[2] Due to this, Richard Griswold decided to take a job with the Guardian Life Insurance Agency, which offered him a salaried position.

[2] At the beginning of World War II, Richard Griswold left his advertising business and joined the Office of Political Affairs in the State Department, during which time he was sent abroad to Europe to help with various crises.

In 1945, Griswold joined him in Europe, becoming involved with humanitarian efforts, including the aid of refugees, mainly from Eastern European countries.

[1] In doing so, she became involved with the resettlement plan in Europe to aid refugees and send them away to such places as Rio de Janeiro, Algiers, and Puerto Rico.

Throughout this time, Griswold witnessed deep poverty and starvation, and realized that the cause of this was, ultimately, overpopulation, as there was no access to birth control in these countries.

This realization fueled Griswold's beliefs that women should be granted access to contraception to protect themselves, as they often faced the challenge of giving in to their husbands and dealing with an unwanted pregnancy or refusing them and suffering often abusive consequences.

[5] Griswold ended her time with the Church World Service in 1951, feeling that the organization was not properly aiding refugees, instead being crass in their efforts.

Richard Griswold decided to continue working as an advertising executive and believed that moving to New Haven would be beneficial due to the appeal he could draw from the Yale community.

[2] Richard and Estelle lived at 40 Trumbull Street, directly next to Planned Parenthood's New Haven offices at the time, where they became familiar with various people throughout the building.

It became clear that they would need a figurehead to operate the plan in order to attempt success who would be more docile than the radical liberals the courts were expecting.

The idea to involve Griswold came initially from a chance encounter with Jennie Heiser, assistant to the soon-to-be-retired Planned Parenthood Executive Director Nancy Williams, who half-jokingly offered her the upcoming position.

[5] Overcoming these challenges, she finally accepted the position in late 1953, as she desperately needed a paying job, given that Richard Griswold had been diagnosed with emphysema in 1953 and could not work as frequently as he had in previous years.

Among her duties was the practice of organizing “border runs” in which women would be taken to New York or Rhode Island in order to seek the proper birth control methods that were unavailable to them in Connecticut.

An 1879 law outlawing the sale or manufacture of contraception had been upheld since its enactment, despite constant protest shown at several state legislative meetings within the decades since.

She and Dr. C. Lee Buxton, Obstetrics and Gynecology Professor at Yale School of Medicine, brought the matter to the courts with the assistance of civil rights lawyers Fowler Harper and Catherine Roraback.

[8] Buxton, the medical expert in the case, stated to the court that the couple required contraception to prevent further physical or mental deterioration, as this issue was genetic and could potentially recur if they were to have another child.

However, in a 5–4 ruling issued on June 20, 1961, the Court upheld the Connecticut statute, declaring that the law had never been enforced and the consequence of its violation was not harmful and so was constitutional.

Very shortly before the decision was made, a Connecticut man was arrested and fined for providing condoms to gas stations, hoping that workers would sell them to customers.

The clinic was shut down on November 9, 1961, after the witnesses had given their statements and Griswold and Buxton were charged with minor accounts pertaining to their distribution of birth control and were each fined $100.

However, because of the urgency of the forthcoming Supreme Court trial, as well as the general progress Griswold had made to advance Planned Parenthood since first taking the job, she was eventually persuaded to remain in her position.

As with Poe v. Ullman, Griswold continued to argue that the anti-contraception law was a clear violation to the privacy of married couples, making it unconstitutional and dangerous.