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[00:00:00] Carolyn: June 24th, 2022. That's the day that the Supreme Court handed down their decision overturning Roe v. Wade. And that was just the first domino in a long line. That domino tipped into others, and abortion restrictions and bans started passing around the country. It was infuriating. It was scary. And sometimes I felt like giving up hope.
But I realized that even in the darkest moments, there are always people doing work just outside the frame of the news stories we usually get. These are the ordinary people who fought to win us our rights in the first place. And many of them are still fighting to protect and expand our reproductive rights today.
We are telling their stories. Welcome to Extraordinary The Fight for Reproductive Justice. This podcast is all about looking to the past in order to energize our fight for the future. My hope is that each story we tell will be a little dose of anti despair, hopelessness busting, overwhelm ending medicine to remind us all that we have won before and we will win again.
I'm your host, Carolyn Silveira. This week I'm joined by producer Jennifer Bassett.
So JB, who are we? How did we get here? How did this podcast really come about?
[00:01:19] Jennifer: So I guess we've known each other for years and we used to be neighbors and we're both writers and work to the media and we're both mothers. And I was visiting you in Kingston, and you were telling me all about a book you read by Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark.
And this dark moment we're in and how it inspired you, and it really was super interesting.
[00:01:44] Carolyn: Yeah, I was feeling pretty depressed about the state of the world at that moment. But she basically says, That losing hope is silly. Look how far we've come. Look how often in the past the world has seemed hopeless, but it turned out not to be hopeless.
And after the 2016 election, this book I think became a little bit of a bestseller for people who are struggling. like me. And when COVID hit, it became even more important. And then the Dobbs v. Jackson decision came down from the Supreme Court, which overturned Roe v. Wade. And it had just happened. Yeah.
[00:02:25] Jennifer: It felt really personal for me at that exact moment, because during the pandemic, I had my own abortion. And then I published the essay too in HuffPost. And then I got so many stories and emails. It was It was incredible. Just regular people who, like all of us, were just feeling pretty hopeless and they just felt like they needed something hopeful.
[00:02:51] Carolyn: Rebecca Solnit says that we really need to tell each other the stories of our victories so that we can remember what's possible. I really wanted to take her up on that challenge and that's why we went looking for these stories. Stories of like our first story. Right, uh, Estelle Griswold. Yes. Exactly. She is a perfect example of an ordinary person who wound up doing an incredible thing.
You know, Estelle wasn't like Joan of Arc. She wasn't hearing voices from God. She didn't plan to dedicate her life to reproductive justice. But her life experiences led her to this moment in time where she had some opportunities to just be who she was and do what she was able to do. And she kind of changed the course of history.
And
[00:03:40] Jennifer: What's so cool about Estelle is that she kind of started out pretty average. She was born in Connecticut. She was smart, but she didn't do super well in school. She did have a beautiful singing voice though, so I guess that was one thing that kind of made her stand out and allowed for her this really interesting trajectory in her life.
Here's Estelle, in fact, in her own words, talking about her childhood from her archival records.
[00:04:05] Estelle Griswold: I was skipped the fourth grade, so I never learned to do fractions. And I was skipped the seventh grade, so I never learned to parse a sentence. I was thrown out of high school, I don't know how many times, because I got the boys to play hooky with me.
I was really not on the wrong side of the railroad tracks, but they were, they were The children of professional people and they entertained and so forth and for some reason or other I was part of that gang. So, I was very upset when they all went to college. There was no money and there was no interest.
[00:04:39] Carolyn: So instead
of going to college, she studies singing in Hartford and then takes off for Paris.
[00:04:46] Estelle Griswold: Well, I landed in Paris with 50 in my pocket and I had to get a job right away. I've never been outside of Hartford, Connecticut. This was in 1922. 22. And women did not work in France at that time, but I got a carte d'identité and I got a carte de travail.
And I immediately got a job singing in the American Cathedral in Paris. Did you really? Right. And also, I got a job and I bluffed as a certified public accountant and I didn't even know what it was. But I learned the language, not beautifully, I may say. I can swear in French with the best taxi driver there is.
[00:05:35] Carolyn: But then, Estelle contracted tuberculosis in Paris and was hospitalized. Her mother was concerned and wanted her to come home. But instead, after leaving the hospital, she pursued more exciting adventures in France. But then her mom also became ill, and she came home. Back in the US, she pursued music, touring in Chicago where she met her husband.
But Paris continued to call. She ended up back home again when her husband got sick, and she was feeling very lost. And that's when something interesting happens. She gets strep throat. And then the doctor invites her to help out in his laboratory. Here's what Estelle said about that turning point in her life.
