Margaret Sanger And The Comstock Act Of 1873

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.

In America, the twentieth century marked the beginning of a pivotal age that contained many social and political reforms for women. Feminists around the country each presented unique ideas for women’s rights, most of them through influential writings and speeches. Margaret Sanger was an undeniably significant contributor who made a huge impact on the future of women’s civil liberties. A nurse with a prolific writing career, Sanger delivered her speech “The Children’s Era” in 1925, a text that advocates for the use of contraceptives to improve the lives of mothers and children. Throughout the speech, she employs the use of analogies to provide clarity to her purpose and deliver a lasting message that women’s bodies must be controlled if they are to effectively fulfill their maternal obligations. Sanger also incorporates two of the Aristotelian appeals, logos and pathos, to accentuate the plight that mothers and children must face despite an accessible solution. The careful application of diction throughout her speech also emphasizes her three main rhetorical strategies. These rhetorical devices support Sanger’s overall message of maternal empowerment and convince her hesitant audience to fully accept her progressive ideals.

The first meeting to discuss women's rights took place in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York. It was there that Elizabeth Cady Stanton proposed equal suffrage for women. At that meeting, they drafted the Declaration of Sentiments which illustrated the oppression American women were facing. Although countless, courageous women would sustain this fight, it would be 1920, 72 years later, before Congress ratified the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote (Timeline of Women's Suffrage). The defining moment in this long battle occurred in 1917 when Carrie C. Catt gave her magnificent speech on women’s suffrage to Congress. Catt’s use of ethos, pathos, and logos, helped persuade Congress to pass the 19th amendment.

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.

The entire Women’s Movement in the United States has been quite extensive. It can be traced back to 1848, when the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. After two days of discussions, 100 men and women signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, this document called for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women. This gathering set the agenda for the rest of the Women’s Movement long ago (Imbornoni). Over the next 100 years, many women played a part in supporting equal treatment for women, most notably leading to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed women the right to vote.

3. Urban industrialism dislocated women’s lives no less than men’s. Like men, women sought political change and organized to promote issues central to their lives, campaigning for temperance and woman suffrage., Susan B. Anthony, launched the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, demanding the vote for women suffrage, though not yet generally supported, was no longer considered a crackpot idea. Thanks to the WCTU’s support of the “home protection” ballot, suffrage had become accepted as a means to an end even when it was not embraced as a woman’s natural right.

Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement highlighted a variety of important issues. These issues include women’s right to make decisions privately versus the right of a community to regulate moral behavior; the ethnic demographics of the American people; the ability of women to control their own physical destinies by limiting family size; and the idea that small families were the way to keep the American dream alive. The debate over birth control spoke to personal and political issues, which poses the question: Was birth control merely a matter of individual choice, or was it about power, wealth, opportunity and similar issues? Birth control was not merely a technique to expand the realm of personal freedom; it grew out of a radical

Children. They are a soft spot in nearly everyone’s hearts, and when it comes to the topic of making sure they are protected and cared for, the utmost time often gets invested. This has been true throughout most of history, where children were, and still are, protected with their own set of rights and laws. However, in the 1920s, Margaret Sanger was one of the more prominent people fighting for the rights for children and mothers alike. Pioneer of Planned Parenthood and advocate for women’s rights, Sanger was often under harsh speculation at the time of her existence. Where most people were conservative, and a high population of people were religion oriented, Sanger went against the grain and fought for the idea of birth control, abortion for mothers, and for every child to be given the right to be born in to a family that could more than adequately care for them. Having been under harsh penalty of the law and escaping to Europe until charges on her were dropped, Sanger was no stranger to controversy. In 1925, she delivered a speech in New York to a conference called “The Children’s era” to pose her rather outlandish ideas on how to make this era for the children. Despite the underlining message being seen as positive, her overall address was ineffective in delivery due to her over use of pathos, the extensive, muddled out metaphors damaging her credibility, and lack of sufficient evidence to back up her claims.

To this day the women’s suffrage movement ignites women in the present to keep those right burning. Alice Paul and her fellow women suffrages demonstrated through speeches, lobbying and petitioning Congressional Committees, with parades, picketing and demonstrations, and with arrest that lead to imprisonment. These women express courage that women still uphold for years after their legacy has passed on, such as the article “Women’s Strike for Equality,” by Linda Napikoski, in the demonstration that was held on August 26, 1970 on the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage. As well as an article “Women to Protest For Equality Today,” by United Press that talks about on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the women’s suffrage and “declared war on firms that Damage the Image,” of the fair sex. Alice Paul, set the stage for inspiring women to fight for their rights everywhere across the world.

Public discussions of birth control were criminalized under the Comstock Act of 1873 because people believed it was immoral. Margaret Sanger, who had opened the first birth control clinic in 1916 despite the Comstock Act of 1873, was a feminist and advocate. After serving prison time, Sanger returned publicly and illegally with drive to present a strong argument that defended the moral use of birth control. Prior to her morally controversial 1921 speech, Sanger was arrested in New York for her intent to advocate public knowledge pertaining to birth control. Although the ethical nature of using birth control is still controversial in America, Margaret Sanger’s 1921 speech “A Moral Necessity for Birth Control” was undoubtedly a catalyst for

Margaret Sanger founded a movement in this country that would institute such a change in the course of our biological history that it is still debated today. Described by some as a "radiant rebel", Sanger pioneered the birth control movement in the United States at a time when Victorian hypocrisy and oppression through moral standards were at their highest. Working her way up from a nurse in New York's poor Lower East Side to the head of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Margaret Sanger was unwavering in her dedication to the movement that would eventually result in lower infant mortality rates and better living conditions for the impoverished. But, because of the way that her political

Nearly 70 years ago, one woman pioneered one of the most radical and transforming political movements of the century. Through the life that she led and the lessons she taught us, many know her as the “one girl revolution”. Though Margaret Sanger's revolution may be even more controversial now than during her 50-year career of national and international battles, her opinions can teach us many lessons. Due to her strong influence in history, our society has increased health awareness for women, made sexual protection a choice for all people, and also introduced family modification as a choice for mankind.

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,

This new generation of activists fought with this new agenda for almost 20 years until a few states in the West began to extend the vote to women. The Eastern and Southern states still refused to give in, but this didn’t stop the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1916, Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the NAWSA, worked vigorously to get women’s organizations from all over the country together and fight side by side. “One group of activists, led by Alice Paul and her National Woman’s Party, lobbied for full quality for women under the law” (Divine). She used mass marches and hunger strikes as strategies, but she was eventually forced to resign because of her insistence on the use of militant direct-action tactics (Grolier). Finally, during World War 1, women were given more opportunities to work, and were able to show that they were just as deserving as men when it came to the right to vote. On August 18th, 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified, allowing women to vote. This drawn-out and arduous battle opened a new window of opportunity for women all over the country. Significant changes in both social life and job availability began to create what is now referred to as the “new women.”

During the 1900’s, women had a tough time becoming their own unique beings. They had little rights, almost non-existent to be honest, and no voice. Consequentially, women were forced into becoming good housewives and value the growth and developmental impacts they had on their children. Along the way, women had the voice to say enough is enough. Women wanted change and they wanted it now. This is what sparked Women’s rights movements.