Coat Hangers & Knitting Needles

 

 The Accidental Crusader

 It removed the government from women’s wombs. Having a child or not having a child depended on the woman herself. No longer did she have to worry about having the resources financially, physically, emotionally. She didn’t have to worry about losing a job or giving up her education. She didn’t have to forego pleasure in the bedroom to guarantee she wouldn’t get pregnant. And mostly she didn’t have to worry that she might have to seek an abortion no matter how dangerous. 

Estelle Naomi Trebert Griswold’s (1900–1981) work made it possible for married couples to seek and receive birth control information legally. It is difficult to imagine now that a married couple was not able to get information on how to control the size of their families.

Griswold’s childhood in Hartford, Connecticut was unexceptional. Her father was a toolmaker who believed in educating his two surviving children in Native American customs. Despite the unhappiness of her parents’ marriage, they never divorced. Whether it was because of their Roman Catholic faith is unknown. Griswold’s later fight for birth control was contrary to the tenets of the religion.

A smart child, she was promoted to fourth grade from second and from fifth to seventh. Despite her early academic success, her studies were hampered by frequently skipping class. She encouraged others to go with her. Still, she graduated in 1920. 

Music, Not Crusading, Her First Love 

Although she wanted to continuing studying, Estelle lacked the money. Music caught her interest and she paid for classes at the Hartt School of Music, the performing conservatory for the University of Connecticut, by working in a bank. She had a good contralto-soprano voice.

Despite disapproval from both parents, she moved to Paris in 1922 to continue her music studies. A case of tuberculosis made it difficult for her to fulfill her dreams.

Her return to the U.S. was triggered by her mother’s serious illness. When both parents died, she remained in Hartford where she tried to continue with her singing career with limited success.

In 1927 she married Richard Whitmore Griswold (1898-1966). They lived in New York and later moved to Washington D.C. It was in D.C. that Estelle Griswold changed careers. She began studying medicine at George Washington University and later was a medical instructor at the university.

When her husband, who was then employed by the Office of Public Affairs, was sent to Europe in 1945, Griswold followed him.

Discovering Population Issues

Never idle, she worked with the United National Relief and Rehabilitation Agency. The extreme poverty among the refugees touched her. At the same time, she witnessed overpopulation, caused in part by lack of birth control.

When they returned to Connecticut, this time in New Haven, Griswold volunteered at the Human Relations Council where she became executive secretary. She also funded the infertility program and marital counseling program at Yale.

She learned of Planned Parenthood activities because she lived next to their New Haven offices.

Planned Parenthood wanted to change the 1879 law forbidding contraception in Connecticut. Called the Barnum Act, after sponsor P.T. Barnum, who in addition to his successful circus businesses served four terms in the state legislature, it was considered one of the most restrictive laws in the U.S. with birth control users subject to arrest and imprisonment. Although many doctors ignored the law, the group wanted to get the law off the books.

Griswold had doubts about her participation; she needed a job. Her husband had developed emphysema and could no longer work full time. Her hesitancy was her lack of knowledge about birth control. She could not have children and thus had not used any birth control methods. She began work in 1954 with the title Executive Director of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut.

Part of her responsibility was to organize “border runs,” which took women seeking birth control to neighboring states.

Later, it would be the same for people who could afford to travel to change states or countries to get an abortion. 

Going to Court

Connecticut denied the legal use of oral contraception, despite the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approving it as safe. Two people decided to challenge it: Estelle Griswold and C. Lee Buxton. Dr. Buxton, a graduate of Princeton and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, became Chair of the Yale Medical School Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1953. He would not accept that under the law he could not legally prescribe contraception methods. He participated in legislative challenges in 1957. He and Yale Law School Professor

Fowler Harper and Lawyer Katie Roraback filed five cases challenging the law:

        Buxton v. Ullman

        Hoe v. Ullman

        Doe v. Ullman

        Poe v. Ullman

In each case the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the law banning contraception. An appeal for Poe v. Ullman was also unsuccessful.

Griswold and Buxton opened a clinic. Women came to them for birth control advice, but there were protestors outside saying using birth control was immoral. On 9 November 1961 Griswold and Buxton were arrested, convicted and fined $100 each. The clinic was closed.

The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the sentence in April 1964.

Buxton and Griswold appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was accepted, although two earlier challenges had been rejected by the court. Originally it was known as the Buxton Case, but when it went to the highest court in the United States it became Griswold v. Connecticut.

Griswold and Buxton won, 7 to 2. The Barnum Act was unconstitutional because it infringed on marital privacy, the same privacy argument that would be used in Roe v. Wade.

It removed the government from women’s wombs. Having a child or not having a child depended on the woman herself. No longer did she have to worry about having the resources financially, physically, emotionally. She didn’t have to worry about losing a job or giving up her education. She didn’t have to forego pleasure in the bedroom to guarantee she wouldn’t get pregnant. And mostly she didn’t have to worry that she might have to seek an abortion no matter how dangerous.

Life was safer for married women. It would take a while longer for unmarried women. 

Griswold was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Women%27s_Hall_of_Fame in 1994.