American Birth Control League

The American Birth Control League (ABCL) was an organization founded in 1921 by Margaret Sanger to promote the ideas of birth control.[1] The League consisted of other similar organizations, such as the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (BCCRB) and the Clinical Research Bureau (CRB).[2]

## Early leaders[edit]

Among the prominent early leaders of the ABCL were Katharine Hepburn, Lothrop Stoddard, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Sanger herself.[3] Stoddard, a prominent leader among eugenists, was a close personal friend of Sanger.[4][5][6]

Several notable people were in leadership positions of the ABCL, many of who were staunch believers in eugenics, such as C. C. Little, Board of Directors for the ABCL[7] and President of the American Eugenics Society;[8] Adolf Meyer, Advisory Board of the ABCL[9] and member of the Eugenic American Breeders Association;[10] Harry H. Laughlin, Board of Directors for the ABCL[11] and Director of the Eugenics Record Office; Edward Murray East, Advisory Board of the ABCL[12] and author of the 1927 eugenic work Heredity and Human Affairs; Raymond Pearl, Advisory Board of the ABCL[13] \- Pearl later repudiated his earlier eugenic views.[14][15]

## References[edit]

1. ↑ Social Issues in America: An Encyclopedia
2. ↑ Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
3. ↑ American Birth Control League
4. ↑ A Patriot's History of the Modern World, Vol. I: From America's Exceptional Ascent to the Atomic Bomb: 1898-1945
5. ↑ The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective: The Birth Control Classic
6. ↑ What Ben Carson Knows about Planned Parenthood, National Review
7. ↑ American Birth Control League
8. ↑ Op-Ed: Questioning C.C. Little's legacy
9. ↑ American Birth Control League
10. ↑ Keeping America Sane - Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States and Canada, 1880–1940
11. ↑ Eugenics part of Sanger legacy
12. ↑ Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau
13. ↑ American Birth Control League
14. ↑ Note: Pearl's eugenic views overlapped during his time as an ABCL advisor.
15. ↑ Raymond Pearl