User:FluffyTeaPancakes/Great Depression in the United States

Contraception during the Great Depression
Both birth control and abortion were illegal prior and during the Great Depression. With the economic downturn, more families turned towards birth control and abortion to help control family sizing, due to not being able to afford children.

In 1936, thousands of women in New Jersey had an abortion "insurance" with more being card-carrying members to a "Birth Control Club", which allowed them access to regular exams and abortions for a fee. This shows that compared to the past, women were expecting to have abortions, and were looking for ways to help lower the cost in the future. Maternal mortality rates rose during the depression, resulting from infections or hemorrhages of self-performed abortions, or methods that women used to try and control their reproduction. New York Academy of Medicine conducted a study and found that 12.8% of maternal deaths were due to septic abortion. With lower-class women attempting to self-abort due to their new poverty, preventing them from visiting a physician or a midwife to perform the abortion.

The Comstock Laws effectively prevented women from accessing or talking about contraception, until 1950 when it was repealed with the Griswold v. Connecticut case. Only a few states allowed physicians to provide information and contraception. Despite this, women and companies found ways around this law to receive and provide birth control. The most popular method was to hide the products, true intention behind coded language. Advertised and hidden behind themes of, “feminine hygiene products”, “protections”, “security”, and dependability”. In 1930 a legal verdict, allowed contraceptive companies to freely advertise their products, if the product's sole purpose wasn’t birth control. Companies that previously avoided the birth control market, capitalized this opportunity and the demand of birth control rapidly growing. Department stores became the the most popular place to receive female contraception, and these stores created departments where women could shop for contraception in privacy. When women were becoming wary of purchasing inside department stores, manufacturers switched to selling at their homes. In 1930, female contraceptives outnumbered condom sales five to one. By 1940, the market size was three times what it was in 1935.