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Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of iHeartRadio and

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Speaker 1: Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Reverend Sylvester Graham had

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Speaker 1: a unique perspective on sexual behavior. A. Graham claimed that

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Speaker 1: promiscuity had a lot to do with a person's diet.

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Speaker 1: While his belief may seem like a stretch, in the

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Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds, medicine had barely advanced past bleeding patients

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Speaker 1: to remove whatever ailed them. A Graham connected diet and sex.

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Speaker 1: While recovering from a long term illness in eighteen twenty six,

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Speaker 1: he spent considerable time thinking about a moral behavior and

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Speaker 1: its root causes. Although ideals of abstinence before marriage were

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Speaker 1: nothing new to his peers, A Graham noticed changes in

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Speaker 1: the American diet and in people's opinions about sex, and

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Speaker 1: he believed the two were connected. Graham began to preach

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Speaker 1: that a diet filled with fats, meats, and refined flour

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Speaker 1: took a toll on one's body and soul, that those

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Speaker 1: who ate these foods were often prone to many illnesses

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Speaker 1: and were generally more unhealthy. He reasoned that the more

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Speaker 1: immoral someone was, the more the body suffered. He and

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Speaker 1: others thought sex should be used for procreation and nothing

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Speaker 1: more so in the eyes of the church. An orgasm

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Speaker 1: was required from men during sex, but not women, and

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Speaker 1: that was part of the problem. Women were beginning to

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Speaker 1: stand up for their own points of view. Graham's over

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Speaker 1: zealous preaching incited an angry mob of women to violence

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Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty four when he tried lecturing them on chastity,

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Speaker 1: a concept they felt they had a fine grip on

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Speaker 1: all on their own, thank you very much. Worried that

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Speaker 1: sexual activity was rampant and harmful, he even urged married

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Speaker 1: couples to cut down on sex. To help curb the urge,

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Speaker 1: Graham suggested a diet high end fiber, fruit, vegetables, and

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Speaker 1: whole grains. Meat should only be eaten in small proportions

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Speaker 1: and no more than twice a day. His statements angered butchers,

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Speaker 1: who made their living on americans growing meat consumption. He

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Speaker 1: began styling himself as Doctor Graham, and he insisted that

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Speaker 1: smoking and drinking should also be avoided. A food should

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Speaker 1: be bland, no spices to wake any desires, not even pepper.

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Speaker 1: Food shouldn't even be physically warm. The more stimulating the food,

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Speaker 1: the higher the sexual appetite. In addition to diet, he

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Speaker 1: preached that drinking clean water, getting plenty of sunshine, exercising,

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Speaker 1: keeping up personal hygiene, and wearing comfortable clothing also reduced

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Speaker 1: carnal cravings. Given the changes in people's diets and women's rights,

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Speaker 1: Graham concluded that men could no longer control their urges.

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Speaker 1: To save them from sin and ill health, he devised

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Speaker 1: a coarse ground, wholewheat flower to promote well being and

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Speaker 1: control those urges. Stores began carrying Graham's flower. Devotees wrote

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Speaker 1: to Gram, thanking him for curing a wide range of

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Speaker 1: physical and mental health issues. Some all male boarding houses

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Speaker 1: began enforcing his hygiene and exercise regime and served the

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Speaker 1: men crackers made with Graham's flour. They contained no sugar

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Speaker 1: or fat and were usually softened by soaking or boiling

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Speaker 1: to make them more edible. In eighteen thirty eight, Oberlin

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Speaker 1: College incorporated the flour into their meal planning. While Americans

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Speaker 1: might have become healthier due to a better diet and

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Speaker 1: more exercise, it did little to make people abstain from sex.

