similar prohibitions on materials distributed within the states. Collectively, these state and federal restrictions are known as the Comstock laws.

The sale and distribution of obscene materials has been unlawful in most of the American states since the early 1800s, and has been prohibited by federal law since 1873. The federal anti-obscenity laws are still in effect in 2008 and are enforced, though there are extensive debates on what is "obscene."

Federal law

The law was named after its chief proponent, the anti-obscenity crusader Anthony Comstock. The enforcement of the Act was, in its early days, often conducted by Comstock himself or through his New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.

The Comstock Act not only targeted pornography as such, but also all contraceptive equipment and many educational documents such as descriptions of contraceptive methods and other reproductive health-related materials. The ban on contraceptives was declared unconstitutional by the courts in 1936, though the remaining portions of the law continue to be enforced today.

The text of the federal bill: Be it enacted... That whoever, within the District of Columbia or any of the Territories of the United States...shall sell...or shall offer to sell, or to lend, or to give away, or in any manner to exhibit, or shall otherwise publish or offer to publish in any manner, or shall have in his possession, for any such purpose or purposes, an obscene book, pamphlet, paper, writing, advertisement, circular, print, picture, drawing or other representation, figure, or image on or of paper or other material, or any cast instrument, or other article of an immoral nature, or any drug or medicine, or any article whatever, for the prevention of conception, or for causing unlawful abortion, or shall advertise the same for sale, or shall write or print, or cause to be written or printed, any card, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any kind, stating when, where, how, or of whom, or by what means, any of the articles in this section…can be purchased or obtained, or shall manufacture, draw, or print, or in any wise make any of such articles, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof in any court of the United States...he shall be imprisoned at hard labor in the penitentiary for not less than six months nor more than five years for each offense, or fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than two thousand dollars, with costs of court.

These statutes had an enormous inhibiting effect on publishers of magazines in the United States, since postal inspectors could bar "obscene" content from the mails at any time. Such use of the statutes was upheld in Roth v. U.S. in 1957.

Contraceptives and the courts

In 1915, architect William Sanger was charged under the New York law against disseminating contraceptive information. In 1918, his wife Margaret Sanger was similarly charged. On appeal, her conviction was reversed on the grounds that contraceptive devices could legally be promoted for the cure and prevention of disease.

The prohibition of devices advertised for the explicit purpose of birth control was not overturned for another eighteen years. In 1932, Sanger arranged for a shipment of diaphragms to be mailed from Japan to a sympathetic doctor in New York City. When U.S. customs confiscated the package as illegal contraceptive devices, Sanger helped file a lawsuit. In 1936, a federal appeals court ruled in United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries that the federal government could not interfere with doctors providing contraception to their patients.

In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut struck down one of the remaining Comstock laws, the bans on contraception in Connecticut and Massachusetts. However, Griswold only applied to marital relationships. Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) extended its holding to unmarried persons as well.