Biography of Margaret Sanger Essay

Margaret Sanger was a controversial and historical nurse. She lived during a time of revolutionary change when the women’s rights movement was in full motion. Born in 1879, to a large impoverished family, she was the sixth of eleven children. Sanger was part of a family of devoted Catholics. During that time it was a common practice for women to birth as many children as possible. As a result, she was a witness to the effects of diseases, miscarriages, and multiple pregnancies that eventually led to her mother’s premature death. This had a significant impact on her ideologies. She eventually became known for advocating women’s reproductive rights and founding what is now known as Planned Parenthood.

Today, the availability of birth control is taken for granted. There was a time, not long passed, during which the subject was illegal (“Margaret Sanger,” 2013, p.1). That did not stop the resilient leader of the birth control movement. Margaret Sanger was a nurse and women’s activist. While working as a nurse, Sanger treated many women who had suffered from unsafe abortions or tried to self-induce abortion (p.1). Seeing this devastation and noting that it was mainly low income women suffering from these problems, she was inspired to dedicate her life to educating women on family planning—even though the discussion of which was highly illegal at the time (p.1). She was often in trouble with

“The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” Sanger was against abortion she believed it was an evil practice they did on women. Margret Sanger was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into what is today our go to clinic Planned Parenthood. After Margaret the world has increased its health recognition, for women, made contraceptives and protection a choice for all humans, last she introduced family change.

Thesis: Margaret Sanger changed the world by rallying for the availability and use of contraceptives for all women.

Anne never minced words when it came to the events that took place in her life; a lot

Margaret Sanger was, at large, a birth control activist, but this speech was more about the questioning of birth control corrupting morality in women. People must remember, in the day and age

The early twentieth century was a turning point in American history-especially in regards to the acquisition of women's rights. While the era was considered to be prosperous and later thought to be a happy-go-lucky time, in actuality, it was a time of grave social conflict and human suffering (Parish, 110). Among those who endured much suffering were women. As Margaret Sanger found out, women, especially those who were poor, had no choice regarding pregnancy. The only way not to get pregnant was by not having sex- a choice that was almost always the husband's. This was even more true in the case of lower-class men for whom, 'sex was the poor man's only luxury' (Douglas, 31). As a nurse who assisted in delivering

"A free race cannot be born" and no woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother"(Sanger A 35). Margaret Sanger (1870-1966)said this in one of her many controversial papers. The name of Margaret Sanger and the issue of birth control have virtually become synonymous. Birth control and the work of Sanger have done a great deal to change the role of woman in society, relationships between men and woman, and the family. The development and spread of knowledge of birth control gave women sexual freedom for the first time, gave them an individual

Margaret Sanger hero? Or has her enemies changed her true motives? Some say she was out to better the world, but some even would argue she was out to destroy a whole race, throughout Margaret Sanger’s childhood, her intentions only were to achieve a positive evolutionary uplifting, with aging did she lose this true goal in making the world better? Could it have been her true intentions to choose the targets she did for her desires of which she was planning to transform the world or was there more? There were a lot of controversy and issues surrounding Margaret Sanger specifically what she truly was out to do, but there is always going to be lying within the truth.

     Although she had met her goal of legalizing birth control, Margaret Sanger still desired to assist women who were already pregnant but didn’t wish to keep the child. After returning from a national tour in 1916, Sanger opened the nation's first birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn (Katz 1). This, however, was a minor advancement considering that the clinic was raided in its first nine days of operation and she was taken to prison. The

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 this speech, Sanger is trying to further promote her nonprofit organization and display the benefits of birth control. She appears to show compassionate characteristics towards children, more specifically the future American children, as she adopts an urgent tone to encompass her listeners into her ultimate goal, widespread, effective birth control methods.

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,

Margaret Sanger was born in Corning, New York on September 14, 1879 [3] as Margaret Louise Higgins. [1] Her father, Michael Higgins, originally studied phrenology and other medical practices, but eventually moved to being a stone cutter. Her mother, Anne Higgins, was born in Ireland, and her family moved to Canada during the Potato Famine. In 1869 Michael married Anne and she went through 18 pregnancies, only 11 of which lived. [3] Margaret was the sixth child in this long line and spent her time doing chores and looking after the younger children. Her older two older sisters supported her when she started attending school at Claverack College and Hudson River Institute. [2] When her mother was 50 years old, she passed away and Margaret blamed her mother 's frequent childbearing and poverty for her death. At the age of 21, Margaret started taking classes at the White Plains Hospital as a nurse probationer. Not even two years later, in 1902, she married William Sanger and quit her schooling. Later in 1913, Margaret and William filed for divorce but it wasn’t finalized until 1921. [13] She went on to marry Noah Slee in 1922.

Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United Sates in 1916, established in Brooklyn, NY. She got in trouble with the law many times by publishing information about the birth control. She does not care because she was doing this to prevent undesired pregnancies. Margaret got arrested for opening a birth control clinic, for given information and making leagues and groups when that was illegal. However she started having a lot of support.

“No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.”