"How An Anti-Vice Crusader Sabotaged The Early Birth Control Movement" - The Comstock Act

[IcyPeas]

In 1873, Congress passed a law outlawing the distribution, sale, mailing and possession of "obscene" materials — including contraception.

The Comstock Act, as it became known, was named after Anthony Comstock, an anti-vice crusader who later became a special agent to the U.S. Post Office, giving him the power to enforce the law. In her new book, The Man Who Hated Women, author Amy Sohn writes about Comstock — as well as eight women charged with violating the Comstock Act.

While working for the post office, Sohn says, Comstock "decoyed people" by using the mail to solicit obscenity and contraception.

"[Comstock] was given that [post office] title so that he could have the power to inspect the mail and over time it was expanded to be able to come into people's houses and seize items," she says. "It was a very broad, broad definition of what someone affiliated with the post office could do with regards to individual civil liberties."

MORE at link
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/07/1013592570/how-an-anti-vice-crusader-sabotaged-the-early-birth-control-movement

[TreasonousBastard]

1. I was listening to that earlier-- what a creep.

[niyad]

2. Thank you for posting on this most important topic. What a vile, hateful, ugly man he was,

and what damage he caused.