Public Health Association Members To 'Promote New Birth Control Bill

A committee headed by Dr. William M. Schmidt of the School of Public Health and Mrs. Katherine G. Clark of the Center for Urban Studies will press for passage of a new Massachusetts birth-control bill.

The bill, introduced into the House by nine state representatives, would amend two nineteenth-century statutes forbidding any individual or group to sell or publicize means of birth control. Those statutes, unlike the Connecticut law recently overturned by the Supreme Court, do not expressly prohibit the use of contraceptives.

Last year a birth control bill drafted by Dr. David D. Rutstein, chairman of the Medical School's Department of Preventive Medicine, and Dr. Duncan E. Reid, chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, went down to a 119-97 defeat.

The Reid-Rutstein bill would have premitted physicians to prescribe contraceptives. Some representatives argued that it might also have legalized the dispensal of birth-control devices or drugs without prescriptions.

The bill now pending would forbid dispensal without prescription as well as the sale of contraceptives from vending machines. In addition, it would legalize the giving of birth-control information by certain public agencies.

The Massachusetts Public Health Association's legislative committee, headed by Dr. Schmidt and Mrs. Clark, will attempt to promote the new bill by informing the public and state representatives of the bill's implications.

Dr. Reid said that he and Dr. Rutstein had not trid to push too hard for passage of their bill last year, but are "not going to be quite as good-mannered this year."

"We would like to arouse the citizenry," he added.

Promoters of birth-control legislation are most optimistic this year because the Reid-Rutstein bill came from outside the House, whereas the new bill starts with the active support of the nine representatives who introduced it.