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Speaker 1: So Graham doubled down on his efforts, which proved too

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Speaker 1: much for even his most devoted followers. Graham might have

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Speaker 1: faded from the public eye, but his crackers grew in popularity,

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Speaker 1: though the formula changed over the years, incorporating refined flour, sugar,

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Speaker 1: and fats. Today Graham crackers come in varieties like honey

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Speaker 1: and cinnamon, flavors that might have the Reverend spinning in

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Speaker 1: his grave. I'm Lauren Bogelbaum. Welcome to American Shadows. Sylvester

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Speaker 1: Graham was hardly alone in having stringent views of morality.

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Speaker 1: Ideas of what is moral and what is not have

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Speaker 1: long been debated, especially when it comes to sex. And

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Speaker 1: while our history books are full of interesting events, we

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Speaker 1: rarely hear about those where sex is at the forefront.

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Speaker 1: At the start of World War One, the United States

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Speaker 1: had a problem. Aside from a lack of available men

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Speaker 1: to fight in the war, forcing the government to implement

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Speaker 1: a military draft, a large number of soldiers had a

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Speaker 1: reputation for excessive drinking and promiscuity, and while rampant alcohol

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Speaker 1: consumption did present an issue in health and combat, it

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Speaker 1: was these sexual exploits and notoriety for sexually transmitted infections

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Speaker 1: or STIs that concerned the government. STIs became such an

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Speaker 1: epidemic among soldiers that military doctors treated more men for

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Speaker 1: gonorrhea and syphilis than more commonly transmissible diseases such as

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Speaker 1: measles or mumps. In fact, only influenzas surpassed STIs in

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Speaker 1: the number of infected soldiers. At first, the American Social

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Speaker 1: Hygiene Association tried closing brothels and dance halls where they

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Speaker 1: determined that antisocial venereal disease carriers worked, and instead of

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Speaker 1: arresting the men visiting the brothels, they arrested the women working.

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Speaker 1: Those arrested were tested and treated. Additionally, the association sought

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Speaker 1: to rehabilitate a weak minded women. The association began providing

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Speaker 1: other forms of recreation for the men, teaming up with

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Speaker 1: the YMCA, films like Fit to Fight, attempted to educate

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Speaker 1: men on the effects STIs had on their abilities as soldiers,

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Speaker 1: but the association's initiative was unsuccessful. In nineteen eighteen, the

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Speaker 1: government implemented the Chamberlain Khan Act, better known as the

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Speaker 1: American Plan. The law stated that the Secretary of War

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Speaker 1: and the Secretary of the Navy were quote authorized and

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Speaker 1: directed to adopt measures for the purpose of assisting the

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Speaker 1: various States in caring for civilian persons whose detention, isolation, quarantine,

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Speaker 1: or commitment to institutions may be found necessary for the

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Speaker 1: protection of the military and naval forces of the United

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Speaker 1: States against venereal diseases. They reasoned that men were only

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Speaker 1: acting on their carnal urges and were hardly able to

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Speaker 1: resist loose women. Uninfected men who visited brothels often came

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Speaker 1: away with STIs, so to them, probiscuous women were the carriers.

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Speaker 1: Soldiers who returned home and spread infections to their unsuspecting

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Speaker 1: wives or girlfriends weren't considered the problem. Authorities argued that

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Speaker 1: infected men were not carriers. Instead, they blamed women. The

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Speaker 1: American Plan gave the government and law enforcement the right

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Speaker 1: to arrest, quarantine, test, and treat any woman suspected of

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Speaker 1: a moral behavior. No actual proof was needed. The morning

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Speaker 1: of October thirty first, nineteen eighteen, started like any other

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Speaker 1: for Nina McCall, a seventeen year old woman living in

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Speaker 1: the small town of Saint Louis, Michigan. The weather forecast

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Speaker 1: called for flurries the following evening, and Nina wanted to

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Speaker 1: finish her errands early. She exited the post office in

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Speaker 1: the town's business district, just as she had done countless

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Speaker 1: times before, and Nina lived a few blocks away in

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Speaker 1: an apartment she shared with her mother and brother. As

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Speaker 1: she left, her eyes met with Lewis Martin's, the town's

