The Law in Connecticut

In Connecticut, it is still a misdemeanor for a doctor to advise, or a citizen to practice, birth control.* This 68-year-old blue law, a relic of Anthony Comstock's crusades, is widely disregarded, seldom enforced. But Connecticut's doctors, who object to being lawbreakers, even technically, have tried eleven times in the past 24 years to get the law repealed. Last week, as they tried once again, Connecticut medicine was shaken by one of its biggest rows in years.

It all began when the medicos formed a "Committee of 100" to sponsor a mild bill which would permit a doctor to give birth-control information to a patient whose health or life might be endangered by pregnancy. Roman Catholic spokesmen promptly opposed it. But the doctors had some unprecedented support: the Hartford Courant, first major Connecticut newspaper ever to come out on their side, 500 ministers, an Elmo Roper poll which showed that 85% of the state's citizens (including 75% of its Roman Catholics) favored the bill in principle.

The battle was raging in speeches and in letters to the newspapers--until last week. Then professional blood began to flow. Six angry doctors, members of the Committee of 100, announced that they had been kicked off the staff by Roman Catholic hospitals in Waterbury, Stamford and Bridgeport. Explained Father Lawrence E. Skelly: "The [hospital's] action was self-defensive. . . . You gave your name publicly to the support of a movement which is directly opposed to the code under which the hospital operates."

Cried the doctors: "... A serious threat against the right of physicians to free and open speech on medical subjects." The Fairfield County Medical Society solemnly resolved: ". . . Violation of their right of freedom of speech guaranteed by the state and federal Constitutions." At week's end, as citizens flocked to the doctors' support, there was ominous talk of retaliation. The Hartford Ministers' Association and the Plainville Council of Churches passed resolutions suggesting that state aid and tax exemption be withdrawn from Roman Catholic hospitals.

*Only other state with a similar strict prohibition: Massachusetts.

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