Margaret Sanger And Legacy Through Her Crusade For Women's Reproductive Rights

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.

Sanger is most well known as being the founder of Planned Parenthood, but most people don’t know the true Margaret Sanger. Sanger was the leader of the Feminist Party. Using her influences from the Nazi ideology, she set out to commit genocide against the poor and minorities. She went about this by creating Planned Parenthood and putting their locations in primarily poor neighborhoods. Planned Parenthood is a place where poor women can get free or low cost abortions. The ulterior motive for providing abortions at Planned Parenthood, was for this genocide that Sanger wanted.

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

In 1917, Margaret Sanger was arrested for distributing contraception pessirie to a immigrant women. Margaret Sanger, was a nurse, mother, sex educator, writer and most importantly an activist. Sanger, fought for women’s rights which one of the main one was to legalize birth control in America. During the process of fighting Sanger establish the American Birth Control League, now called Planned Parenthood. Sanger fund money to Grisworld the created of the hormonal birth control pill the dream of Sanger. Sanger, “wanted to have it all, and was birth control as the necessary condition for the resolution of their often conflicting needs.” (Chesler 25). Birth control has always been a colossal issue since it was invention in the 1960s by Griswold and has remained and extraordinarily controversial topic since. Therefore, if teenagers get their parent’s consent for birth control, teens will still manage to get their way and have sex, parent will think they are unhealthy, and last some parent would want their female teenager conserve until marriage. Meanwhile, if they do not get the parental consent, teenage will be encouraged to be more sexually active, female teenage will know they are safe on not getting pregnant, and it will encourage female be promiscuous.

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

Margaret Sanger starts by arguing that controlling reproduction by practicing birth control would lead to women 's freedom. Once she reproduces she cannot get away with the responsibility handed upon her which causes her to sacrifice her freedom for a long period of time. Only she has the choice of freeing her from the burden of being a mother. A free country cannot be born with a mother who has the responsibility of a child. Women cannot be considered free until she controls her own body and has the choice to become a mother or not (Sanger).

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’s argument is about birth control. She wants to get out women’s stories so that people can see genuine reasons why women are for the Birth Control Movement. What she uses to support her argument is strong evidence to get the people that are not for the Birth Control movement to see the real problem. Though there may be many with true knowledge about what women with so many children go through, there must be a handful who may be blinded by their religious beliefs or other reasons. Even today we see this huge controversy about abortion and we see those who are strongly against it refer to abortion as murder. Even though things are different in today’s world with just about everything, people still feel strongly about the situation in general. I thought I was against this, but I belonged to the group of people who made a decision based on my limited knowledge and what I vaguely think is right or wrong. Sanger even brings up that it is a “type of slavery.” She brings up solid points and follows them with real life examples. These are teenage mothers that she is talking about or women who became mothers in their teen years. As she tries to continue what she considers a battle, she also voices in from abstinent couples. She uses a letter written to her about a couple who had to become abstinent because it was basically a matter of life or death for the woman. She has several women contacting her for help puts her in a position where she feels she has to reach the public, as she sees how the number of women ask her for help increases, she sees this is something the rest need to see. It is too big of a problem for people to continue to say that it is just a matter of it being wrong. It is true when she says that it is a disgrace to American ideals and constitution which guarantees to every citizen the right to life, liberty, and the pursue of happiness (Sanger 202).

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

     In addition to the articles she composed, Margaret Sanger decided to make sexual protection an option for all people. Previously, contraceptives and spermicides were only distributed to those who had information on the matter and access to them (Margaret 1). Sanger was past 80 when she saw the first marketing of a contraceptive pill, which she had helped develop, although legal change was slow. It took until 1965, a year before her death, for the Supreme Court to approve the use of contraception, but Sanger had accomplished a goal (Margaret 1). Now, contraceptives were available to all women, in all walks of life, regardless of their financial situations. In her mind, poor mental development was largely the result of poverty, overpopulation and the lack of attention to children. This was definitely one of the reasons why Sanger desired to make protection available to lower class citizens, along with the wealthy.

Margaret Sanger starts by arguing that controlling reproduction by practicing birth control would lead to women's freedom. Once she reproduces she cannot get away with the responsibility handed upon her which causes her to sacrifice her freedom for a long period of time. Only she has the choice of freeing her from the burden of being a mother. A free country cannot be born with a mother who has the responsibility of a child. Women cannot be considered free until she controls her own body and has the choice to become a mother or not (Sanger).

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,