Margaret Sanger (néeHiggins; September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an Americanbirth control activist,sex educator, writer, and nurse. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, foundedPlanned Parenthood, and was instrumental in the development of the firstbirth control pill. Sanger is regarded as a founder and leader of thebirth control movement.
In the early 1900s,contraceptives, abortion, and even birth control literature were illegal in much of the U.S.. Working as a nurse in the slums of New York City, Sanger often treated mothers desperate to avoid conceiving additional children, many of whom had resorted toback-alley abortions. Sanger was afirst-wave feminist and believed that women should be able to decide if and when to have children, leading her to campaign for the legalization of contraceptives. As an adherent of theeugenics movement, she argued that birth control would reduce the number of unfit people and improve the overall health of the human race. She was also influenced byMalthusian concerns about the detrimental effects of overpopulation.
To promote birth control, Sanger gave speeches, wrote books, and published periodicals. Sanger deliberately flouted laws that prohibited distribution of information about contraceptives, and was arrested eight times. Her activism led to court rulings that legalized birth control, includingone that enabled physicians to dispense contraceptives; and another – Griswold v. Connecticut – which legalized contraception, without a prescription, for couples nationwide.
Sanger established a network of dozens of birth control clinics across the country, which provided reproductive health services to hundreds of thousands of patients. She discouraged abortion, and her clinics never offered abortion services during her lifetime. She founded several organizations dedicated to family planning, including Planned Parenthood andInternational Planned Parenthood Federation. In the early 1950s, Sanger persuaded philanthropists to provide funding for biologistGregory Pincus to develop the first birth control pill. She died inArizona in 1966.
Sanger's parents wereIrish Catholics who separately emigrated from Ireland. Her father, Michael Hennessey Higgins, immigrated to Canada with his family, then moved to the U.S. at the age of 14, and joined theUnion army in the Civil War as a drummer at 15. Upon leaving the army, he studied medicine andphrenology but ultimately became astonecutter.[2][3] Her mother, Anne Purcell Higgins, immigrated to the U.S. with her family during theGreat Famine.[2] Anne and Michael were married in 1869.[2]
Sanger was born Margaret Louise Higgins September 14, 1879 inCorning, New York. She spent her early years in a bustling household, under the influence of her father, who was afree-thinker, a socialist, and anagnostic.[4][5] In 22 years, Anne Higgins conceived 18 times, and gave birth to 11 live babies. She died at the age of 50, when Margaret was 19 years old.[2][b]
With financial help from two elder sisters, Margaret Higgins attended the Hudson River Institute atClaverack College from 1896 to 1900, then nursing school atWhite Plains Hospital from 1900 to 1902.[8] After graduating as a nurse, she married architectWilliam Sanger in 1902. Although she suffered fromtuberculosis, she settled down to a quiet life inHastings-on-Hudson and had three children.[9]
Working as a nurse, Sanger visited many working-class immigrant women in their homes; many of them underwent frequent childbirth, miscarriages, andself-induced abortions.[14] Availability of contraceptive information was limited, due to theComstock Act, a federal anti-obscenity law which prohibited – among other things – mailing contraceptives, or even information about contraception.[15] In 1913, Sanger visited public libraries, searching for publications that instructed women how to avoid conception, but she found none.[16]
The hardships women faced were epitomized in a story that Sanger often recounted in her speeches: while working as a nurse, she was called to the apartment of a woman, "Sadie Sachs", who had a severesepsis infection due to a self-induced abortion. Sadie begged the attending doctor to tell her how she could prevent this from happening again. The doctor laughed and said "You want your cake while you eat it too, do you? Well it can't be done. I'll tell you the only sure thing to do .... Tell Jake to sleep on the roof [abstain from sex]." A few months later, Sanger was called back to Sadie's apartment and found that Sadie had attempted yet another self-induced abortion; she died shortly after Sanger arrived. Sanger would sometimes end the story by saying, "I threw my nursing bag in the corner and announced ... that I would never take another case until I had made it possible for working women in America to have the knowledge to control birth."[17][18]
The Sadie Sachs episode was described by Sanger as the origin of her commitment to spare women from dangerous and illegal abortions.[19] Sanger opposed abortion, not on religious grounds, but as a societal ill and public health danger, which would disappear, she believed, if women were able to prevent unwanted pregnancy.[20]
Searching for a way to share her ideas with the public, she wrote twocolumns for theNew York Call socialist magazine:What Every Mother Should Know (1911–12) andWhat Every Girl Should Know (1912–13).[21] The columns gave advice to women and girls on love, masturbation, and sex; and emphasized the distinction between sex and love.[22][23][24] By the standards of the day, Sanger's articles were extremely frank in their discussion of sexuality, and manyNew York Call readers were outraged by them. Other readers, however, praised the series for its integrity and candor.[24] Both series were later published in book form.[23]
Sanger's political interests, her emergingfeminism, and her nursing experience led her to believe that only by liberating women from the risk of unwanted pregnancy would fundamental social change take place. In 1914, she undertook a decades-long campaign to free women, starting withThe Woman Rebel, an eight-page monthly newsletter that used the slogan "No Gods, No Masters."[25][c] The newsletter contained articles about a variety of progressive subjects, including contraception, and was designed to challenge governmental censorship of contraceptive information through confrontation.[26] Seven issues ofThe Woman Rebel were published, from March to September, 1914.[27]The Woman Rebel helped popularize the term "birth control", which was selected by Sanger and fellow activists as a more candid alternative to euphemisms then in use, such as "family limitation".[28][29][d]
Sanger became estranged from her husband in 1913, and their divorce was finalized in 1921.[31]
This page from Sanger'sFamily Limitation, 1919 Ninth edition, describes acervical cap.[32]
Sanger's first obstacle to educating women about contraception was the Comstock Act, which banned dissemination of information about contraception. Her strategy was to deliberately violate the Act, hoping that the confrontation would eventually lead to amendment of the law.[33][34] Throughout 1914, she attempted to mail copies of the monthlyThe Woman Rebel newsletter. This was meant to be provocative, rather than effective, as most copies ofThe Woman Rebel were distributed by a network of activists, not mailed.[35] Postal authorities intercepted five of its seven issues, but Sanger continued publication.[36][37] In August that year, Sanger was finally arrested for sendingThe Woman Rebel through the postal system.[38]
While awaiting trial, she wrote a 16-page pamphlet,Family Limitation, which detailed several contraceptive methods, discussed marriage and sex, and chided husbands who – after sex – fell asleep without bringing their wife to a climax.[39][40][41] Fearing arrest, several printers refused to print the pamphlet; she finally found a socialist printer willing to undertake the job, and he resorted to printing it secretly, at night.[42] The pamphlet was very popular: 100,000 copies were printed of its first edition, it went through 18 editions, and it was translated into a dozen languages.[40]
Facing imprisonment if she went to trial, she fled to Canada, where fellow activists forged a passport that permitted her to sail to England in early November.[43][e] Sanger spent most of her self-imposed exile in England, where contact with British Malthusians – such asCharles Vickery Drysdale andBessie Drysdale – helped refine her socioeconomic justifications for birth control. She shared the concern of Malthusians thatoverpopulation led to poverty, famine, and war.[45] She returned to Europe in 1922 to attend the Fifth International Neo-Malthusian Conference – where she became the first woman to chair a session;[46] and she organized the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth-Control Conference that took place in New York in 1925.[47][48] Overpopulation would remain a concern of hers for the rest of her life.[45]
During her stay in England, she was profoundly influenced by British physicianHavelock Ellis – author of the multi-volumeStudies in the Psychology of Sex.[49][50] Under his tutelage, she expanded her birth control strategy to incorporate the additional benefit of stress-free, enjoyable sex; and came to adopt his view of sexuality as a powerful, liberating force.[51][52][53]While abroad, Sanger met with several Spanish anarchists, including activistLorenzo Portet, with whom she had a passionate affair.[54][f]
News reports from America signaled to Sanger that support for birth control was increasing, so she returned from England in October 1915 to face trial. Shortly before the December trial, her five-year-old daughter, Peggy, died of pneumonia she caught while at a boarding school.[56][g] Sanger was offered a plea bargain, but refused, because she wanted to use the trial as a forum to advocate for the right of women to control their own bodies.[57] The prosecutor dropped the charges because he did not want to turn Sanger into a martyr.[58][59]
Early in 1915, an undercover representative of anti-vice politicianAnthony Comstock asked Sanger's estranged husband, William, for a copy ofFamily Limitation, and William obliged. William was tried and convicted, spending thirty days in jail while attracting interest in birth control as an issue of civil liberty.[60][61][62]
Sanger with her sister,Ethel Byrne, on the steps of a New York courthouse during a trial in 1917.[63]
Some European countries had more liberal policies towards contraception than the United States. When Sanger visited a Dutch birth control clinic in 1915, she encountereddiaphragms and became convinced that they were a more effective means of contraception than the suppositories anddouches that she had been distributing back in the United States.[64] Diaphragms were generally unavailable in the United States due to the Comstock Act, so Sanger and others began importing them from Europe, in defiance of United States law.[65]
On October 16, 1916, Sanger opened a family planning and birth control clinic – the first in the United States – in theBrownsville neighborhood of theBrooklyn borough of New York City.[66][h] She was unable to find a physician to join the staff, so she turned to her sister,Ethel Byrne (a nurse), to fill the medical role.[68][69][i] Nine days after the clinic opened, Sanger was arrested for giving a birth control pamphlet to an undercover policewoman.[70] After shebailed out of jail, she continued assisting women in the clinic until the police arrested her a second time.[71][72] The clinic closed permanently after one month of operation, when the police forced the landlord to evict Sanger.[72]
Sanger and her sister were charged with distributing contraceptives in violation of New York state law. They went to trial on 29 January 1917.[73][74] Byrne was convicted and sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse, where she went on ahunger strike. She was force-fed, the first woman hunger striker in the U.S. to be so treated.[75] After ten days – when Sanger pledged that Byrne would never break the law – her sister was pardoned.[76] Sanger was also convicted; the trial judge was not persuaded by Sanger's argument that women had the right to enjoy sex without worrying about conceiving an unwanted child.[77] Sanger was offered a more lenient sentence if she promised not to break the law again, but she refused and said: "I cannot respect the law as it exists today."[78][79] Against the wishes of her attorney, she chose a thirty-day sentence in a workhouse, rather than a $5,000 fine.[79][80]
An initial appeal was rejected, but in a subsequent court proceeding in 1918 (after Sanger had served her sentence) the birth control movement secured a major victory when theNew York Court of Appeals (New York's highest court) issued a ruling which allowed physicians in New York to dispense contraceptives.[81][82][j] The publicity surrounding Sanger's arrest, trial, and appeal sparked birth control activism across the United States, and generated momentum for the birth control movement.[84][85]
In February 1917, Sanger began publishing the periodicalBirth Control Review, serving as its editor until 1929. The magazine was published monthly until 1940.[86]
In her 1920 bookWoman and the New Race, Sanger framed her fight for birth control in the context of history, psychology, and feminism.[87][88][89] She wrote that male-dominated institutions, such as the church and state, have prohibited birth control throughout history – leading women to have too many children, too closely spaced. This, in turn, was a direct cause of mental distress and social pathology, and prevented women from full expression of their "feminine spirit". Sanger asserted that women have always fought back against this oppression through secretive use of abortion, contraception, or infanticide.[90] She believed that these efforts to limit family size were a manifestation of women's desire for freedom, writing:
"A free race cannot be born of slave mothers. A woman cannot choose but give a measure of that bondage to her sons and daughters. No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother."[90][91]
Sanger had a long-term, though infrequent, love affair with the novelistH. G. Wells from 1920 until his death in 1946.[92] In 1922, she married her second husband, businessman James Noah H. Slee.[93]
ActivistKitty Marion sold copies ofBirth Control Review on the streets of New York for 13 years.[94]
After World War I, Sanger continued to be frustrated by the inverted priorities of charities: they provided free obstetric and post-birth care to indigent women, yet failed to offer birth control or assistance in raising the children. She wrote: "The poor woman is taught how to have her seventh child, when what she wants to know is how to avoid ... her eighth."[95] Sanger saw a societal need to limit births by those least able to afford children: the affluent and educated already limited their childbearing, yet the poor and uneducated lacked access to contraception and information about birth control.[96]
Support from wealthy donors in the early 1920s enabled Sanger to expand her reach beyond local, small-scale activism, and allowed her to organize theAmerican Birth Control League (ABCL).[72][97] The founding principles of the ABCL were:
"We hold that children should be (1) Conceived in love; (2) Born of the mother's conscious desire; (3) And only begotten under conditions which render possible the heritage of health. Therefore we hold that every woman must possess the power and freedom to prevent conception except when these conditions can be satisfied."[98]
The 1918 New York court decision had created an exception to the Comstock Act: contraceptives could be obtained, provided they were prescribed by a physician. To exploit this new loophole, in 1923 she established theClinical Research Bureau (CRB) – a medical clinic with physicians on staff.[99][100][k] The CRB was the first birth control clinic in the U.S. that could dispense contraceptives directly to patients; and its staff of doctors, nurses, and social workers was entirely female.[102][l] The clinic received extensive funding fromJohn D. Rockefeller Jr. and his family, who continued to make anonymous donations to Sanger's causes in subsequent decades.[103][104]
In 1922, soon after the formation of the ABCL, Sanger raised her international profile by traveling to Asia – giving speeches in Korea, Japan, and China.[105][106] She ultimately visited Japan seven times, working with feministShidzue Katō to promotebirth control in Japan.[107][108]
As president of the ABCL, she chafed at bureaucratic interference from younger members of the board of directors.[109] Seeking more independence, she resigned from the presidency in 1928 and took full control of the CRB, renaming it the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (BCCRB). The two organizations, ABCL and BCCRB, continued to collaborate, but Sanger had complete control over the BCCRB's operations. This marked the beginning of a schism that would last until 1939.[110][111] By the 1930s, the BCCRB was serving over 10,000 patients per year, providing a range of gynecological services, conducting research, and training physicians and students.[111]
In 1925, Sanger's second husband, Noah Slee, contributed to the birth control movement by smuggling diaphragms into New York from Canada, hidden inside his company's cargo.[112] He then co-foundedHolland-Rantos – the first manufacturer of legal diaphragms in the United States.[112]
Sanger's monthlyBirth Control Review included letters from women, typically in need of birth control, which were collected into the bookMotherhood in Bondage.[113][m]
Sanger invested a great deal of effort in promoting birth control to the public. In 1916, she embarked on a cross-country lecture tour, speaking in dozens of cities – at churches, women's clubs, homes, and theaters. Her audience included workers, churchmen, liberals, socialists, scientists, and upper-class women.[114] She once lectured on birth control to thewomen's auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) inSilver Lake, New Jersey.[115] Explaining her decision to address them, Sanger said that she was willing to speak to any group that would listen, if it helped promote the birth control cause. She described the experience as weird, and reported that she had the impression that the audience were dull, and so she spoke to them in the simplest possible language, as if talking to children.[115][n]
During the 1920s, Sanger received hundreds of thousands of letters, many of them written in desperation by women begging for information on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies.[119][120] Many of the letters were printed in the monthlyBirth Control Review, and 470 of these letters were compiled into the 1928 book,Motherhood in Bondage.[113]
Throughout the 1920s, Sanger and the ABCL expanded outward from their New York base by creating a network of birth control clinics across the country: Chicago (1924), Los Angeles (1925), San Antonio (1926), Detroit and Baltimore (1927), Cleveland, Newark, and Denver (1928), and Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Oakland (1929). These clinics were managed by local birth control advocates, and funded by local donors. Those that met Sanger's standards became official affiliates of the BCCRB.[121] A survey in 1930 showed that twelve of the clinics were, collectively, seeing a total of about 8,000 new patients per year.[122]
Women of all races and religions were served by Sanger's birth control clinics. Sanger did not toleratebigotry among her staff, nor would she tolerate any refusal to work within interracial projects.[124] By 1929 about 12% of clinic patients listedHarlem as their address.[125]
In 1924,James H. Hubert, an African American social worker and the leader of New York'sUrban League, asked Sanger to consider opening a clinic in an African American neighborhood.[126][127] In response, she established a clinic in theColumbus Hill neighborhood of New York City, but the clinic operated for only three months before closing due to low patient numbers.[125][126][o]
In 1929, Hubert approached Sanger again, this time suggesting a clinic in Harlem.[127][128][129] Sanger secured funding from theJulius Rosenwald Fund and opened the clinic in 1930.[130][131] The clinic was supported by an all-African American advisory board of 15 members and exclusively employed African American staff, including doctors, nurses, and social workers.[125][132][p] The clinic was publicized in the African American press as well as in African American churches, and it received the approval ofW. E. B. Du Bois, the co-founder of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the editor of its magazine,The Crisis.[123][125][133][134] The clinic's clientele was about half African American and half-white, and almost 3,000 patients visited the clinic in its first year and a half.[125] The Harlem clinic provided contraceptives and information to thousands of African American women until it closed in the mid-1940s.[127][131]
In June 1932, Sanger published a special issue ofBirth Control Review titled "The Negro Number". Seven African American authors – including W.E.B Du Bois,George Schuyler, andCharles S. Johnson – contributed articles to the issue, providing reasons why contraception was beneficial for the African American community.[135][q]
During the 1920s and 1930s, Sanger toured theSouth and observed that African American women were neglected by the medical establishment, particularly in segregated areas.[136] In 1939, she worked with fellow birth control advocatesMary Lasker andClarence Gamble to create theNegro Project, an effort to deliver information about birth control to impoverished African American people.[136][137] Sanger knew that the church played an important role in African American communities, so she advised Gamble (both Sanger and Gamble were white) on the importance of affiliating with African American ministers, writing:
"The ministers work is also important and also he should be trained, perhaps by the [Birth Control] Federation [of America] as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."[138]
When academic and activistAngela Davis, author ofWomen, Race and Class, analyzed that quote, she concluded that by 1939 the birth control movement had lost its progressive potential, and had evolved into a racist program of population control.[139][r][s] Davis' interpretation has been amplified by anti-abortion activists, leading many people to believe that Sanger was racist.[144][145] However, most scholars interpret the passage as Sanger's effort to prevent the spread of unfounded rumors about nefarious purposes, and they find no evidence that Sanger was a racist.[146][147][148][t][u]
After the Negro Project was initiated, management was handed to the Birth Control Federation of America. The project lasted from 1940 to 1943, but was unsuccessful: no new clinics were established, and participation rates remained low.[137]
In 1929, Sanger formed theNational Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control to lobby for legislation to overturn restrictions on contraception.[150][v] The lobbying did not produce results, so Sanger changed tack and in 1933 she ordered diaphragms from Japan to trigger a decisive battle in the courts.[150][152] The diaphragms were seized by the U.S. government, and Sanger's subsequent legal challenge to the confiscation led to a breakthrough 1936 court decision – United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries – which permitted physicians to dispense contraceptives nationwide.[153][154][w] This court victory motivated theAmerican Medical Association to adopt contraception as a normal medical service (1937) and a key component of medical school curriculums (1942).[155][156][157]
Eager to take advantage of theOne Package of Japanese Pessaries court ruling, which permitted birth control clinics across the country to begin dispensing contraceptives, leaders of the birth control movement took steps in 1937 to mend the rift between the ABCL and the BCCRB.[158] The two organizations merged in 1939 as the Birth Control Federation of America and, simultaneously, Sanger stepped down from her role as President/Chairman.[111][159][x] She no longer wielded the same power as she had in the early years of the movement, and in 1942 more conservative forces within the organization changed the name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a name Sanger objected to because she considered it too euphemistic.[160]
In the late 1940s, Sanger reduced her involvement in Planned Parenthood, and turned her attention to improving access to birth control globally. In 1948 she founded an exploratory committee, the International Committee on Planned Parenthood, which brought together representatives from birth control organizations in several countries around the world.[161] Four years later, in 1952, the committee evolved into theInternational Planned Parenthood Federation, which – as of 2025[update] – is the world's largest family planningNGO, consisting of 150 member associations working in 146 countries.[161][162][163] Sanger was the organization's first president and served in that role from 1952 to 1959.[161]
In the early 1950s, Sanger persuaded philanthropistKatharine McCormick to provide funding for biologistGregory Pincus to develop the firstbirth control pill, which was eventually sold under the nameEnovid.[164][165] Pincus recruitedJohn Rock, a gynecologist atHarvard, to investigate clinical use of progesterone to prevent ovulation.[165][166] Pincus would later say that Sanger's role was essential in the development of the pill.[167]
In 1954, Sanger returned to Japan for her fourth visit, and gave a speech before a committee of theNational Diet on the topic of "Population Problems and Family Planning".[107][108][168][y]
Sanger's gravestone (lower right) inFishkill Rural Cemetery. "Slee" is the family name of her second husband.
In the late 1930s, Sanger began spending the winters inTucson, Arizona, intending to play a less critical role in the birth control movement. She moved to Arizona full-time in 1943, after her husband died. In spite of her intention to retire, she remained active in the birth control movement through the 1950s.[171]
Sanger was silent about her personal religious beliefs through much of her life. At the time of her second marriage in 1922, Sanger was a socialist, bohemian atheist – according to biographer Ellen Chesler.[172][z] When Sanger was 78 years old, she stated she wasEpiscopalian.[173][aa]
Faced with declining health, Sanger moved into a convalescent home at age 83.[171] Before her death, theU.S. Supreme Court decidedGriswold v. Connecticut, which struck down state laws prohibiting birth control in the United States.[175] The defendant in that case,Estelle Griswold, was the director of the Connecticut affiliate of Planned Parenthood.[176] A year before Sanger died, the Japanese government bestowed upon her theOrder of the Precious Crown in recognition of her contributions to Japanese society.[107] She died ofarteriosclerosis on September 6, 1966 in Tucson, Arizona, aged 86. Her funeral was held atSt. Philip's in the Hills Episcopal Church in Tucson, followed a month later by a memorial service atSt. George's Episcopal Church in Manhattan.[177] Sanger is buried inFishkill, New York, next to her sister, Nan Higgins, and her second husband, Noah Slee.[178]
1916 flyer for Sanger's first clinic, stating "Do not kill, do not take life, but prevent."[179]
In the early 1900s, when Sanger started as an activist, abortion was illegal throughout the United States – though medically necessary abortions were permitted in some states.[180] Although abortion was illegal, it was widespread: in 1930, there were an estimated 800,000 illegal abortions performed in the U.S., resulting in 8,000 to 17,000 women's deaths from complications.[181][ab] Abortion frequency ranged from an estimated one abortion per five live births, to one abortion per 2.5 live births.[183][184] Despite the high rates ofmorbidity and death from back-alley abortions, there was no prospect of legalizing abortion in Sanger's era; serious efforts to legalize abortion did not begin in the U.S. until the mid-1950s.[185]
Sanger focused all her efforts on promoting contraception, rather than campaigning to make abortion legal. In her view, contraception was beneficial for many reasons: it was safe, simple, inexpensive, reduced the number of unwanted pregnancies, addressed overpopulation, and – most importantly – it eliminated the need for dangerous abortions.[186][187] Historian Peter Engelman notes an irony in Sanger's desire to end abortions: "... the birth control movement of the early 20th century, which evolved into a reproductive rights movement that vowed to make and keep abortion legal, set out initially to end the practice of abortion, which was then illegal."[188]
The majority of the educational material that Sanger produced was focused on contraception, and abortion was rarely mentioned. In herFamily Limitation pamphlet, published in 1914, she wrote that every woman is entitled to make a choice of whether to have an abortion or not, and she suggested (incorrectly) thatquinine could be used to induce abortion.[189][ac] That pamphlet was the only time she mentioned a technique for abortion.[189][ad]
Sanger made many public statements discouraging abortion.[ae] When she opened her first birth control clinic in 1916, she distributed flyers to women, exhorting – in all capitals – "Do not kill, do not take life, but prevent."[179] AfterPope Pius XI publishedOf Chaste Wedlock, anencyclical on sex, Sanger wrote a critical reply in 1932, which included:
"[Abortion] is an alternative that I cannot too strongly condemn. Although abortion may be resorted to in order to save the life of the mother, the practice of it merely for limitation of offspring is dangerous and vicious."[194]
Abortions were not performed at clinics managed by Sanger. For many years, staff were not even permitted to refer patients to physicians (in other facilities) for medically necessary abortions.[195] In 1932, sixteen years after the first clinic opened, Sanger authorized staff to refer patients to hospitals for medically necessary abortions.[196][af] Planned Parenthood clinics would not offer abortions until 1970, several years after Sanger's death.[198]
