Essay On Margaret Sanger

Did women in the 1920’s have control of fertility? Were women able to have birth control and plan for a family? No, Women in the 1920’s did not have control of fertility or family planning and birth control. However, a woman named Margaret Sanger fought for control of fertility for the women in the 1920’s. Therefore women today have the control of fertility because of Margaret Sanger and are being taught the importance of family planning and birth control.

Margaret Higgins Sanger was born in Corning, New York on September 14, 1883. Margaret was six of eleven children. Her mother died from cervical cancer at a young age. Margaret attended Claverack College then enrolled in nursing school in White Plains, New York. Margaret then meet and

married William Sanger and together they had three children. She also wrote a column for New York called “What Every Girl Should Know”. She then founded the radical feminist magazine called “The Woman Rebel”. Through Margaret’s works organized the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau. (Streissguth). The reason why Margaret did all of this was that she witnessed death and illness among poor women taking care of large families. Margaret died in Tucson, Arizona, on the 6th September in 1966.
“Her goal was not only to promote birth control as a legitimate scientific and social reform, but also to persuade international bodies, especially the LN, to recognize birth control’s pivotal role in population policy and peace.”(Sanger). Margaret wanted to let women be able to have control of fertility in her time. The CRB started giving foreign birth control to clinics. Therefore the governments in other countries started addressing the issues of sex and reproduction they had. In 1922, activists needed “to work on the two fundamental urges of humanity—sex and hunger. They must go hand in hand if we are to bring about the great international goal of peace.”(Sanger). Neo-Malthusian was concerns with population growth in communities. This is a reason why a lot of clinics started to update information in their clinics. However before that Margaret organized the First American Birth Control Conference in New York in 1921. She than attended the 5INMBCC in London in 1922 and in 1927 World Population Conference (WPC). (Sanger). She also organized the Middle Western States Birth Control Conference in Chicago in 1923. However Margaret was not telling the whole truth about why she was advocating for birth control and family planning. The press released accusations as to why she did not belong there for a number of reasons, the most damning of which is that as part of her “inhumane life’s work” she “advocated for the extermination of African-Americans.” It’s was not the first time Margaret has faced this accusation from the press and African Americans.

Ben Carson proclaimed that Sanger “believed that people like me should be eliminated” —later clarifying, per PolitiFact, that he was “talking about the black race”—and in 2011, Herman Cain alleged that Sanger’s original goal for Planned Parenthood was to “help kill black babies before they came into the world.”(Latson). Some historians and scholars examined Sanger’s correspondence and challenged those who call a racist activist. In 1939 Sanger outlined her plan to reach out to black leaders — specifically ministers — to help dispel community suspicions about the family planning clinics she was opening in the South.(Latson). However, Planned Parenthood officials are quick to note that, despite her thoughts on the idea in general, Sanger “uniformly repudiated the racist exploitation of eugenics principles.”(Latson).But in 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. made it clear that he agreed with Sanger’s life’s work and that it was anything but inhumane. King later received the Planned Parenthood

Margaret Sanger Award in Human Rights, he also praised her contributions to the black community during the civil right movement. But after a bad incident in the she fled to Britain and met Marie Stopes.

She started a birth control campaign and sent a letter to Havelock Ellis.(Simkin). On Oct 16, 1916 Sanger helped her friend open a family planning and birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn (Simkin). The Clinic was raided nine days later opening and she served 30 days in prison. In 1917 she published “ What Every Mother Know”. Also, In 1921 Sanger founded American Birth Control League.(Simkin). She also published two more books called “Motherhood in Bondage” in 1928 and “My Fight for Birth Control” in 1931. Sanger assisted in organizing the first World Population Conference.( Simkin). In the spring. she began inviting advocates, physicians, and scientists from around the world to a conference in October. She returned to England to drum up interest and secure support for the conference(Latson). The “drawback to these gatherings was that the scientists and other dignified professionals who attended loathed any nuts-and-bolts discussion of sexuality and contraception, finding such talk better suited to the doctor’s office.(Sanger). As a result, these early conferences failed to advance a better understanding of the physiological

issues related to birth control. In 1924, Sanger investigated the possibility of hosting the next international birth control conference in New York. (Latson) The scientific conferences legitimized the discussion of birth control and developed an intellectual foundation for its consideration as a social and moral imperative(Latson). The Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference (6INMBCC) was held in New York, in March 1925. “Delegates from over twenty countries discussed medical, religious, and ethical issues, and eugenics that dominant theme throughout the conferences. Delegates had a lot of disagreements over abortion, sexual education, socialism, and the women’s movement, as well as skepticism about the value of birth control and how it could have splintered the still fragile coalition. However they agreed on issues of differential fertility, racial health, and the need for population control, even if there was no consensus on who should make contraceptive decisions or why (Latson). Therefore, The conference succeeded in placing Sanger and birth control in the news and secured her place as a major international player. It also sparked efforts to create an international federation of birth control leagues.(Latson). After all of her hard works to put birth control and family planning on the map. Margaret Sanger died in Tucson, Arizona, on 6th September 1966