1920

Passage of French law prohibiting all sale, distribution, advertisement, or promotion of female contraceptives and birth control as well as stiffened penalties for abortion: “[Nelly] Roussel’s campaign for freedom of motherhood may have done more to frighten nervous senators into passing the 1920 law than it did to change public opinion.” Then again, few French women were “open to the new contraceptive methods intended for them even prior to the war” (Accampo, 255-256). In France, “the demographic transition [lower birth rates] occurred without a fundamental shift in gender relations with regard to sexual practices or mores. Coital control remained primarily in the bodies and minds of men; abortion remained the last resort of women, even long after female contraceptives became available, simply because it was psychologically less trying than contraception, despite its physical risk” (260).