PEOPLE IN AMERICA - December 15, 2002: Margaret Sanger
By Doreen Baingana
((THEME)
)
VOICE ONE:
I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Sarah Long with the VOA Special English Program, People in America. Today, we tell about one of
the leaders of the birth control movement, Margaret Sanger.
((THEME))
VOICE ONE:
Many women today have the freedom to decide when they will have children, if they want them.
Until about fifty years ago, women spent most of their adult lives having children, year after
year. This changed because of efforts by activists like Margaret Sanger. She believed that a safe
and sure method of preventing pregnancy was a necessary condition for women’s freedom. She
also believed birth control was necessary for human progress.
Margaret Sanger was considered a rebel in the early Nineteen-Hundreds.
VOICE TWO:
The woman who changed other women’s lives was born in Eighteen-Eighty-Three in the eastern state of New
York. Her parents were Michael and Anne Higgins.
Margaret wrote several books about her life. She wrote that her father taught her to question everything. She said
he taught her to be an independent thinker.
Margaret said that watching her mother suffer from having too many children made her feel strongly about birth
control. Her mother died at forty-eight years of age after eighteen pregnancies. She was always tired and sick.
Margaret had to care for her mother and her ten surviving brothers and sisters. This experience led her to become
a nurse.
Margaret Higgins worked in the poor areas of New York City. Most people there had recently arrived in the
United States from Europe. Margaret saw the suffering of hundreds of women who tried to end their pregnancies
in illegal and harmful ways. She realized that this was not just a health problem. These women suffered because
of their low position in society.
Margaret saw that not having control over one’s body led to problems that were passed on from mother to
daughter and through the family for years. She said she became tired of cures that did not solve the real problem.
Instead, she wanted to change the whole life of a mother.
VOICE ONE:
In Nineteen-Oh-Two, Margaret married William Sanger. They had three children. Margaret compared her own
middle-class life to that of the poor people she worked among. This increased her desire to deal with economic
and social issues. At this time, Margaret Sanger became involved in the liberal political culture of an area of New
York City known as Greenwich Village. Sanger became a labor union organizer. She learned methods of protest
and propaganda, which she used in her birth control activism.
Sanger traveled to Paris, France, in Nineteen-Thirteen, to research European methods of birth control. She also
met with members of Socialist political groups who influenced her birth control policies. She returned to the
United States prepared to change women’s lives.
VOICE TWO:
At first, Margaret Sanger sought the support of leaders of the women’s movement, members of the Socialist
party, and the medical profession. But, she wrote that they told her to wait until women were permitted to vote.
She decided to continue working alone.
One of Margaret Sanger’s first important political acts was to publish a monthly newspaper called The Woman
Rebel. She designed it. She wrote for it. And she paid for it. The newspaper called for women to reject the
traditional woman’s position. The first copy was published in March, Nineteen-Fourteen. The Woman Rebel
was an angry paper that discussed disputed and sometimes illegal subjects. These included labor problems,
marriage, the sex business, and revolution.
Sanger had an immediate goal. She wanted to change laws that prevented birth control education and sending
birth control devices through the mail.
VOICE ONE:
The Woman Rebel became well-known in New York and elsewhere. Laws at that time banned the mailing of
materials considered morally bad. This included any form of birth control information. The law was known as the
Comstock Act. Officials ordered Sanger to stop sending out her newspaper.
Sanger instead wrote another birth control document called Family Limitation. The document included detailed
descriptions of birth control methods. In August, Nineteen-Fourteen, Margaret Sanger was charged with violating
the Comstock Act.
Margaret faced a prison sentence of as many as forty-five years if found guilty. She fled to Europe to escape the
trial. She asked friends to release thousands of copies of Family Limitation. The document quickly spread among
women across the United States. It started a public debate about birth control. The charges against Sanger also
increased public interest in her and in women’s issues.
VOICE TWO:
Once again, Margaret Sanger used her time in Europe to research birth control methods. After about a year, she
decided to return to the United States to face trial. She wanted to use the trial to speak out about the need for
reproductive freedom for women.
While Sanger was preparing for her trial, her five-year-old daughter, Peggy, died of pneumonia. The death made
Sanger feel very weak and guilty. However, the death greatly increased public support for Sanger and the issue of
birth control. The many reports in the media caused the United States government to dismiss charges against her.
VOICE ONE:
Margaret Sanger continued to oppose the Comstock Act by opening the first birth control center in the United
States. It opened in Brownsville, New York in Nineteen-Sixteen. Sanger’s sister, Ethel Byrne, and a language
expert helped her. One-hundred women came to the birth control center on the first day. After about a week,
police arrested the three women, but later released them. Sanger immediately re-opened the health center, and
was arrested again. The women were tried the next year. Sanger was sentenced to thirty days in jail.
With some support from women’s groups, Sanger started a new magazine, the Birth Control Review. In
Nineteen-Twenty-One, she organized the first American birth control conference. The conference led to the
creation of the American Birth Control League. It was established to provide education, legal reform and research
for better birth control. The group opened a birth control center in the United States in Nineteen-Twenty-Three.
Many centers that opened later across the country copied this one.
Sanger was president of the American Birth Control League until Nineteen-Twenty-Eight. In the Nineteen-
Thirties she helped win a judicial decision that permitted American doctors to give out information about birth
control.
VOICE TWO:
Historians say Margaret Sanger changed her methods of political action during and after the Nineteen-Twenties.
She stopped using direct opposition and illegal acts. She even sought support from her former opponents.
Later, Sanger joined supporters of eugenics. This is the study of human improvement by genetic control.
Extremists among that group believe that disabled, weak or “undesirable” human beings should not be born.
Historians say Sanger supported eugenicists only as a way to gain her birth control goals. She later said she was
wrong in supporting eugenics. But she still is criticized for these statements.
VOICE ONE:
Even though Margaret Sanger changed her methods, she continued her efforts for birth control. In the Nineteen-
Forty-Two, she helped form the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. It became a major national health
organization after World War Two.
Margaret Sanger moved into areas of international activism. Her efforts led to the creation of the International
Planned Parenthood Federation. It was formed in Nineteen-Fifty-Two after an international conference in
Bombay, India. Sanger was one of its first presidents.
The organization was aimed at increasing the acceptance of family planning around the world. Almost every
country in the world is now a member of the international group.
VOICE TWO:
Margaret Sanger lived to see the end of the Comstock Act and the invention of birth control medicine. She died
in Nineteen-Sixty-Six in Tucson, Arizona. She was an important part of what has been called one of the most
life-changing political movements of the twentieth century.
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
This Special English program was written by Doreen Baingana and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Shirley
Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Sarah Long. Join us again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of
America.
Email this article to a friend
Printer Friendly Version |