EVIDENCE of the State of Virginia's interest in family planning is demonstrated by the progression of events in the evolution of voluntary and official family planning services in the State. In 1929, Dr. H. Hudnall Ware, Jr., head of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical College of Virginia, introduced contraceptive services into the maternal welfare clinics of the college hospital and began teaching contraceptive techniques to medical students. The first organization in Virginia publicly to support birth control was the Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs, which endorsed it in 1936. Six years later, the Medical Society of Virginia and the Virginia Tuberculosis Association passed separate formal resolutions approving the concept of planned parenthood. In August 1940, the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood, Inc., wa,s chartered. In 1945, through the efforts of Dr. A. L. Carson, Jr., director of the bureau of maternal and child health, Virginia State Department of Health, local health departments were permitted to provide birth control services in their clinics with products supplied by the league. In 1956, the State health department assumed financial responsibility for all contraceptives distributed by the maternal and child health clinics in local health departments. In its 1962 session, the General Assembly of Virginia enacted legislation permitting the performance of "voluntary s'terilizations," and on July 1 of that year, Dr. Mack I. Shanholtz, State commissioner of health, issued the following policy statement regarding family planning services: (1)