Connecticut’s 99-year journey to lawful contraception – Part IV, Finale

#MiddleburyCT #Contraception

By DR. ROBERT L. RAFFORD

Margaret Louise Sanger (1879-1966), founder of the birth control movement. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Following the 1940 Connecticut Supreme Court’s 3-2 decision upholding Connecticut’s 1879 anticontraception law, the Connecticut Committee to Make Birth Control Legal was formed in May 1940, chaired by Horace D. Taft, retired headmaster of the Taft School in Watertown. The committee’s polls showed that over 93% of Connecticut voters favored reforming the law, and a mighty effort was undertaken to reform Connecticut’s 61-year old anticontraception law.

The following years saw opposition to legislative reform grow fierce and nasty. Fr. Paul Spodnik (1902-1976) of the Immaculate Conception Church in Waterbury called Protestant clergy supporters “so-called ministers of religion … fifth columnists and traitors in the cause of Christ and his religion” (The Waterbury Democrat).

The Rev. Dr. Robbins W. Barstow (1890-1962), president of Hartford Seminary and the Connecticut Birth Control League, stated, “It is contrary to our American principles of civil liberty to permit a situation where one particular religious viewpoint controls legislation governing the private lives of those who do not hold that doctrinal allegiance, and also obstructs the professional practices of qualified and licensed physicians” (David J. Garrow, “Liberty and Sexuality”). Despite enormous support, the 1941 legislation failed.

After the 1940 U.S. Supreme Court and 1941 Connecticut Legislative failures, efforts to reform the law continued every legislative session. A “Committee of 100” was formed in 1947, composed of doctors who appealed “to allow licensed physicians to prescribe for married women needing birth control advice, to save health and lives” (Hartford Courant). Dr. Herbert Thoms (1885-1972), professor and chairperson of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Yale, a Waterbury native and chairperson of the Committee of 100, testified that 94% of 1,313 doctors responding supported the bill. Nonetheless, the legislation failed.

Gravestone of Dr. Joseph and Margaret Hetzel in Middlebury Cemetery. Both advocated legislative reform to legalize contraception in Connecticut. (Dr. Robert L. Rafford photo)

Drs. Joseph Linn Hetzel (1901-1979) and John Hess Foster (1891-1985) were Middlebury physicians. As members of the “Committee of 100,” they advocated legislative reform. St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury fired them from its staff, along with Dr. Arthur Hartt Jackson (1894-1977) of Washington, Connecticut. An additional three were fired from St. Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport and St. Francis Hospital in Hartford for the same reason. All were Protestants.

In addition to the efforts of Middlebury physicians, outspoken Middleburians Margaret (De Lancey) Hetzel (1909-1986), Esther (Fisher) Duryee (1901-1999) and Sylvia (Stevenson) Hibbard (1918-1988) served for many years on the Board of Directors of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, supporting legislation to reform the law and to provide vitally needed maternal care to Connecticut families. However, the Connecticut Legislature defeated every attempt by its citizens for 48 years, from 1917 to 1965, to modify or repeal the 1879 anticontraception law.

Desperate to allow physicians to fully practice their profession, advocates opened a birth control clinic in New Haven in 1961. The clinic’s executive director, Estelle (Trebert) Griswold (1900-1981), a Catholic, along with Yale Professor Dr. C. (Charles) Lee Buxton (1904-1969), were arrested, convicted and fined. Their case reached the U. S. Supreme Court, and in June 1965, the 7-2 Griswold v. Connecticut decision was announced.

Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote, “the right of privacy in the marital relation is fundamental and basic – a personal right ‘retained by the people’ within the meaning of the Ninth Amendment. Connecticut cannot constitutionally abridge this fundamental right, which is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from infringement by the States.” This decision facilitated the cessation of the 1879 anticontraception law for married women in Connecticut.

A 6-1 1972 U. S. Supreme Court decision, Eisenstadt v. Baird, allowed unmarried women to use contraception. Justice William J. Brennan Jr., writing for the majority, said “it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.”

The quest to bring lawful contraception to Connecticut lasted 99 years. In an historical twist, the recent (2022) Dobbs decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which invalidated the Griswold decision, may lead to a return of the 1873 forbidding contraception in Connecticut.

You are urged to join the Middlebury Historical Society by going online at MiddleburyHistoricalSociety.org or visiting them on Facebook. Questions about membership can be sent to Bob at robraff@comcast.net.