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Speaker 1: deputy shaff Nina knew the deputy fairly well. As a

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Speaker 1: young teen, she had been friends with Martin's daughter. Before

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Speaker 1: she was at the door, Martin ordered her to report

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Speaker 1: for inspection without recourse or due process. The doctor forcibly

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Speaker 1: stripped and examined Nina. At first, he declared she had gonarrhea,

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Speaker 1: then decided it was syphilis. Nina had no say in

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Speaker 1: the matter, nor any regarding what happened next. She'd seen

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Speaker 1: the placards outside other women's homes, the ones that read

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Speaker 1: venereal disease in large red letters. Given that she had

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Speaker 1: never had sex, Nina was sure she couldn't possibly have

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Speaker 1: an infection and insisted the doctor's findings were incorrect. The

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Speaker 1: doctor insulted that she was calling him a liar, physically

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Speaker 1: threatened her. Then he treated her with arsenic Afterward, he

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Speaker 1: and the deputy forced her to sign a document acknowledging

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Speaker 1: his findings, the two men informed her that she would

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Speaker 1: have to spend six weeks in a detention center, where

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Speaker 1: she would be subjected to more exams and treatments. Six

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Speaker 1: weeks turned into three months for Nina and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other women. The reign of terror had begun. In nineteen eighteen,

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Speaker 1: Nina was one of one thousand and seventy two women

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Speaker 1: in Michigan alone who were arrested on suspicion of immoral behavior.

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Speaker 1: None were given an explanation for the perceived transgression. If

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Speaker 1: the arresting officer suspected a woman of immoral behavior, his

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Speaker 1: word was enough. With the American plan in place, law

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Speaker 1: enforcement across the country took to the streets in what

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Speaker 1: was akin to witch hunts. On February twenty ninth of

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Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, Sacramento police working in the Morality Squad set

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Speaker 1: out to cleanse the city of im moral women. At

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Speaker 1: nine thirty that morning, they arrested a missus Sodfried. Within

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Speaker 1: the hour, they arrested one Lena Rosarine. By noon, that

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Speaker 1: arrested six women purely on suspicion. By the end of

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Speaker 1: the day, the department had twenty five women in custody.

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Speaker 1: The arrests had become commonplace, humiliated and embarrassed. Most women

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Speaker 1: fortunate enough to be released after the exams went home

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Speaker 1: and stayed quiet about their ordeal. To do otherwise would

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Speaker 1: raise eyebrows about their actions, risking shame and further humiliation.

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Speaker 1: There were some women, however, who did not go home quietly.

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Speaker 1: On that day in February, Margaret Hennessy and her sister

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Speaker 1: walked to the meat market in Sacramento, where they planned

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Speaker 1: to do some grocery shopping. The two women chatted as

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Speaker 1: they made their way down the street. One officer Ryan

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Speaker 1: approached them, and the women smiled, expecting to move past him.

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Speaker 1: Ryan promptly arrested them. The two explained who they were

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Speaker 1: and what they were doing. They offered identification and told

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Speaker 1: the officer that if they were arrested, Margaret's six year

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Speaker 1: old son, currently at school in a nearby convent, would

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Speaker 1: have no one to care for him. Officer Ryan remained unmoved.

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Speaker 1: To him, two women walking together unchaperoned by a man

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Speaker 1: was proof of immoral behavior. He took both women to

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Speaker 1: what the city referred to as the Canary Cottage, a

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Speaker 1: hospital for isolating and examining women. A male doctor poked

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Speaker 1: and prodded Margaret and her sister. After a lengthy gynecological exam,

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Speaker 1: the doctor determined that they were free from disease. They

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Speaker 1: were released, though they were still ordered to appear in

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Speaker 1: court the next morning. The fact that they were free

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Speaker 1: of STIs didn't clear them of the charge of acting immrally.

