Gail Collins Anthony Comstock and Margaret Sanger

Thank you Gail Collins, for bringing to my attention the stories of Anthony Comstock and Margaret Sanger.

This is one of those only in America stories which has got to make one feel proud or really weird about being an American.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the FDA's approval of the birth control pill, Gail Collins outlined the battle between these two nineteenth century figures who struggled for the soul and future of American womanhood.

It seems Anthony Comstock, having survived the Civil War as a soldier in a Union regiment, where he was daily offended by the profanity he heard around him in camp, and he devoted his post war life to stamping out smut, and he founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.

You cannot make this stuff up. He was our original Talibund, right here in the United States.

Being politically savvy, he realized he needed some clout, so he got himself appointed to be the guardian of everything handled by the United States Postal Service, which meant that if there had been a Playboy in those days, he could forbid it's transport by the postal service, but since there was no Playboy, he forbid transport of anatomy textbooks with all those lurid, soul destroying pictures of naked female bodies, which represented a profound threat to the moral fiber of future doctors of America.

His post also allowed him to carry a firearm, a cherished right under the Second Ammendment.

Margaret Sanger, a nurse, one of eleven children of a very Catholic mother, had had enough, and decided contraception would be a good idea, no matter what the Pope or Mr. Comstock thought, and she wrote advice to young women and advice to married women columns which, you guessed it, Mr. Comstock thought violated the 1873 law which bore his name.

Ms. Sanger had to flee the country and seek refuge in Europe where they did not have a First Ammendment, so she could be free to speak her mind about contraception. This actually did not turn out to be such a bad thing, because in Europe she heard about diaphragms which were actually more effective than trying to wash away sperm after the act. So, in a sense, we all owe to Comstock a more effective form of contraception, at least for his time.

As a medical student, I was seeking a position as an endocrine fellow and the head of the department of endocrinology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City asked me why I wanted to be an endocrinologist. Trying to be bright and socially relevant, I said that the endocrine researchers who had come up with the birth control pill had done more to change the world, more for liberation of women, and more to affect the lives of average citizens than all the politicians and social crusaders up to that point. This was 1972, and I thought I was saying the right thing, which turned out not to be true, apparently, because I didn't get the fellowship. I think the head of the department was looking for me to say somethign about how much I enjoyed working with chemicals in the laboratory and the social significance theme did not play well with her. She probably thought I was a suck up, which I was trying hard to be at the time, or she might have been looking for a test tube rattler, not some wild eyed hippie.

But, apart from the selfish motivations behind my little speach, I acutally believed it then, and I still do now.

People in government make policies. Preachers preach from the pulpit. Activists mobilize marchers. Stephen Speilberg makes movies which captivate people and he can even do projects like Shindler's List and Band of Brothers, which may change some attitudes.

But I recall the words from Jesus Christ Superstar where Jesus tells his advisors, "You have no idea what real power is." They've been urging him to use the power he has over the masses who come to hear him. They advise, "Throw in a little hate for Rome." They tell him, if he uses his power over the masses, he and his Christian disciples will have the power and the glory. And he says, "You have no idea what real power is."

And I agree with him.

Real power was the power to prevent polio. Real power was the power to allow women to choose when and with whom they would make babies.

No war, no change of borders on a map, no amount of money or attention ever changed life on earth for human beings as profoundly as what came out of the biology laboratories.