The Children's Er Margret Sanger And The Birth Control Movement

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.

As a Christian, Sanger developed her ethos by accepting the premise that illegitimate conception was immoral. However, she further argued that sexual intercourse was inevitable and that unintended pregnancy was the pressing issue in terms of what was moral. Her speech described the lack of public information on birth control as a way of oppressing women. This ignorance hindered women

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.

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.

In her argument, Sanger uses four women reaching out to her for help. Each of these women became a mother at a very young age. Her first example was a woman who was married at age 12 and started having children before she even turned 13. This woman gave birth

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

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

"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 was a New York based nurse and sex educator who became very influential during the Progressive Era. Sanger attributed her mother’s inability to recover from tuberculosis to several miscarriages and childbirths that she experienced. As a practicing nurse serving several poor immigrant women, she also witnessed problems, many births or illegal abortions caused.

Margaret Sanger, a birth control activist. Born on September 14, 1879 Sanger was one of eleven children born (National Women’s History Museum). Other than the children born, Sanger’s mother had seven miscarriages (National Women’s History Museum). Sanger’s family lived in poverty as Sanger’s father preferred to drink and talk politics than keep a steady job (National Women’s History Museum). When Sanger was 19 Sanger’s mother died of Tuberculosis (National Women’s History Museum). Over

Sanger made huge changes in how the society viewed women at that time period. She was influential to women who felt like their life revolved around giving birth only. She also gave many women birth control options which allowed them the freedom of sexuality in everyday life. Sanger advocated and fought for women's rights throughout her life. Her determination and hard work gave women social rights, which later led to their right to control their own body through birth control.She advocated repeatedly that without birth control women will never be free (Sanger).

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,

The purpose of Margaret Sanger speech is to inform the people about the policy of birth control. She wants the public to know that birth control is moral and to know the risk of pregnancy. Sanger also wanted to let the women know that all women have the same control over their lives. On page 38 it states that, “The reckless abandonment of the impulse of the moment and the careless regard for the consequence is not morality. The selfish gratification of temporary desire at the expense of suffering to lives that will come may seem very beautiful to some, but it is not our conception of civilization, or is it our concept of morality.”

Imagine finding yourself pregnant at the age of 30 with your ninth child. You live in a small apartment and you are unable to feed all of the members of your large family, also clueless as to how to prevent future pregnancies. This story would not be too far from reality for many women over a hundred years ago. It is also similar in ways to the life of Margaret Sanger, a women’s rights activist who is responsible for the family planning movement that started birth control. Margaret Sanger’s mother had 11 children and 18 pregnancies, that definitely took a destructive toll on her body, and she died at only 46 years old (Yasunari 2000). Margaret took notice of what happened to her mother and many other women, inspiring her to make it her life’s work to help women have more control over their bodies and families. Margaret’s work grew famous for the beginning of a birth control movement and the later creation of Planned Parenthood, but it also has a sometimes-dark side of eugenics.