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Speaker 1: Angry over their treatment, Margaret went to the press to

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Speaker 1: defend her reputation. There's no record of whether Margaret was

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Speaker 1: successful or not. A woman could be taken in for

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Speaker 1: anything that raised suspicion. Some were arrested for changing jobs,

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Speaker 1: eating alone at a diner, walking alone, laughing, or other

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Speaker 1: acts that might appear flirtatious. No one needed proof a

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Speaker 1: woman was selling sex for money. If an officer determined

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Speaker 1: her behavior was unladylike, he could arrest her on suspicion

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Speaker 1: of soliciting. Those determined to be diseased based purely on

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Speaker 1: a physical exam were imprisoned. The guards looked down on them,

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Speaker 1: often beating them or abdussing them with cold water, or

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Speaker 1: throwing them into solitary confinement. When interred, the women were

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Speaker 1: subjected to further exams, treatment, consisted of mercury injections and

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Speaker 1: oral drugs containing arsenic standard treatments for STIs. At the time,

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Speaker 1: some women were even sterilized. The American Plan had plenty

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Speaker 1: of political supporters, including New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and

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Speaker 1: California's Governor Earl Warren. Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory took

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Speaker 1: the time to write to each state urging them to

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Speaker 1: enforce the plan. He assured them that the American Plan

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Speaker 1: and the arrests were constitutional. Gregory also personally wrote to

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Speaker 1: each US district judge instructing them against interfering with arrests.

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Speaker 1: Across the nation, mayors and governors enthusiastically enforced the law.

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Speaker 1: In Michigan, Nina's life in the base entered detention facility

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Speaker 1: was deplorable. She and the others had no privacy. All

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Speaker 1: incoming and outgoing mail was opened and read. The facility

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Speaker 1: had any letters that mentioned physical or medical treatment destroyed,

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Speaker 1: and the facility wasn't alone in its actions. Inmates across

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Speaker 1: the nation had to sign statements granting their jailers the

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Speaker 1: right to scrutinize mail. Many prohibited the women from seeing visitors, guards,

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Speaker 1: threatened women with additional detention or treatments if they refused

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Speaker 1: their sexual advances. The mercury and arsenic in the pills

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Speaker 1: and injections made Nina ill, and she began to lose

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Speaker 1: her hair. She and other women were often kept in

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Speaker 1: the state of malnourishment every day. Nina asked to go

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Speaker 1: home every day. The answer was no. Until January of

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Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, she was released, but was told case workers

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Speaker 1: would watch her for the rest of her life, that

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Speaker 1: so much as a smile could send her back to

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Speaker 1: the detention center. And Nina accepted a marriage proposal in

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Speaker 1: the hopes that being a married woman might keep her safe.

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Speaker 1: It did not. The woman assigned to monitor Nina was

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Speaker 1: furious to learn of her marriage. Social worker Ida Peck

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Speaker 1: paid a visit to Nina's ill mother and pressured her

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Speaker 1: for information on Nina's whereabouts. Nina's husband, Claire Rock, saw

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Speaker 1: an opportunity with his new wife prostitution. He moved to

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Speaker 1: Mount Pleasant and took Nina with him. When his plan

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Speaker 1: to sell his wife to other men for sex didn't

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Speaker 1: work out, he left her for another woman. Nina did

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Speaker 1: her best to disappear in Detroit. She couldn't return home

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Speaker 1: without subjecting herself to another investigation from Ida Peck. Given

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Speaker 1: her husband's attempt to prostitute her out, a pack would

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Speaker 1: undoubtedly send her back to the detention center. Abandoned and broke,

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Speaker 1: Nina missed her family. She looked forward to their only

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Speaker 1: connect letters. One day, she received a letter from her

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Speaker 1: mother that changed everything. A wealthy Christian scientist by the

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Speaker 1: name of Elizabeth Beverly Barr Givens had visited Nina's mother

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Speaker 1: and presented an opportunity. She wanted Nina to help her

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Speaker 1: sue the state of Michigan and oppose the American Plan.

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Speaker 1: By now, women's stories had begun to creep into the press.

