Now here is a woman, long before her time. Or perhaps, I should say, centuries in the making. A nurse by occupation, we all know her better as the founder of the birth control movement in the United States. Margaret Sanger.
Let me tell you this about today. The United States, in 2022, has the highest childbirth mortality rate of first-world countries. We are fifth overall. And recently, as we all know, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which now makes it mostly illegal (or restricted) to get an abortion in more than 50% of the states.
And this. According to the most recent federal data, there are currently more than 400,000 children in foster care in the United States.
Let’s face it. The United States has a big problem with our ability to have and raise children.
Oh, wait. There is more. According to the official poverty measure, 11. 6 million children — 16% of all kids nationwide — were living in poverty in 2020.
Margaret Sanger saw all of this back then. She knew it would get worse. So she made a lot of personal sacrifices to help lessen this situation.
Her original name, Margaret Louisa Higgins, came into the world on September 14, 1879, in Corning, New York. She stayed here some 86 years, dying on today’s date, September 6, 1966, in Tucson, Arizona.
As mentioned, she was the founder of the birth control movement in the United States and an international leader in this field. She is also credited with originating the term “birth control.”
I find it interesting that Margaret came from a big family. I’m not sure if this might have had anything to do with her life focus or not, but Margaret was the sixth of 11 children.
As a young adult, she went to college and then took nurse’s training in New York at the White Plains Hospital.
But she started noticing the problem of unwanted children when practicing obstetrical nursing on the Lower East Side of New York City. She started to see all of the relationships between poverty, uncontrolled fertility, high rates of infant and maternal mortality, and deaths from botched illegal abortions.
All of this influenced her heavily, and soon she became a feminist who believed in every woman’s right to avoid unwanted pregnancies. She became a huge advocate for contraception. She heavily opposed abortion, saying that through the use of contraception, abortions could be mostly avoided.
She was all about public awareness. She created publications educating people about birth control, and she was indicted for mailing out those materials. Thankfully, the charges were dropped in 1916. Later that year, she opened the first birth control clinic in the United States — in Brooklyn. She was arrested and charged with maintaining a “public nuisance” because of this. And that year, she served 30 days in the Queen’s penitentiary.
Her entire career was peppered with these incidents of advocacy.
Most of all, she brought this education to the United States, which, prior to Margaret, was completely in the dark about the matter of birth control, or as I like to call it, “informed prevention.”
I never knew this about her, though. Margaret supported eugenics, which further complicated her reputation.
As we know, eugenics is the idea that “selective breeding” should be used to “achieve desirable and heritable characteristics to improve future generations of humans.” Oh, the dangers there.
It is not very clear just how involved she became in the eugenics movement. However, she did voice her opinion and support that birth control could be used to prevent the breeding of unfit individuals. All of this has led to modern-day controversy about her.
But, because of Sanger, we now have Planned Parenthood, whose mission statement is this:
The mission of Planned Parenthood is to:
Help people live full, healthy lives — no matter your income, insurance, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, or immigration status;
Provide the high-quality inclusive and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care services all people need and deserve — with respect and compassion;
Advocate for public policies that protect and expand reproductive rights and access to a full range of sexual and reproductive health care services, including abortion;
Provide medically accurate education that advances the understanding of human sexuality, healthy relationships, and body autonomy;
Promote research and technology that enhances reproductive health care and access.
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Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for.
— Jennings Bryan
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There are three constants in life… change, choice and principles.
— Covey
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The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.
— George Eliot
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