It Happened Here: The First Birth Control Clinic in the Country
46 Amboy Street, Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY
Margaret Sanger opened the Brownsville Clinic in October 1916. Ten days later, a police raid shut it down, but not before the small staff served 400 low-income women. With the Comstock Laws in effect, distributing information about birth control was illegal. Sanger used her arrest and subsequent trial to her advantage, broadcasting information about birth control that wasnât easily accessible.
A 1918 ruling opened the door for legal birth control clinics, so long as doctors provided the contraceptives. That same year, the Womenâs Political Association of Harlem held a lecture series on birth control, the first of its kind.
Itâs been nearly a century since the Brownsville Clinic opened. I walked over to Amboy Street and the spot is all boarded up. Birth control today is safer and more effective. But still, thereâs so much stigma and the way weâre talking about it feels all wrong. Itâs hard to be a girl or a woman who wants to make responsible healthcare decisions, who wants to explore sex and do that safely.
At sixteen, I asked for birth control and  my doctor commended me for being so responsible. She asked thoughtful, non-shaming questions about my sexual history and gave me some information on STDs. I got a pat on the shoulder and a prescription; lots of teens get called sluts. The ease with which I was able to get birth control has a lot to do with my whiteness and my privilege.
When I needed emergency contraception, I didnât face pharmacists whoâd say, as so many do across the country, âwe sure donât carry that,â or âI donât know what that is,â or âwe stock it but I wonât dispense it.â Before it was available over the counter, my doctor wrote me a prescription, and I was able to buy it that same day.
 When Iâve written about abortion, the comment section explodes, mostly with a bunch of awful men calling women and girls awful things and suggesting that if theyâre too dumb to use birth control, getting pregnant is their own fault. Then the conservatives chime in, insisting that birth control is some newfangled thing thatâll lead to more teens having sex (the horror!), more people exploring sex before marriage, and the dissolution of American society as we know it. The average American woman had eight kids in 1800 and only four in 1900. How do you think that happened? Rudimentary or not, birth control and abortion have always been a part of American history.Â
Birth control isnât radical and it shouldnât be controversial. We need better sex ed, better birth control options, and better access. If, like me, you found birth control and information on sex easy to come by, educate yourself. You might be surprised to know that there are public schools here in New York where only honors students get to take sex ed. But itâs not enough to know about inequality, issues of access, and how todayâs discourse is often discriminatory. We have to work together for change. Â
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