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Speaker 1: Letters poured into politicians and judges, demanding to know why

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Speaker 1: infected men who behaved the same as women, and often

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Speaker 1: far worse, were not held accountable. While sex workers were

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Speaker 1: arrested and sent to detention centers for treatment, the men

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Speaker 1: who paid for their services were not. Gives hired three

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Speaker 1: of the state's most prominent attorneys and invited Nina to

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Speaker 1: stay with her while the case and trial unfolded. In

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Speaker 1: September of nineteen nineteen, and Nina returned to her hometown.

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Speaker 1: On November third, her lawyers filed the suit. While Nina

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Speaker 1: and Missus Gives waited for the trial, set for June

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Speaker 1: of nineteen twenty, Nina worked odd jobs to support herself

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Speaker 1: and helped Gibbons around the house. The weather on June

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00:16:08,880 --> 00:16:12,840
Speaker 1: first proved to be as stormy as the trial. The jurors,

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Speaker 1: all male, listened to Nina and other witnesses relay the

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Speaker 1: horrors of her treatment and imprisonment. Nina recounted how she

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Speaker 1: had been subjected to repeated exams. Though she insisted that

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Speaker 1: she had never been with any man before her husband,

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Speaker 1: she testified that the exams were so rough that she bled. Afterwards.

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Speaker 1: Quietly and eloquently, she told the court about the humiliation

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Speaker 1: she had endured and the punishment she had received. The

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Speaker 1: court listened as she told them how she had been

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Speaker 1: threatened and hunted, how her life had been ruined, all

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Speaker 1: for meeting the deputy's eyes as she left the post

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Speaker 1: office that winter day. The defense argued that Nina was

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Speaker 1: indeed a loose woman who deserved everything that had happened

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Speaker 1: to her. In the end, the jury agreed with the defense,

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Speaker 1: and the judge ordered Nina to pay the defendant's legal costs.

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Speaker 1: Nina and her attorneys appealed, taking the case to the

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Speaker 1: Michigan Supreme Court. In nineteen twenty one, the court ruled

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Speaker 1: in Nina's favor. Though she'd won, the judge cautioned that

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Speaker 1: her treatment and probation would have been within the States

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Speaker 1: rights had there been reasonable suspicion that she was infected.

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Speaker 1: The era of the American Plan was a dark time

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Speaker 1: for women. Nina and tens of thousands of others like

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Speaker 1: her were stripped of their dignity and denied their rights

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Speaker 1: from the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which prohibits searches and

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Speaker 1: seizures without reasonable cause. The government had opened over thirty

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Speaker 1: of what they called rehabilitation centers across the nation, in

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Speaker 1: many complete with barbed wire and armed guards. However, America

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Speaker 1: was hardly the first to implement the arrest, examination, and

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Speaker 1: detention of women. The American Plan had been inspired and

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Speaker 1: modeled after similar laws in European countries. During World War One,

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Speaker 1: Nina's story faded from public memory. She remarried and did

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Speaker 1: her best to move on with her life. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty seven, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and

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Speaker 1: died at a nursing home at the age of just

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Speaker 1: fifty six. While it would seem that Nina's victory paved

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Speaker 1: the way to abolish the American Plan, it had the

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Speaker 1: opposite effect. The American Social Hygiene Association doubled down on

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Speaker 1: their efforts against women who they believed acted immorally and

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Speaker 1: were a menace to public health. Even after medical science

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Speaker 1: advanced and penicillin became the standard treatment for Gonerha, syphilis

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Speaker 1: and other sexually transmitted infections in the early nineteen forties,

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Speaker 1: women were still harassed, arrested, and locked up for a

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Speaker 1: suspicion of having a venereal disease. The American Plan remained

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Speaker 1: in effect and remained enforceable for decades. The last attention

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Speaker 1: center used to quarantine women shut down in nineteen fifty three,

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Speaker 1: thirty four years after they first opened. Not one woman