[00:06:12] Estelle Griswold: And then I felt, well, I'm making him a lot of money, but I'm not making any. So I thought, it's time to go to school. And that's when I applied to go to George Washington University. And so I took that job. I took my courses and took my pre med and within two months I was an instructor in physiology. Then I decided to go on and become a medical technician.
I see. And, um, I continued taking courses in the medical school just to, because it interested me, bacteriology and so forth. But my chief field was training also other technicians.
[00:06:53] Carolyn: Her students loved her. They called her Mama. But at the start of World War II, her husband enlisted. He worked in intelligence in the Navy.
And even though Germany had already surrendered by the time he was being sent to Europe, Estelle wanted to go with him.
[00:07:08] Jennifer: Estelle tried to get a job with the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, but they wouldn't take her. She didn't really have any qualifications. So she started volunteering for the Red Cross instead.
[00:07:20] Carolyn: Eventually, Estelle did end up working for the UN, where she snuck people over borders.
[00:07:25] Estelle Griswold: And there was no food, and the ship was supposed to have left for Marseille. And then, in the middle of the train, no ship. So, it was going to go from Genoa. But I had no transit visas for 400 people. Including a couple with 40 pet pigeons.
Well, I saw the pigeons later in the Argentine. They performed for me in the circus.
[00:07:49] Carolyn: And, of course, she gets into trouble with Eva Peron. Cause that's the kind of life Estelle has. But then she went back into teaching. In the 1950s, she was teaching a class that she called Human Relations. It was basically anti prejudice work.
But she wasn't getting paid, and it was around that time that she first learned about Planned Parenthood.
[00:08:09] Estelle Griswold: We were living on Trumbull Street. Planned Parenthood had moved their office from Hartford. But one day, the girl who was sort of holding down the office called out the window, she said, How would you like to be director of Planned Parenthood?
[00:08:25] Carolyn: This offer from Planned Parenthood came in 1954. And at the time, Estelle was pretty well known for her teaching and UN Red Cross efforts. They offered her a good salary, and she was desperate for a job because her husband was sick. So she took it, despite not even knowing what a diaphragm was.
[00:08:42] Estelle Griswold: I said, what are they talking about?
What are these diaphragms? Well, there's one right in your desk. I'd never seen a diaphragm in my life. Because it's something you just don't talk about, and you didn't call it birth control then. It was family planning. The name birth control gave people a very uncomfortable feeling.
[00:08:59] Carolyn: And there's a painful irony to all of this, because she very much wanted to have children and never could.
We'll continue our story right after this quick break.
Hi there, it's Carolyn. I want to tell you about another podcast I'm listening to that I think you'll really enjoy. The podcast is called Climate One. It's hosted by Greg Dalton and Arianna Brocious, two journalists who have been covering climate for years. Each week, they talk with experts and activists, politicians and artists who are shaping the way our world responds to climate change.
These are really smart, inspiring conversations that cover all aspects of climate change. From cutting edge climate solutions like geothermal energy to more emotional subjects like our relationship and response to wildfire season. If you'd like to start at the intersection of environmental and reproductive justice, I definitely recommend Ariana's interview with Rebecca Solnit from January of this year.
New Climate One episodes drop every week. Look for them on Fridays on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And we're back with Extraordinary The Fight for Reproductive Justice.
In case you're listening to this right now and your mind is swimming with questions like Planned Parenthood existed in the 50s?
Wait, when did the pill get invented? Let's do a quick history review. A hundred years prior, in the 1800s, there were tons of laws designed to outlaw Immorality and obscenity. Most notably, there was the Comstock Act of 1873. Comstock was a guy who lobbied Congress on behalf of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.
But in effect, these laws outlawed all kinds of stuff, including contraception, which by the 1950s, when Estelle joined Planned Parenthood, was something women were discussing more actively. Here's Professor Martha J. Bailey, an economist at UCLA, to explain.
[00:11:03] Martha J Bailey: So the interesting thing about these Comstock laws that were on the books is that they were anti obscenity statutes that dated back to the late 19th century, early 20th century, and they were on the books and they regulated obscenities of which, you know, contraception was included. And states had all sorts of different types of laws. So some states just banned advertising of obscenities, which would have banned the advertising of contraception. Other states banned the sale of contraception, and some states banned the sale of contraception, but had exceptions for people like physicians and pharmacists.
So when the birth control pill is approved as a contraceptive, there are all of these different laws on the books that mean it is differently available in different states.
[00:11:47] Jennifer: And we have Phineas Taylor Barnum, as in Barnum and Bailey Circus, to thank for that. What? Yeah. He was in the Connecticut Legislature, and Connecticut's laws were unique at the time for actually banning the use of contraception, not just talking about it or selling it.
