The Parents' Pamphlet

A woman wrote a frank, plainly worded pamphlet explaining sex and reproduction, which she had first prepared to instruct her own sons. After a copy was mailed to a married woman, the author was charged under the federal law against mailing any obscene, lewd or lascivious pamphlet. A jury convicted her and she was fined. Prosecutors argued that the pamphlet's explicit discussion of sex brought it within the statute whatever her motives. The defence argued that an accurate, serious explanation of the facts of life for young people, written in decent language to promote understanding and self-control, could not be obscene, and that the case should never have gone to the jury.