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Speaker 1: received an apology or compensation. Legislators held firm that they

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Speaker 1: hadn't done anything wrong. The American Plan lost steam in

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Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties, partly due to lawsuits. The civil

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Speaker 1: rights movement and the Women's lib movement made it more

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Speaker 1: difficult to round up women off the streets and punish

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Speaker 1: them unjustly. Yet even through those movements, the Chamberlain Conact

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Speaker 1: remained active. Women marching for civil rights in Birmingham feared

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Speaker 1: being subjected to arrests and strip searches in nineteen sixty five,

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Speaker 1: and their fears weren't unsubstantiated. That same year, eighteen year

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Speaker 1: old writer Andrea Dwarkin was arrested outside the United Nations

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Speaker 1: Building in New York. A. Dwarkan was protesting the Vietnam

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Speaker 1: War when she was arrested. Police sent her to the

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Speaker 1: New York Women's House of Detention, known for housing fist women,

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Speaker 1: and Dwarkan was subjected to a strip search, followed by

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Speaker 1: a gynecological exam from two male doctors so violent that

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Speaker 1: she bled for days afterward. Not one to stay quiet

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Speaker 1: or take abuse, Dworkin wrote to the Commissioner of Corrections

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Speaker 1: she had been arrested for protesting, yet should been forcibly

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Speaker 1: examined under the Family Plan Act. After her release, Dwarkin

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Speaker 1: testified about her treatment and assault at the facility before

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Speaker 1: a grand jury. Unfortunately, the court refused to make an indictment.

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Speaker 1: The trial made both national and international news. Drkan's case

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Speaker 1: caused outrage in San Francisco, a former sex worker and

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Speaker 1: activist banded with an ACLU lawyer to challenge how arrests

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Speaker 1: were made in California. The Court of Appeals ruled that

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Speaker 1: Oakland police officers would have to quarantine men during prostitution

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Speaker 1: arrests too. Instead, prostitution arrests declined sharply. By the nine seventies,

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Speaker 1: the Chamberlain con Act, also known as the American Plan,

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Speaker 1: had lost many of its supporters, and the government passed

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Speaker 1: amendments redirecting the law away from sex workers, real or imagined,

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Speaker 1: and towards education and vaccination. However, the law remains active

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Speaker 1: to this day. There's more to this story. Stick around

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Speaker 1: after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

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Speaker 1: Advice on birth control has been around for millennia. In

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Speaker 1: the first century CE, philosopher Pliny the Elder advised men

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Speaker 1: to pull out before climax and in a time when

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Speaker 1: we have more reliable methods of preventing pregnancy. Its advice

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Speaker 1: some groups still give. Reliable birth control is relatively new,

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Speaker 1: but when you consider human evolution, but practices ranging from

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Speaker 1: abstinence to more unorthodox methods have always been discussed. Egyptian

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Speaker 1: women around fifteen hundred BCE mixed a thick paste of honey,

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Speaker 1: sodium carbonate and crocodile dung as a spermicide, and while

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Speaker 1: crocodile dung may have actually increased their chances of pregnancy

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Speaker 1: by altering their pH levels, other solutions directly impacted women's

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Speaker 1: lives or health. Some rather bizarre methods may have actually

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Speaker 1: worked to some degree. Acacia dum, for instance, was later

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Speaker 1: found to have some spermicidal properties. Fast forward to eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty nine, when Charles Goodyear discovered a way of treating rubber,

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Speaker 1: which led to the first rubber condom in eighteen fifty five.

