Word: laws
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...bills legalizing birth control for married women were defeated in the Massachusetts legislature. The organization subsequently abandoned attempts to change the law but decided to use the right of free speech to educate people about the importance of family planning. In 1945 it changed its name to the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts...
...Massachusetts' current law on abortion is potentially one of the most liberal in the United States. Sections 19 and 21 of Chapter 272 of the General Laws impose a criminal penalty on anyone who "unlawfully" uses instruments, etc., with intention to procure an abortion or who "sells, lends, gives away, etc. . . . any instrument for the prevention of conception or for causing unlawful abortion...
...Marianne pointed out, as did everyone I talked to the inequities of abortion practices. "One of the real problems with the law is that it punishes the young, unmarried, and relatively stable girls. If a girl doesn't have any obvious mental problems, isn't a heavy drug user and is not considering suicide, she has a harder time getting an abortion than if she had been seeing a psychiatrist for three years...
...doctors to prescribe contraceptives for unmarried women, and illegal for druggists to fill these prescriptions. Many physicians circumvent this problem by inventing a medical excuse for prescribing the pill or by assuming that all of their patients are married. But only warped logic could fail to see that law restricting contraceptive distribution (especially in a state where abortion is viewed conservatively) forces women into the hands of underground abortionists...
...Implicit behind abortion and birth control laws is society's fear and moral condemnation of "sexual promiscuity." The moral code implied by the laws is clear. Unmarried women are not supposed to engage in sexual inter-course. Women who cannot afford or are uninformed about birth control should not sleep with their husbands if they want to avoid having children. Any violator of the code is on her own. outside the protection of the law. If she dies in the hands of a quack, it's too bad but it's her fault. She has to suffer for her wrongdoing...