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The Comstock Act of 1873, along with a series of state laws implemented soon after, made it illegal to distribute any materials deemed “obscene,” including birth control and educational material about contraception. States were outlawing abortion, which until then had been legal under some circumstances; by 1880, the procedure was mostly prohibited, except to save the life of the woman.
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Rebecca Traister (All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation)