Planned Motherhood:
Margaret Sanger and Her Fight for Birth Control

Morgan Ledford

History 1200
Tamia Haygood
November 13, 2014

During the Progressive Era, the United States was changing and developing but social issues were often neglected. With the rise of factories and big business, populations in small compact areas were exceeding holding capacity and the quality of life was decreasing. Margaret Sanger, born in New York in 1876, knew from an early age the change that she wanted to make in America. Sanger desperately wished to rise in class and her current education level so she attended Claverack College after which she enrolled in a nursing program at White Plains Hospital. She worked as a visiting nurse in New York City in the 1910s until she began to challenge the Comstock Law and write and mail contraceptive information to women. Through creation of different committees, leagues and publications, Sanger was able to slowly push the idea of birth control into the public. In 1914, Margaret Sanger coined the term birth control and then printed it in the Woman Rebel journal. Sanger also opened up her own birth control clinic and fought for contraceptives until her death in 1966.1 Throughout the Progressive Era, Margaret Sanger started the foundation for the Birth Control Movement and actively advocated for the passage and approval of birth control in the United States. Women in the Progressive Era had only two choices, “passive and usually pleasure less submission, with high risk of undesirable consequences, or rebellious refusal.2 At this time in history, it was believed that a woman was there to be a mother and only a mother. Big families were encouraged or better yet, unavoidable. Working so closely to other women during her nursing career, Margaret Sanger knew that sex was “necessary for healthy adults” 3 but often times the men took this too far. Husbands wanted to have sex all the time and more often than not, it was quick and easy, without the woman being able to want or desire it at any point. This led to many unwanted pregnancies, one after the other. Margaret had an “instinctive hunger to enunciate a new freedom for women”4 and this included relieving them from their “sex servitude.”5 Birth control meant that a woman would be able to make a decision on her own and while it might not stop the husbands, it was one more step up for women. Women were developing sex hatred and were eager to stand behind Sanger because they knew that there needed to be a solution to the one problem they all faced. Margaret Sanger published many different publications during her advocacy in order to inform mothers about reproduction and contraceptives. The first piece that Sanger wrote was a column in a New York newspaper The Call titled What Every Girl Should Know in 1912. The purpose of this was to give young girls information on sex functions including STDs, masturbation and menstruation. Sanger published a magazine called The Woman Rebel in 1914, which came into direct contact with the Comstock Law of 1873. This magazine talked about the need for contraceptive information and other matters such as marriage and poverty.6 Four issues were banned because they did not follow the law and to avoid persecution Sanger fled to England, which is when she also sent out the publication Family Limitation. Family Limitation single handedly “ushered in the birth control movement”.7 Although Sanger was arrested many times, the idea of birth control was slowly leaking out into the public and that was all that she cared out. Women wanted to know more about the new practices Sanger wrote about. Before this time, no one had dared to write about the private matters of a marriage in ways that Margaret Sanger chose. This came mainly from the law but also from previous religious ideals. She was about to change the United State in this aspect due to the single fact that she was the first to take a chance to acknowledge and speak of such a controversial problem. “The issue of birth control cannot be separated from the question of power. For its opponents, particularly its male opponents, birth control was a symbol and a basis for female power.”8 The idea of female power hit every phase of a male’s life in every male. The Progressive Era has its name for a reason and that comes partly from women stepping up and taking a stand. Before, women were always subordinate to their husbands in all ways of their marriage. Men feared this power and tried to prevent it in all ways possible. Even physicians held domination on the idea of birth control, “women were taking back control of an aspect of their bodily functioning into their own hands.”9 Political policy was shaped around the idea that mothers were ageless and private and this should not be discussed in public matters. The religious aspect held up the Book of Exodus which says to “Increase and multiply.”10 Margaret Sanger did not let these factors keep her from fighting for what she believed in. These had been what held progress back and she was living in the Progressive Era which screamed at her to make a change. She challenged the normal and called attention to the problems of unwanted pregnancies.11
While Margaret Sanger actively fought for the approval of birth control in the United States, she was unsuccessful in her time to a certain degree. The results of her works would come decades later and is still felt in modern America. Women demanded to know more and through time, they got what they wanted. Between 1982 and 2002, contraceptive use rose about 11% and the abortion rate dropped almost 30%.12 Technology has improved tremendously and women are able to avoid a lot of unwanted pregnancies. The court case of Griswold vs. Connecticut in 1965 ensured the privacy of women and from then on, birth control rapidly grew.13 Today, it is not uncommon or infrequent to hear that girls are on birth control. There are many different types to suit each girls needs and can be easy to obtain from a doctor, speaking from personal experience. “Modern birth control is designed to permit sexual intercourse as often as desires without the risks of pregnancy.”14 Margaret Sanger’s burning desire to make this aspect of a woman’s life easier is very much felt today. Mothers are healthier, infant death rate is very low and motherhood is not forced, at least that is what the Progressive women would say.

Notes
1. Lader, Lawrence. The Margaret Sanger Story and the Fight for Birth Control. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955.

2. Gordon, Linda. Woman's Body, Woman's Right: Birth Control in America. New York: Penguin Books, 1990.

3. Wilson, Aimee Armande. "Modernism, Monsters, and Margaret Sanger." MFS Modern Fiction Studies 59, no. 2 (2013): 440-60. Accessed November 10, 2014. http://appencore.wncln.org:61080/ebsco-e-a/ehost/detail/detail?sid=8e054a40-2b2b-4748a4b479be0db3d2b6@sessionmgr4003&vid=0&hid=4113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ==#db=a9h&AN=88456425.

4. Lader, The Margaret Sanger Story and the Fight for Birth Control, 39

5. Lader, The Margaret Sanger Story and the Fight for Birth Control, 40

6. Bone, Jennifer Emerling. "When Publics Collide: Margaret Sanger's Argument for Birth Control and the Rhetorical Breakdown of Barriers." Women's Studies in Communication, 2010, 16-33. Accessed November 8, 2014. http://appencore.wncln.org:61080/ebsco-e-a/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5254b2a457a642d4b3d15185ed32cd36@sessionmgr4002&vid=1&hid=4113.

7. Lader, The Margaret Sanger Story and the Fight for Birth Control, 51

8. Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: Birth Control in America, 161

9. Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: Birth Control in America, 157

10. Bone, When Publics Collide

11. Bone, When Publics Collide

12. Rosenthal, Beth, ed. Birth Control. Christine Nasso, 2009.

13. Rosenthal, Birth Control, 24

14. Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: Birth Control in America, 98

Works Referenced

Bone, Jennifer Emerling. "When Publics Collide: Margaret Sanger's Argument for Birth Control and the Rhetorical Breakdown of Barriers." Women's Studies in Communication, 2010, 16-33. Accessed November 8, 2014. http://appencore.wncln.org:61080/ebsco-e- a/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5254b2a457a642d4b3d15185ed32cd36@sessionmgr40 02&vid=1&hid=4113.

Devilbiss, Lydia Allen. "History Purpose and Method." In Birth Control What Is It? Massachusetts: Murray Printing Company, 1923.

Gordon, Linda. Woman's Body, Woman's Right: Birth Control in America. New York: Penguin Books, 1990.

Lader, Lawrence. The Margaret Sanger Story and the Fight for Birth Control. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955.

Rosenthal, Beth, ed. Birth Control. Christine Nasso, 2009.

Wilson, Aimee Armande. "Modernism, Monsters, and Margaret Sanger." MFS Modern Fiction Studies 59, no. 2 (2013): 440-60. Accessed November 10, 2014. http://appencore.wncln.org:61080/ebsco-e-a/ehost/detail/detail?sid=8e054a40-2b2b- 4748a4b479be0db3d2b6@sessionmgr4003&vid=0&hid=4113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhv c3QtbGl2ZQ==#db=a9h&AN=88456425.