Margaret Sanger Birth Control

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.

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

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.

Margaret Sanger built upon Davenport’s movement through the concept of contraception rather than sterilization. Although her initial purpose was not to create a superior race, the contraception movement had an equally detrimental effect upon society. Fuelled by the anger from her mother’s death, Sanger wrote The Woman Rebel advocating controlling who could reproduce (Citation). Just as Davenport, she had criteria for those she wished to eliminate including, Jews, Blacks, and Chinese (Schweikart and Allen 529-532). She also believed that large families were wasteful and wrong. In her book Women and the New Race, Sanger stated that “the most merciful thing a large family could do to new baby is to kill it.” She believed he could not be properly loved and cared for and furthermore considered him a waste of resources(“Margaret Sanger: Family Planning”). Her articles were condemned illegal and she fled to England where she truly let her colors show. She established the Birth Control Review in 1917 and wrote pro eugenics articles including “Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics” and “Birth Control and Positive Eugenics”. The positive response in England encouraged Sanger to return to the U.S to market birth control in a more palatable fashion as family planning. This

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

"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

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.

Margaret Sanger was born on September 14th, 1879 to Anne Purcell Higgins and Michael Hennessy Higgins. Anne Higgins had been pregnant 18 times but had only given birth to 11 children, She was a devout Roman Catholic. She died a tragic death of tuberculosis when she was just 50 years old. Although many people attribute Margaret Sanger’s support of birth control to her mother’s many unwanted pregnancies, Margaret Sanger was largely influenced by her father, Michael Higgins. He was an activist for women’s suffrage. he believed women deserved to have more than just child-rearing and housekeeping in their lives. He was a freethinking atheist who strongly supported free public education. He earned his living carving marble. Margaret heard these beliefs growing up and they inspired her to change a woman’s place in the world.

Margaret Sanger’s efforts for women’s rights lead to the founding of Planned Parenthood in 1916. Initially she grew up in a large poverty-stricken family of eleven, which greatly impacted her stance on reproductive privileges. Her mother had a total of eighteen pregnancies, seven in which resulted in miscarriages, dying at age 43. Sanger decided she did not want to suffer the same way her mother did, so she had a plan. Later on, she went on to be a nurse for women who suffered from pregnancy symptoms during a time that had little to no medical care for the poor. After a while of doing this, Sanger saw and heard things that in her mind, needed to be changed. From thereon, she had created a newspaper that focused on the importance of contraceptives

Imagine being a married woman in your 30’s during the beginning of the twentieth century. You are worn out from giving birth multiple times and you are desperate to know of a way to prevent yourself from having more children. This was the exact case for millions of women in the twentieth century. Women had no rights as a person, nor did they have any rights to their own bodies. In this era, the topics of sexuality, sex or birth control were all taboo subject matters and never discussed between married or un married couples. It wasn’t until the year of 1912 that a woman by the name of Margaret Sanger started her crusade to promote the right for women to use contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies. In this essay, I will discuss what inspired Margaret Sanger to stand up for birth control rights. I will also explore the trials and legal issues that Sanger came up against. Lastly, I will talk about the victory and the difference Sanger made for women in the twentieth century. Margaret Louise Higgins (Sanger was her married name) was born in the year of 1879 in Corning, New York. She was sixth of eleven children and was born into an Irish-American family. Margaret knew at a very young age that she wanted to make a difference to empower women and to leave her mark on the world. Margaret was first inspired to go into the nursing field after witnessing her own mother die at the young age of forty from tuberculosis (TB). Margaret’s mother endured eighteen pregnancies but, she

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,

Sanger grew up in a large family and while working as a nurse, she saw first the many problems that overpopulation was causing and had the potential to cause (Sanger). In the 1910s, Sanger began to publish articles on birth control, and initiated the National Birth Control League (Women in the Progressive

It all began with Margaret Sanger was the first person to opens the first birth control clinic in the United States. Although it didn’t take very long for many to disagree in what she was pursuing. The year after opening the clinic she was then arrested for maintaining a public nuisance. Once she was released, she continues to pursue the clinic by re-opened her clinic but prosecution and arrest continue to follow. As she got older she was able to raise a large amount of money to continue with the research for the first human birth control. Although birth control was then created it was limited to

Margaret Sanger was the founder of the birth control movement in America and was credited with originating the term “birth control. Sanger believed in

Margaret Sanger was an advocate for women's rights, a nurse, a feminist, and most important she offered women information about contraceptives, something that was relatively hidden from many women in the early 1900's. Margaret Sanger may have single handily changed the fact that "women would achieve personal freedom by experiencing their sexuality free of consequence" (Margaret Sanger, 1).