Despite Sanger's public statements denouncing abortion for the purpose of limiting family size, historianJean Baker suggests that Sanger privately felt that the procedure was ethical – but only as a last resort.[199]
Boston prohibited Sanger from speaking, so she wore a gag, andA. M. Schlesinger Sr. read her statement of protest, April 16, 1929.[200]
Advocates for birth control employed a variety of tactics. Some, such asMary Dennett, preferred to work peacefully within the legislative system, and tried to amend the Comstock Act through lobbying. But Sanger chose to treat the undertaking as a battle for free speech, and repeatedly broke anti-obscenity laws, hoping to provoke arrest, which – she hoped – would lead to legal decisions in her favor.[201][202][203]
Her first brush with censorship came when she wrote a column,What Every Girl Should Know, for theNew York Call. Her final article in that series, scheduled for publication on February 9, 1913, discussed syphilis and gonorrhea, so Comstock issued an order prohibiting publication. In response, Sanger and theCall replaced the column with a statement: "What Every Girl Should Know — NOTHING! — by order of the Post-Office Department".[23]
Sanger's views on free speech were expanded when Emma Goldman introduced Sanger to physicianEdward Bliss Foote and lawyerTheodore Schroeder, co-founders of theFree Speech League, in New York.[204] Inspired by fellow free speech advocates, in 1914 she publishedThe Woman Rebel with the express goal of triggering a legal challenge to the Comstock anti-obscenity laws banning dissemination of information about contraception.[205] The Free Speech League provided funding and advice to help Sanger with legal battles.[204]
One of the most formidable opponents to birth control in the 1920s was theCatholic Church, which often tried to prevent Sanger from giving speeches.[206][207][208] Catholics persuaded theSyracuse city council to ban Sanger from giving a speech in 1924; theNational Catholic Welfare Conference lobbied against birth control; theKnights of Columbus boycotted hotels that hosted birth control events; the Catholic police commissioner ofAlbany prevented Sanger from speaking there; and severalnewsreel companies, succumbing to pressure from Catholics, refused to cover stories related to birth control.[209][210] Sanger turned some of the boycotted speaking events to her advantage by inviting the press, and the resultant news coverage often generated public sympathy for her cause.[211]
Numerous times in her career, local government officials prevented Sanger from speaking by shuttering a facility or threatening her hosts.[212] In 1929, city officials under the leadership of Boston's Catholic mayorJames Curley threatened to arrest her if she spoke.[213][214] In response she stood on stage, silent, with a gag over her mouth, whileArthur M. Schlesinger Sr. read a statement from Sanger:
"... I have been gagged. I have been suppressed. I have been arrested numerous times. I have been hauled off to jail. Yet every time, more people have listened to me, more have protested, more have lifted up their own voices. As a pioneer fighting for a cause, I believe in free speech. As a propagandist I see immense advantages in being gagged. It silences me, but it makes millions of others talk and think the cause in which I live."[206][213][215]
Over the course of her career, Sanger was arrested several times for speaking or publishing prohibited information.[216]
Eugenics was one of manysocial reform movements that swept across America during theProgressive Era, which stretched from about 1890 to 1930. During the 1920s, when Margaret Sanger's work was gaining momentum, eugenics wasa popular movement, promoted by major organizations, led by intellectuals and scientists, and funded by corporate foundations.[218][219][220]
Eugenic beliefs in the early 1900s covered a wide spectrum: at one extreme werewhite supremacists who wanted to reduce the population of certain other ethnicities.[221][222] Those at the other extreme wanted to improve the health and well-being of the entire human race out ofaltruistic motives.[221][223][ag] Many eugenicists were somewhere between: they did not categorize ethnicities as superior or inferior; but their list of unfit traits included attributes such asilliteracy or low scores onIQ tests which – even if well-intended – often had the effect of targeting certain ethnicities.[221]
