Abortion: Article Analysis

I. Introduction. There are many remarkable personalities in our history, which made revolutionary changes in women’s lives. Two of them were Margaret Sanger and Eleanor Roosevelt. They contributed immensely to change the women’s fates and lives and to position them equally with men. Margaret Sanger was born in 1879, in Corning, New York; she was sixth of eleven children of Michel Higgins, an Irish Catholic stonecutter, and religious Anne Purcell Higgins. Her mother went through eighteen pregnancies and died at the age of forty-eight. She studied nursing in White Plains and worked as nurse in one of the poorest neighborhood of New York. In 1902 Margaret Sanger married architect and radical William Sanger. She didn’t finish her studying. Margaret gave birth to three children. In 1912 Sanger’s family moved to Manhattan. All her life Margaret Sanger was a courageous, dedicated and persistent American birth control activist, advocate of eugenics, and the founder of the American Birth Control League. She was first woman opening the way to universal access to birth control.

Founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, in her speech at the 1925 Birth Control Conference, “The Children’s Era,” explains the downfalls in American society when it comes to raising children. Through her speech, Sanger attempts to further promote her nonprofit organization and display the benefits of birth control. She appears to show compassionate characteristics towards children, more specifically future American children as she adopts an urgent tone to encompass her listeners into her ultimate goal: widespread, effective birth control methods.

She continues her argument by stating, disadvantaged black women are being targeted for prosecution not for abusing an unborn child, but because they are targeted for being poor black women. “A policy that attempts to protect fetuses by denying the humanity of their mothers will inevitably fail. A commitment to guaranteeing these fundamental rights of poor women of color, rather than punishing them, is the real solution to the problem of unhealthy babies” (Roberts, 1991, p.1482).

Despite her involvement in the eugenics movement, Margaret Sanger’s main focus was to advocate for free and unrestricted access to contraceptives to benefit the impoverished citizens of New York.

Many also believed it was the man’s decision as to how many children his wife should have. Sanger continued her quest opening a birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, New York, in 1916; one year later, the authorities arrested her for giving contraceptives to immigrant women (Bowles, 2011). At first glance it appears that Sanger had good intentions. “Others criticized her for involvement with eugenics, which was a scientific movement in which its practitioners advocated the notion that all mental and physical "abnormalities" were linked to hereditary and, with selective breeding, could be eliminated. They questioned whether or not Sanger's insistence on birth control and abortion was in fact a way to limit the growth of ethnic populations” (Bowles, 2011). “Of course, her activism put her directly at odds with law-enforcement officials and the Catholic Church, but little discussed is the actual extent to which her early Marxism guided much of what she managed to achieve. Her good friends included ultra-radicals like John Reed and Emma Goldman, and the truth is that Margaret’s feminism, and her support for eugenic ‘sexual science’, were both simply part-and-parcel of her own unique Marxist vision. Humanitarianism, per se, had little to do with what motivated Margaret Sanger” (Spooner, 2005). Sanger’s actions and motivations are a controversial topic that have been analyzed and debated for years. “According to her New York Times obituary,

The founder of this organization, Margaret Sanger is a strong believer in eugenics. Her believe was that the society should consist of strong individuals and she has executed that belief through targeting black people, who still to this day get more abortions. According to CDC Abortion Surveillance Report, black women have 503 abortions for every 1,000 live births, when white women have 167 abortions for every 1,000 live

Margaret Sanger was not only a birth control activist, she was also an author, a nurse and a sex educator and many of her influences for being an activist come from her family. Born on September 14, 1879, in Corning, New York, she was the sixth of eleven children born into a poor Roman Catholic family (Sanger 14). Her mother had various miscarriages, which Sanger believed affected her mother’s health, and was a devoted Roman Catholic who believed one should conform to the rules while her father was a free thinker who supported women’s suffrage. Sanger attended Claverack College and Hudson River Institute in 1896 and went to study nursing at White Plains Hospital four years later (51). She later married an architect by the name of William Sanger in 1902 and had three children, one of which, her daughter, Peggy, later passed at age five (86). In 1914, however, the couple separated, then divorced in 1921 and a year later Margaret Sanger married an oil magnate by the name of James Henry Noah Slee until 1943 when he passed away. Sanger was always an advocate for birth control, she was an activist her entire life and wanted to help women have their rights. The Birth Control Movement began around 1910 and Sanger was instrumental in the legalization of it. Margaret Sanger devoted her life to help make women’s contraception legal and didn’t stop despite all the obstacles in her way and she faced many consequences because of this. Margaret Sanger took a stand for women 's rights by

