Mary Dennett

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Mary Coffin Ware Dennett (April 4, 1872 – July 25, 1947) was an American birth control activist and pacifist. She formed the Voluntary Parenthood League and the group lobbied until 1926 for a bill that would exempt birth control information and materials from federal censorship laws.

In 1928 she was indicted under the Comstock law for distributing her pamphlet, The Sex Side of Life, which explained human reproduction to adolescents. In 1930 Judge Augustus Hand of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned her conviction, setting a legal precedent that took intent into account when evaluating obscenity. Dennett's trial was part of a series of rulings that culminated in the 1936 ruling in U.S. v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries, which exempted birth control information and materials from obscenity laws when utilized by physicians.

[edit] References

• Rosen, R. L. Dennett, Mary Coffin Ware. American National Biography Online, Feb. 2000.

[edit] External Links

Mary Ware Dennett Papers.Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.