I think I knew this, but I was astonished to be reminded by Cecile Richards in her new book that birth control was technically illegal in many states until 1965. That’s when the Supreme Court ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut that people have a constitutional right to “marital privacy.”
That’s right. The date was 1965.
Before the ruling, Connecticut had some of the most stringent laws banning birth control. “Anyone found guilty of distributing or using contraceptives could be sentenced to a year in jail,” explained The Saturday Evening Post in its December 31, 2015, issue.
“It should be noted that Griswold applied only to married couples,” the magazine added. “It would be another seven years before the court extended the same right to contraceptives to unmarried couples.”
–Joy