Donald Trump’s presidency and Republican followers have threatened to defund Planned Parenthood due to the fact they provide abortions to women. According to Sheryl Sandberg gives $1 million to Planned Parenthood by Sara Ashley O'Brien, the “federal funds never go toward abortions but do cover Planned Parenthood services like preventive health care, birth control and pregnancy tests.” In our today’s society many feel that the threats are unfair to women's rights therefore the author of “Lean In” and Facebook chief, Sheryl Sandberg donated one million dollars more to this nonprofit organization. Trump's new policy will make sure to prevent any “nongovernmental organizations around the world from receiving U.S. aid if they perform abortions or discuss them in family planning.”

In Sanger’s autobiography she recalled the death of one woman in 1912 that made her want to change the destiny for mothers. While in New York, Sanger attended speaking events over issues happening in America and she was interested in Emma Goldman’s speech over the issue of birth control (Margaret Higgins Sanger). When she started the Birth Control Review she was saddened by the stories of women in agony on having pregnancies that hurt their health, not being able to prevent childbirth, and having to raise children in poverty. Moreover, women begged Sanger to learn more about the prevention of pregnancies and safe ways to have sexual intercourse (Margaret Louise Sanger). With this being said, Margaret Sanger started a campaign to educate women about sex in 1912 in What Every Girl Should Know. Sanger began treating women who had undergone illegal abortions and women who tried to self-terminate their own pregnancy. Later on, Sanger fled to England to learn more about birth control and make birth control available to women

Planned Parenthood is an organization dedicated to fighting for women’s health and rights as well as equality (History and Success, 2015). Margaret Sanger, an activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse is credited for finding the organization. She knew the effects firsthand of what women went through when dealing with an unwanted pregnancy. Her mother birth eighteen children and out of the eighteen, eleven survived. As a result of having so many children, her mother passed away at the age of forty. Also, she worked as a nurse with immigrant families and witnessed the death of women dying from unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortion. This matter at hand, prompt

Margaret Sanger, a birth control activist, spoke in New York in 1921 about the legalizing birth control to ultimately promote women’s equality. In “The Morality of Birth Control,” Margaret Sanger states that birth control is moral for women to use when they are not able to raise a child of their own. “The Morality of Birth Control” is not persuasive because she strongly opposes rights for people who are part of the lower class, and her use of words that weaken her argument.

Coming from a household of extreme conservatives, Planned Parenthood was ingrained into her head as an abortion factory. Her brain was drilled with homophobic, racist, and discriminatory messages as far back as she remembered. She cringed thinking back to the times she shared those hatred filled views. Her rich and snotty attitude had been praised by her parents so she never thought

The concept of family planning can be traced back to a nurse, sex educator, and political activist names Margaret Sanger. Born in 1879 to a large family (and her mother subsequently died during Margaret’s birth), she was passionate about the ability for women to control their fertility and own their sexuality. Sanger is credited with opening the first birth control clinic in the United States in 1916 (Planned Parenthood, 2013). She went on to found the American Birth Control League, which eventually became Planned Parenthood. Fighting for reproductive justice through advocacy and clinics was just the beginning, however, as Sanger had an ultimate goal: a birth control pill.

Katzive observed that Sanger “faced public outcry and even arrest in her campaign to make contraceptives known and legal for women around the world” (1). She demonstrated valor, passion, and resilience in her campaign for women’s reproductive rights. She believed so actively in her cause that she was willing to overlook laws that she thought to be malicious and risked imprisonment numerous times.

Imagine finding yourself pregnant at the age of 30 with your ninth child. You live in a small apartment and you are unable to feed all of the members of your large family, also clueless as to how to prevent future pregnancies. This story would not be too far from reality for many women over a hundred years ago. It is also similar in ways to the life of Margaret Sanger, a women’s rights activist who is responsible for the family planning movement that started birth control. Margaret Sanger’s mother had 11 children and 18 pregnancies, that definitely took a destructive toll on her body, and she died at only 46 years old (Yasunari 2000). Margaret took notice of what happened to her mother and many other women, inspiring her to make it her life’s work to help women have more control over their bodies and families. Margaret’s work grew famous for the beginning of a birth control movement and the later creation of Planned Parenthood, but it also has a sometimes-dark side of eugenics.