So back to Estelle's story. The Connecticut Planned Parenthood just really needed someone to run it, and Estelle was right there. Literally. A middle aged, married, white woman in a conservative skirt suit. So they kind of drag her in, and she's like, I guess I do need a job, and then she gets the job and realizes the place is kind of a mess, and she doesn't think they're offering enough services.
Or raising enough money. So Estelle came up with an idea that offered local women some immediate help and would bring plenty of attention to Planned Parenthood. In other words, a smart fundraising strategy. Planned Parenthood started organizing little road trips of women to go to clinics in New York and Rhode Island for birth control.
To get diaphragms.
[00:12:51] Estelle Griswold: Well, I had to talk, talk with the members of the board and some lawyers. And they said, but this is illegal. We were aiding, abetting, assisting, and counseling. I said, so what? You're not going to put a gynecological table at the Greenwich Toll Station and examine it, and even if she is wearing a diaphragm, what can you prove?
They got
[00:13:13] Carolyn: away with
[00:13:13] Estelle Griswold: it.
[00:13:13] Carolyn: I bet her experience smuggling people over borders in Europe must have helped. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood continued to make legislative efforts to change the law, but they were stalled. The Catholic Church and culture in Connecticut made for a formidable opponent. But then two important things happened that really changed the game for Estelle.
First, let's talk about the pill. It had already been available in the mid 1950s, but it was only approved for regulating menstruation. Over 75 percent of Americans agreed that birth control should be available. But the FDA would only approve it as a contraceptive in 1960. That is six years after Estelle joined Planned Parenthood.
Here's Martha Bailey again.
[00:13:58] Martha J Bailey: So it's just really hard to imagine today how stark the choices were for people in the 1960s. So both for men and women, they were using diaphragms, condoms, withdrawal, abstinence, anything they could to limit childbearing. And when the pill was introduced, the company, Serl, that was distributing it, was flooded with letters from women begging for this new, for this new drug.
[00:14:22] Carolyn: So Estelle decided it was time to up the ante, and she connected with a Yale law professor named Fowler Harper and a Yale medical school doctor, Dr. Buxton. A little after, another civil rights lawyer, a woman named Catherine Roraback, joins the team. Together, they brought the lawsuit on behalf of Paul and Pauline Poe, a young couple that gave birth to three kids that had all died of medical complications shortly after their birth.
Buxton stated to the court that the couple needed contraception to prevent further physical and mental deterioration, that the issue was genetic and could potentially recur. However, the state courts upheld the Connecticut statute. And then Rohrabach appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court accepted their case, but then upheld the Connecticut statute.
Their official opinion was Nobody who used contraception ever got arrested, so why bother worrying about the issue at all? But the subtext was that the court didn't really think this case was about the patients. It took
[00:15:27] Estelle Griswold: almost three years before it got to the Supreme Court of the United States, and it was thrown out.
Supreme Court Justice Brennan was very nice. He said, well, all this is is just because Planned Parenthood wants to open up centers. Well, it seemed to me that that was the thing then we should do. And that's just what they did. There was less and less objection and vitriolic statements made in the legislature.
We were educating them. So the very next day, after that decision, I said, well, let's do what they want. Let's open up. Maybe we'll fight feathers, but maybe we'll get where we
[00:16:07] Carolyn: want. So picture this. It's 1961 and Estelle and her team set up a little office with two examining rooms, wrote up press releases to set nationwide, and held a press conference.
Basically, they illegally opened a clinic for the express purpose of offering birth control. It only takes a few days for the police to show up. Though that seemed like a very long time to one James Morris, a man who was absolutely losing his mind over this Planned Parenthood clinic. According to a book about the history, he called the state police, the New Haven police, the mayor, and a prosecutor's office.
In a matter of a few days. He said it was a house of prostitution and that Quote, every moment the clinic stays open, another child is not born. The room was filled one day with patients,
[00:17:00] Estelle Griswold: and I had been in explaining the various methods of contraception and what it would mean so that they could have their preference and how they were motivated and so forth.
One of the little girls rushed into me, the police are here. And of course I said, hooray. And as I went through the waiting room, where the women were waiting, there was this most wonderful woman, and she said, hmm, the Bible says, for the tree to bear fruit, but I says not so much fruit that it breaks the branches.
So I went into my office and there were two policemen. One of the policemen apparently had been in the policeman's ball the night before. He was not very happy. So They started to talk to me, and I thought, well it might be kind of fun, it was rather mean. But I used every medical terminology that I knew, because he was trying to take it down in writing, and they were lost.
