Changing The Future Generation
Margaret Sanger is a birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger gave a famous speech on March 30th, 1925 titled “The Children’s Era” which is part of the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference. It took place at a public meeting in Scottish Rite Hall in New York. She believes that the twentieth century should be the era of the child where the current generation should welcome children into a healthy and happy world. She believes that parents should be educated through a series of tests to help them understand and realise what it is like to be a parent and what all it takes. I believe this is a good speech because Sanger convy’s her readers by the use of repetition, the use of an analogy, her use of facts, and credibility to other sources.
She begins her essay by repeating the same question asking the audience, “What steps have been taken towards making it the century of the child?” and she answers the question by saying “so far, very, very few”(1). Throughout her speech she continues to refer to the fact that little to nothing has been done towards our future generation of children. This is effective in Sanger’s speech because it motivates those who haven’t stepped up to change anything for our future. She stresses this meaning “happy children, happy women and happy men” throughout her paper as well (3). This support her idea because she believes that if we have happy children we will have happy parents with their children.
In the beginning of her speak she uses an analogy comparing gardening to raising children “So if we want to make this world a garden for children, we must first learn the lesson of the gardener”(2). This is a very intelligent way of connecting to her audience because she explains how in gardening “You have got yo give them space and the opportunity (if they are to lift their flowers to the sun), to strike their roots deep in the soil”(2). This is allowing Sanger’s audience to understand what it is like to be a parent. You need to give your children the chance to grow and learn in a clear and happy environment. Then, she concludes her analogy saying “You cannot have a garden if you let weeds overrun it”(2). You
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
Thesis: Margaret Sanger changed the world by rallying for the availability and use of contraceptives for all women.
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
Seeks Pity for Teenage Mothers and Abstinent Couples,” is that the woman’s inability to be decisive in whether or not she will assume the role of motherhood is symbolic of slavery. Furthermore, Sanger maintains that denying women the freedom of choice essentially impedes their constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These assertions are substantiated through a series of letters that are written to Sanger by mothers who are overwhelmed with anguish and dismay due to their prominent rate of unplanned pregnancies and the complications that ensue as a result. The common thread indicated in all of the letters is the pursuit of relief in the form of prevention. The series of correspondences also addresses the invariable plight of poverty, illness, fear, physiological defects, sexual servitude, and the lack of social enterprise, which all seem to be exacerbated by the immense number of unplanned pregnancies. Sanger subscribes to the belief that the woman’s right to control her body is the foundation of her human rights; and the freedom of choice is the stimulus to safer, healthier and happier lives. One writer discloses her struggle to efficiently care for her eight children on her husband’s minimal income of $1.oo per day. Her failure to adequately nurture her eight children and ensure their normal development is created by her inability to work outside of the home to
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’s intention behind “The Children’s Era” was to defend the unborn children and the mothers along with blaming society for not following through with their dedication to the children. Sanger was an American birth control activist, who was a lead investigator for women to be able to use birth control and other contraceptives (“Margaret Sanger”). Also, Margaret Sanger had children herself, so she was knowledgeable when it came to raising and caring for children. She tried to enlighten the people, who which she was speaking to,
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).
In order to break free from the shackles of predestined breeding, Sanger suggests that women “assert their right to voluntary motherhood.” Through thinking on their own, women can be in command of their own bodies and in turn determine how to live their lives. While this may seem absurd to a modern mind, this was truly innovative and dangerous for Sanger to suggest. She was challenging traditions that dated back hundreds of years. “Even as birth control is the means by
Teenagers are still growing and learning. Sometimes we forget that they are making choices that can affect their whole life. Yes, we are here to teach them and to guide them in making decisions that will help shape their future. Are they going to make mistakes? Are they going to regret some of their choices? Are they going to wish that they had listened to their parents at times that they didn’t? I’m pretty sure that we made mistakes as teenagers and decisions that we wish we could change. I know that some made worse choices than others but, we have all made poor choices at one time or another even as adults. I definitely feel that
Much like the outburst that same-sex marriage caused, we are now seeing the advent of arguments for "genderless parenting"; the idea that all a child needs is love and it's irrelevant whether the loving persons are male or female. Now we have "genderless kids." Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, the parents of Jazz (5), Kio (2) and four-month-old Baby Storm want to rear and love each of their children, not as their daughter or son, not as a girl or a boy, but as just their child.
Margaret Sanger wrote a book because she wanted to help women that was having multiple children some at a very early age as early as age 12. She wanted to received help for these women, in doing so she received many letters that contained heartfelt stories of young at one time vibrant women pleading for help to receive help. These women wanted birth control to prevent pregnancy. Margaret wanted to promote awareness, having multiple children have major devastating effects that can bring on a woman’s body. Many of these women are young a fragile back then there weren’t any comfort or help that was offered for women. There were many diseases, sickness, mental and just emotionally draining to be a mother with multiple children it took a toll on their bodies. Many of them wasn’t financially stable. Most of these women get married at a very early age and without birth control they continue to have children. Margaret expressed that women should be given a choice on how many children that they choose to have and should be offered proper education and prevention to pregnancy.
Psalm’s 127: 3 states, “Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward for him.” However, according to Margret Sanger, they are only a gift from the Lord when they are planned and desired by their parents. When children are not planned and not desired form their parents, when unwanted pregnancies occur, Margret Sanger proclaims that these children cannot be fully loved, and this is evidently a problem. Margret was a birth control activist who spoke and made efforts for the birth control movement. One of the most respectable and memorable moments in her lifetime is one of her successful speeches that she gave to the audience of a National Birth Control Conference in New York. On March 30, 1925 Margret Sanger delivered the speech, “The Children’s Era,” at a public meeting at Scottish Rite Hall in New York. She addressed the issues of unwanted pregnancies that so many women had. She highlighted the bad it does for society. She promoted the movement for birth control not just in her speech but in her everyday life since she had very strong views and family relations to the movement that she held so close to her heart. This speech was extremely critical and significant at the time of delivery.