Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins; September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966), also known as Margaret Sanger Slee, was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.[2]
Margaret Sanger
September 6, 1966 (aged 86)
Social reformer, sex educator, writer, nurse
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James Noah H. Slee(m. 1922; died 1943)
3
Ethel Byrne (sister)
Sanger used her writings and speeches primarily to promote her way of thinking. She was prosecuted for her book Family Limitation under the Comstock Act in 1914. She feared the consequences of her writings, so she fled to Britain until public opinion had quieted.[3] Sanger's efforts contributed to several judicial cases that helped legalize contraception in the United States.[4] Due to her connection with Planned Parenthood, Sanger is frequently criticized by opponents of abortion.[5] Sanger drew a sharp distinction between birth control and abortion, and was opposed to abortions throughout the bulk of her professional career, declining to participate in them as a nurse.[6] Sanger remains a prominent figure in the American reproductive rights and feminist movements.[7] Sanger has been criticized for supporting eugenics, including negative eugenics.[8] Some historians believe her support of negative eugenics, a popular stance at that time, was a rhetorical tool rather than a personal conviction.[9] In 2020, Planned Parenthood disavowed Sanger, citing her past record with eugenics and racism.[10][11]
In 1916, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S., which led to her arrest for distributing information on contraception, after an undercover policewoman bought a copy of her pamphlet on family planning.[12] Her subsequent trial and appeal generated controversy. Sanger felt that for women to have a more equal footing in society and to lead healthier lives, they needed to be able to determine when to bear children. She also wanted to prevent so-called back-alley abortions,[13] which were common at the time because abortions were illegal in the U.S.[14] She believed that, while abortion may be a viable option in life-threatening situations for the pregnant, it should generally be avoided.[15] She considered contraception the only practical way to avoid them.[16]
In 1921, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In New York City, she organized the first birth control clinic to be staffed by all-female doctors, as well as a clinic in Harlem which had an all African-American advisory council,[17] where African-American staff was later added.[18] In 1929, she formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, which served as the focal point of her lobbying efforts to legalize contraception in the United States. From 1952 to 1959, Sanger served as president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. She died in 1966 and is widely regarded as a founder of the modern birth control movement.[4]
Views[edit]
Sexuality[edit]
While researching information on contraception, Sanger read treatises on sexuality including The Psychology of Sex by the English psychologist Havelock Ellis and was heavily influenced by it.[107] While traveling in Europe in 1914, Sanger met Ellis.[108] Influenced by Ellis, Sanger adopted his view of sexuality as a powerful, liberating force.[28]: 13–14 This view provided another argument in favor of birth control, because it would enable women to fully enjoy sexual relations without fear of unwanted pregnancy.[28]: 111–117 [109] Sanger also believed that sexuality, along with birth control, should be discussed with more candor,[28]: 13–14 and praised Ellis for his efforts in this direction. She also blamed Christianity for the suppression of such discussions.[110]
Sanger opposed excessive sexual indulgence. She wrote that "every normal man and woman has the power to control and direct his sexual impulse. Men and women who have it in control and constantly use their brain cells thinking deeply, are never sensual."[111][112] Sanger said that birth control would elevate women away from the position of being objects of lust and elevate sex away from an activity that was purely being engaged in for the purpose of satisfying lust, saying that birth control "denies that sex should be reduced to the position of sensual lust, or that woman should permit herself to be the instrument of its satisfaction."[113] Sanger wrote that masturbation was dangerous. She stated: "In my personal experience as a trained nurse while attending persons afflicted with various and often revolting diseases, no matter what their ailments, I never found anyone so repulsive as the chronic masturbator. It would not be difficult to fill page upon page of heart-rending confessions made by young girls, whose lives were blighted by this pernicious habit, always begun so innocently."[114] She believed that women had the ability to control their sexual impulses and should utilize that control to avoid sex outside of relationships marked by "confidence and respect". She believed that exercising such control would lead to the "strongest and most sacred passion".[115] Sanger maintained links with affiliates of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology (which contained a number of high-profile gay men and sexual reformers as members), and gave a speech to the group on the issue of sexual continence.[116] She later praised Ellis for clarifying "the question of homosexuals ... making the thing a—not exactly a perverted thing, but a thing that a person is born with different kinds of eyes, different kinds of structures and so forth ... that he didn't make all homosexuals perverts—and I thought he helped clarify that to the medical profession and to the scientists of the world as perhaps one of the first ones to do that.[110]
Freedom of speech[edit]
Sanger opposed censorship throughout her career. Sanger grew up in a home where orator Robert Ingersoll was admired.[117] During the early years of her activism, Sanger viewed birth control primarily as a free-speech issue, rather than as a feminist issue, and when she started publishing The Woman Rebel in 1914, she did so with the express goal of provoking a legal challenge to the Comstock laws banning dissemination of information about contraception.[118] In New York, Emma Goldman introduced Sanger to members of the Free Speech League, such as Edward Bliss Foote and Theodore Schroeder, and subsequently the League provided funding and advice to help Sanger with legal battles.[119]
Over the course of her career, Sanger was arrested at least eight times for expressing her views during an era in which speaking publicly about contraception was illegal.[120] Numerous times in her career, local government officials prevented Sanger from speaking by shuttering a facility or threatening her hosts.[121] In Boston in 1929, city officials under the leadership of James Curley threatened to arrest her if she spoke. In response she stood on stage, silent, with a gag over her mouth, while her speech was read by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.[122]
