The Voluntary Parenthood League (VPL) was founded in 1919 by Mary Ware Dennett after her resignation from the National Birth Control League. In many ways the VPL served as the organizational base for Dennett’s ideas on birth control, despite that others often held more prestigious titles. With the VPL, the focus on removing birth control from obscenity statutes was at the federal level.
The VPL based its legislative program on the right to free speech. They argued that the men and women of the United States were being denied access to vital information by Section 211 of the U.S. Criminal Code (known as the Comstock Act). This law lumped contraception with abortion and obscene writings and devices, forbidding their distribution through the mails. The VPL argued that the ban limited the availability and quality of information and that the ban was outdated. Their proposed amendment was simple—the removal of the words “prevention of conception” from the list of obscene materials.
Finding a sponsor for their bill proved to be difficult. From 1919 to 1921 Dennett met with legislators in Washington, finding them “coarse, ignorant and impatient.” Many feared any issue that bore the taint of immorality or controversy, and others feared opposition from Catholic constituencies. Dennett’s tactics did not endear her to the medical profession. She decried attempts to exempt physicians from the obscenity ban because the result would be a creation of a medical monopoly on contraceptive information. In 1920, the New York Academy of Medicine refused her support, in part because the VPL’s bill would intrude on what they felt was their professional territory.
After 1921, the VPL faced a rival birth control organization, the American Birth Control League, organized by Margaret Sanger. Though Sanger promised to leave the field of federal legislation to the VPL, her group supported “doctors only” legislation, and by 1925 began their own federal lobbying campaign. This competition split the already weak support for birth control on Capitol Hill.
In 1922 Dennett tried a different tactic and sought the aid of the liberal postmaster, William Hays, who was considering a major overhaul of postal codes. After months of lobbying, Dennett’s plans were dashed when Hays resigned his post. The new postmaster, Dr. Hubert Work, opposed any loosening of the laws on birth control.
Forced back to Congress to seek a sponsor for the VPL’s “open” bill, Dennett secured Senator Albert Cummins of Iowa and Representative John Kissel of New York. On January 10, 1923 they introduced the Cummins-Kissel Bill, but it was never debated because of an overcrowded calendar. Before the next session of Congress was convened, Kissel had been defeated for reelection and Dennett was forced to search for another sponsor. She found Representative William Vaile of Colorado and on April 8, 1924 the Cummins-Vaile Bill was introduced to Congress. It was the first birth control bill to reach debate. In the Judiciary Subcommittee hearings held on the bill, Reverend John Ryan of the National Catholic Welfare Council and other opponents attacked the bill vigorously, and when the bill was finally reported out of the committee in January 1925, the committee had declined to recommend it to the full Congress. Despite intense pressure put on congressmen by Dennett to vote on the bill, Congress failed to vote before the end of the legislative session in March 1925.The Cummins-Vaile bill was dead.
Dennett’s failure cost the VPL dearly. Both congressmen and some VPL officers disagreed with Dennett’s aggressive tactics and her insistence that the bill was not about birth control per se, but free speech. Worn out by the work, Dennett resigned from her position as executive director. Her salary was in arrears and there was every indication that Sanger’s better-funded American Birth Control League was about to enter the legislative fray. Dennett’s position was not replaced and the VPL never mounted another lobbying campaign. Instead they focused on promoting Dennett’s Birth Control Laws (1926), which outlined their views on the legal status of birth control and attacked not only the position of birth control opponents, but also the supporters of the “doctors only” legislation.
By 1927, the VPL was essentially moribund, but its officers were unwilling to disband it and leave the federal field to Margaret Sanger. They maintained a correspondence address and a voluntary staff that responded to inquires on birth control. As time went by, they grew less and less active. When queried, as late as 1940, officers claimed that the VPL had shifted its focus and now worked to educate influential leaders in the hopes of changing attitudes about birth control. The archives of the Voluntary Parenthood League form part of Mary Ware Dennett’s papers, held at the Schlesinger Library, Harvard University, and available on microfilm.
