The film was released only weeks after Sanger's own film, "Birth Control", was banned under a 1915 ruling of the United States Supreme Court that films "did not constitute free speech", and the ruling of the New York Court of Appeals that a film on family planning may be censored "in the interest of morality, decency, and public safety and welfare". Sensitive to the opinions of local communities, and hoping to avoid powerful censorship boards in the northeast and midwest, "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" was distributed primarily in the southern and western regions of the United States, with the result that it did not attain the record-breaking attendance set by "Where Are My Children?" the previous year. When "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" opened at Clune's Auditorium in Los Angeles in June 1917, Weber appeared on stage, bitterly denouncing attempts to alter or suppress her film. While "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" is now lost, the surviving script and accompanying marketing materials make it clear that Weber mounted an unstinting argument in favor of "voluntary motherhood".