Margaret Sanger; Wikimedia Commons

Anti-birth control laws originating in 1873 with the Comstock Act, had their first legal challenge with Margaret Sanger’s  arrest in 1916 for opening a birth control clinic. The 1918 Crane decision allowed women to use birth control for therapeutic purposes.

In 1936, Sanger challenged the law against the distribution of contraceptives in United States v. One Package. The court’s ruling in her case allowed physicians to distribute contraceptives across state lines.