[00:18:01] Carolyn: Those guys were only there to investigate, so they leave, and she sends them off with a goodie bag full of evidence. Contraceptives, and pamphlets talking about contraceptives. She and Dr. Buxton were then notified by their lawyers that they would need to be presenting themselves down at the police station.
[00:18:17] Estelle Griswold: We went to the police station and we had marvelous publicity because all the boys that I knew in TV and radio were all there. And they were giving us a real. And so we had to go in and have our fingerprints taken. I took the arm of one of the policemen. And I said, well, this is fun. And the TV cameras were up above me.
I said, oh my lord heavens, this will look like collusion. But he was just so upset. Then it was to be tried in the circuit court, which is our lowest court. And this was all arranged by the group. That they would be there en masse and that the minute I walked in, they would stand up, you know, with respect.
And when I was called before the judge and he said, guilty or not guilty, of course, I blasted my voice, not guilty. And Dr. Buxton the same.
[00:19:09] Carolyn: But they were found guilty and they appealed. It went to the Superior Court. Guilty again. Then it went to the Connecticut Supreme Court. And then it was appealed to THE Supreme Court in the famous case you may well have heard of recently called Griswold v.
Connecticut.
[00:19:27] Court Speaker: Number 496 Estelle T. Griswold et al. Appellants versus Connecticut. The procedure was that when a married woman came to the center She was interviewed, her case history was taken, and various forms of contraception were explained to her.
[00:19:51] Carolyn: Just a side note that we haven't talked about this particular detail yet, that the case only revolved around married couples rights to privacy, rather than any other moral or legal argument about bodily autonomy or healthcare or equal rights.
Their focus was on married couples because nobody who wasn't married was really supposed to be having sex anyway. So step one was to first win the fight for married women's right to use contraception. For now it would be about a couple's right to privacy, not about a woman's choice.
[00:20:24] Court Speaker: Professor Emerson, how was the determination made that she was a married woman?
I do not know, your honor, except that in, in asking questions and taking the case history, I assume that was accepted if she said she was married, but I, I'm not sure what the arrangements for that was. There's no question in the case, but that the center functioned only for the purpose of helping married women.
[00:20:48] Carolyn: And Estelle famously wins a case with the help of her colleagues. Here's Martha Bailey again.
[00:20:54] Martha J Bailey: So, in that case, the Supreme Court upholds marital right to privacy, but also within that, the right to use birth control. Now, that didn't mean that all of these other Anti obscenity statutes, banning advertising or sales, were illegal or struck down.
But in the aftermath of that decision, almost every state went on to eliminate its anti obscenity statutes and the mention of contraception by around 1970, 1971.
[00:21:21] Carolyn: And the case became famous for this idea of penumbras. The idea that even if the Constitution doesn't say you have a right to privacy, the amendments in the Bill of Rights really do create or show that we have a right to privacy.
And yet, of the two justices who disagreed with that interpretation, one of them still made clear that he thought the Connecticut law was, in his own words, uncommonly silly. And after that win, Estelle got back to work. Here's Estelle again.
[00:21:50] Estelle Griswold: We bought the place at 4 0 6 Orange Street and it was remodeled into a really fine clinic with all the room we needed as waiting room, nurses room, store rooms, and I bought the materials and we were set up and ready to go.
[00:22:08] Carolyn: And the women of America lived happily ever after and not really. The fight was far from over.
[00:22:16] Estelle Griswold: There was an unfortunate attitude by many members of the board saying, well, as soon as the law is changed, we can just dissolve Planned Parenthood because the hospitals won't take care of it. But I tried to explain that hospitals are insurgents.
Institutions and public health institutions do not have the time to take this personal interest in a patient in this very personal type of service. And as a matter of fact, Planned Parenthood is more needed today than it was even before.
[00:22:52] Carolyn: And in just a few short years after Griswold v Connecticut. The court would go on to create the right to an abortion through its ruling in Roe v.
Wade. Estelle's efforts really have two legacies. The first is her legal legacy. Even though the Griswold v. Connecticut ruling was only applicable to married women, it was really the bedrock of the idea that what you did in your bedroom was your business and yours alone. Later in 1972, that right to privacy was also granted to all the single ladies.
In another Supreme Court case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, Estelle's case was cited again in support of Roe v. Wade the very next year, 1973, and the right to privacy was affirmed again in a case in 1977 about teenagers having access to contraceptives. Justices on the Supreme Court also referred to Griswold in the 2003 case that finally overturned Texas law.