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Speaker 1: Given their size and the need for a custom fitting,

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Speaker 1: rubber condoms weren't exactly popular, especially in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and while preventing pregnancy has long been part of human history,

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Speaker 1: there have also been those who believed that discussing sex,

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Speaker 1: much less birth control, was a serious morality issue. Anthony

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Speaker 1: Comstock made it his mission to do what he considered

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Speaker 1: to uphold Christian morality when he spearheaded the Comstock Act

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy three, which censored everyone, including doctors, from

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Speaker 1: discussing birth control a Margaret Sanger, a nurse and activist,

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Speaker 1: defied the Act and began offering advice on birth control

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Speaker 1: in the twentieth century. Her pamphlets quickly landed her and

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Speaker 1: arrest and indictment for breaching obscenity laws. For a while,

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Speaker 1: Sanger fled the country to avoid trial, eventually returning in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, she opened a family planning clinic, the first

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Speaker 1: of its kind, though officials shut it down in less

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Speaker 1: than two weeks. Undeterred, Sanger formed the Birth Control League,

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Speaker 1: which would later be rebranded the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

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Speaker 1: Sanger's work led her to biologist Gregory Goodwin Pinkis. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty a. Pincus had recently lost his job at

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Speaker 1: Harvard A. Sanger approached him with a job offer to

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Speaker 1: help her create a pill women could take to prevent pregnancy.

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Speaker 1: A thirty states still enforced anti birth control laws, so

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Speaker 1: the proposition was controversial, if not risky. For Sanger, the

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Speaker 1: partnership was a means to give women some control in

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Speaker 1: family planning, an autonomy over their bodies. She also did

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Speaker 1: at least partially align herself with at least part of

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Speaker 1: the eugenics movement, specifically limiting reproduction in people with mental

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Speaker 1: and physical disabilities or those living in poverty. A wealthy

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Speaker 1: philanthropist by the name of Catherine Dexter McCormick funded the project.

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Speaker 1: Sanger and Pinks teamed up with obstetrician John Rock. The

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Speaker 1: three tested the effects of progesterone on rabbits and rats.

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Speaker 1: Pincus took it a step further, though, He suggested they

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Speaker 1: take their discovery and experiment to Puerto Rico, where laws

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Speaker 1: were a bit more relax. Puerto Rico had authorized family

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Speaker 1: planning clinics and had encouraged contraception practices since nineteen thirty seven,

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Speaker 1: probably due to the aforementioned eugenics. The government there took

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Speaker 1: the practice to extremes, often pressuring women to have a

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Speaker 1: hysterectomy after the birth of their second child. The governor

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Speaker 1: believed that the poor were ignorant and couldn't control themselves.

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Speaker 1: A Pincus, Rock, and Sanger set up a clinical trial

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Speaker 1: recruiting women from a local medical university in nineteen fifty five.

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Speaker 1: Half the women quickly dropped out, fearing potential side effects.

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Speaker 1: Pincus decided on a different approach this time, recruiting poor

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Speaker 1: women who were desperate to prevent pregnancy wore hysterectomies. The

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Speaker 1: group set up a lab in the Rio Piethos neighborhood

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Speaker 1: in San Juan. Two hundred and sixty five women signed

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Speaker 1: up for the trial. None were given safety information regarding

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Speaker 1: potential side effects such as blood clots, depression, or nausea.

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Speaker 1: A pincus focused on efficiency over potential side effects. Three

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Speaker 1: women died during the trial. No autopsies were performed, so

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Speaker 1: it's unclear whether the fatalities were related to the pill.

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Speaker 1: The FDA approved the pill for contraception prevention on May

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Speaker 1: ninth of nineteen sixty The pill remained controversial, but by

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five it became the most widely used form

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Speaker 1: of birth control, putting women in control of their fertility. Today,

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Speaker 1: the safer reformulations lessen the side effects while offering ninety

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Speaker 1: nine percent efficiency. However, in twenty twenty two, many political

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Speaker 1: leaders voted against a rule to prevent states from banning

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Speaker 1: a woman's right to birth control. American Shadows as hosted

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Speaker 1: by Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was written by Michelle Muto

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Speaker 1: researched by Ali Steed and produced by Miranda Hawkins and

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Speaker 1: Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex BOMs, and

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Speaker 1: Matt Frederick. To learn more about the show, visit grimanmil

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00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 1: dot com. From more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.