American Birth Control League

American Birth Control League (ABCL), organization that advocated for the legalization of contraception in the United States and promoted women’s reproductive rights and health from its creation in 1921 by Margaret Sanger, the founder of the American birth control movement. The first such organization in the United States, the American Birth Control League (ABCL) was a precursor of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, founded in 1942.

Sanger summarized the values of the ABCL in “Principles and Aims of the American Birth Control League,” which appeared as an appendix to her book The Pivot of Civilization (1922). There she asserted that a woman’s right to control her body is central to her human rights, that every woman should have the right to choose when or whether to have children, that every child should be wanted and loved, and that women are entitled to sexual pleasure and fulfillment. Accordingly, the ABCL would, among other activities, promote research on the relation of “reckless breeding” to infant mortality, juvenile delinquency, and other problems; provide instruction in “harmless and reliable” methods of birth control; educate the public regarding the “moral and scientific soundness” of birth control; lobby for the repeal of state and federal laws that impede the practice of birth control; establish branch organizations and birth control clinics in every U.S. state; and cooperate with similar organizations in other countries with the aim of alleviating international problems such as overpopulation, food shortages, and “national and racial conflicts.”

The ABCL also directed the activities of the Clinical Research Bureau, the first legal birth control clinic in the United States, which Sanger founded in 1923. In 1928 Sanger resigned her presidency (from 1921) of the ABCL and left the organization to assume full control of the clinic, which she dissociated from the ABCL and renamed the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau.

The ABCL’s efforts produced a significant change in 1936 when an appellate court judge liberalized the Comstock Act as it applied in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. The following year the American Medical Association (AMA) recognized birth control as an integral part of medical practice and education. In 1939 the ABCL rejoined the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau to form the Birth Control Federation of America. The latter organization became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942.

The official organ of the ABCL was The Birth Control Review, which Sanger founded in 1917 and edited until 1929. The journal ceased publication in 1940.