Anti sodomy laws and the legalization of same sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. In darker news, Justice Clarence Thomas also mentioned Griswold in his opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson. You probably recall that that Supreme Court case just overturned Roe v. Wade. He said that in future cases, the court should reconsider all of its substantive due process precedents.
That means Griswold, that means Lawrence, that means the Texas case, and that means Obergefell and marriage equality. But the second legacy of the case, and one that I think may not get recognized as often, is the material impact Griswold v. Connecticut made on people's lives. This is something that economists like Martha J.
Bailey have studied. There was a five year period of time after the birth control pill was created, and before Griswold. where it was available to women or not available to women based on the laws of the state. And what economists have learned from that five year data is that accidental pregnancies went way down in states where they had access to birth control, and families financial circumstances went way up.
Here's Martha J. Bailey again.
[00:25:00] Martha J Bailey: We also found that children who are being, uh, who were born in states Um, um, where the birth control was legal tended to be much better off on average than children that were being born in states, um, where this was banned and that those, again, those gaps, those differences between states really reverse in the aftermath of, uh, for children born in the aftermath of the Griswold decision.
So the children that grew up in those better circumstances who were the product of parents more deliberate decisions about when, And with whom to have children went on to complete more education and were significantly more likely to be employed. So, so those are the sort of the implications of the Griswold decision that didn't just happen and play out in the 1960s and 70s that we see still playing out today.
And when parents were able to make those choices, it turns out that their kids really benefited from more time with their parents, from higher incomes, um, and from better opportunities that came for both reasons. And so. Those children that were born, sort of the, the, the product of the Griswold decision isn't just a change in contraceptive access that played out in the 1960s, but it's really on the lives and the livelihoods of those kids that are still alive today.
The effects of those small changes have these ripple effects that stretch across generations.
[00:26:15] Carolyn: And there's one more piece of our conversation with Professor Bailey that we both think is also worth sharing. It's the legacy of contraception. The ability to control procreation. And it's impact on women's experiences and the experiences of all birthing people.
And their ideas about their own lives.
[00:26:32] Martha J Bailey: So, the thing I think that's really easy to forget Is that, um, being married in a serious relationship in the 1960s meant that pregnancy was inevitable. And that meant that women and men had to plan their lives around it. For women, getting married or pregnant meant that You would be dismissed from your job, because employers really expected you to quit anyway and we didn't have any anti discrimination laws on the books until much later.
And for men, that meant that you were going to be a breadwinner for life, and these were roles that people accepted and had to live with. And so the women in the 60s were kind of choosing between two different loves. Like a romantic love for a partner, and also the passion for their jobs, their educations.
And it was pretty rare to have both. So, modern contraception really changed all of that. And I think for the first time in human history, being sexually active didn't come with a risk of imminent motherhood or parenthood. Women got to choose whether and when to become parents, and this decision was separate from the decision to have sex.
And knowing they could choose meant that they decided to finish their degrees. pursue their passions, maybe not marry their high school or college sweetheart, they kind of went on, made different choices. Today's discussion around whether or not women should lean in or opt out, how long to wait to have kids, under what terms, how this should work, These are really modern discussions and decisions we actually take for granted that we have the choice at all.
And I think that decisions like the Griswold decision really made some of these choices possible. So we haven't always had these choices, but we have modern contraception now and the legal foundation of Griswold to think for a lot of them.
[00:28:05] Carolyn: And that is the important legacy that this amazing woman left behind.
Something I think we can agree impacts us all every day. It all goes to show that a little bravery goes a long way. Next week in episode two, we're going to meet another amazing person, Jane. Or, is it Catherine? Who is she? Well, more like, who were they?
Our podcast is produced and hosted by me, Carolyn Silvera, and Jennifer Bassett. Katrina Zemreck composed our theme music, and the episode was mixed by Max Liebman. Mauricio Diaz designed our cover art. You can find resources and links from this episode in the show notes at The Extraordinary Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, leaving your rating and review of our podcast on Apple, Spotify, whatever it is, is an excellent token of appreciation.
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Hi, it's me, Carolyn, again, just here with a little postscript for you. I wanted to include a note about the phrase reproductive justice. That term was created in 1994 by a collective of Black women in order to widen our political framework from simply talking about the right to an abortion on paper or the right to birth control, but to a broader set of issues that come into play and affect our reproductive and parenting lives.
Like childcare, having clean air and water, education, policing, et cetera. We'll be hearing the voices of women in the reproductive justice movement as our episodes move us toward the present day. But I wanted to acknowledge the source of that thinking and that framework from the very beginning. Okay, thanks for listening, and until our next episode.
Transcript for Episode 1: Estelle Griswold