If the obscenity laws
are not radically revised or repealed, few reactionaries will dare to
face the public derision that will greet their attempts to use them to
stay woman's progress.
The French have a saying concerning "mort main"--the dead hand. This
hand of the past reaches up into the present to smother the rising
flame of modern ideals, to reforge our chains when we have broken
them, to arrest progress. It is the hand of such as have lived on
earth but have not loved humanity. At the call of those who fear
progress and freedom, it rises from the gloom of forgotten things to
oppress the living.
It is the dead hand that holds imprisoned within the obscenity laws
all direct information concerning birth control. It is the dead hand
that thus compels millions of American women to remain in the bondage
of maternity.
Previous to the year 1868, the obscenity laws of the various states in
the Union contained no specific prohibition of information concerning
contraceptives. In that year, however, the General Assembly of New
York passed an act which specifically included the subject of
contraceptives. The act made it exactly as great an offense to give
such information as to exhibit the sort of pictures and writings at
which the legislation was ostensibly aimed.
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