Sanger found common ground between eugenics and her birth control movement: both endeavors would benefit if contraception were legal and readily available.[238] From her perspective as an activist struggling to develop support for her cause, Sanger viewed the eugenics movement as scientific, respectable, growing, international, and popular.[238][239][240] Sanger adopted eugenics because it was an opportunity to advocate for the legalization of contraception – eugenics was a means to her end.[238][239][241][242] Whether she genuinely believed in eugenic principles is a matter of debate; several historians conclude that her belief was not sincere, and suggest that she joined with the eugenics movement simply to lend legitimacy to her birth control efforts.[238][242][243][244]
Her support of eugenics was first manifested in 1917, when she published an article on eugenics byPaul Popenoe in her periodicalBirth Control Review.[245] From 1919 to 1921 she wrote several articles on the subject, leading to her1922 book focused on eugenics,The Pivot of Civilization.[217]
Sanger adopted the fundamental eugenic goal of reducing the number of unfit people. In that group, she included people who were insane, syphilitic, "paupers, morons, feeble-minded, mentally and morally deficient persons"; and included "reckless" people who were incapable of restraining themselves from having an excessive number of offspring.[246][247][ai]
To reduce the number of unfit children, Sanger initially emphasized contraceptives, which set her apart from mainstream eugenicists, who preferred sterilization.[238][250][251][aj] However, when the U.S. Supreme Courtdecided that involuntary sterilization was legal in 1927, she began to endorse voluntary sterilization (in addition to contraception).[253] She also began to support involuntary sterilizations in limited circumstances: for parents who were incapable of managing their own fertility and were likely to produce disabled children.[249][254][255] About 60,000 Americans were sterilized involuntarily between 1927 and World War II.[256][ak]
Sanger's approach to eugenics was heavily influenced by her feminism, which led her to deviate from mainstream eugenics in several ways:[217][257][258][259] She supported the right of fit parents to limit the size of their families; whereas mainstream eugenicists felt it was the duty of fit parents to have a large number of offspring.[251][260][al] And Sanger believed that mothers – with some exceptions – should individually regulate their family size; whereas mainstream eugenicists believed government mandates should be employed.[257][262][am][an]
Her eugenic proposals did not target specific ethnicities: instead, her goal was to improve the health of the whole human race by reducing the reproduction of those who were considered unfit.[266][267][268][ao] When she used the word "race" in the context of eugenics, the word invariably meant the entire human race, rather than a specific ethnicity; when she used the word "unfit" she meant an inherited defect, not an ethnicity.[246][266][270][ag] The consensus of scholars is that Sanger was not racist, but her collaboration with eugenicists indirectly assisted racist causes. AcademicDorothy Roberts, author ofKilling the Black Body, wrote "Sanger did not tie fitness for reproduction to any particular ethnic group. It appears that Sanger was motivated by a genuine concern to improve the health of poor mothers she served rather than a desire to eliminate their stock."[266] Roberts' assessment is echoed by other scholars, including scholarCarole McCann,[271] historian Peter Engelman,[272] and biographer Ellen Chesler.[273]
Sanger had affiliated with eugenicists in the hope of gaining their support for her birth control movement – but her devotion was not reciprocated: theAmerican Eugenics Society refused to accept any papers submitted by Sanger, most eugenicists ridiculed the birth control movement, and only a few would associate with her.[234][274] The reasons were that Sanger was a woman, she had no academic credentials, and she insisted that mothers should have the power to decide if and when to have children, which ran contrary to the mainstream eugenic policy that the state should order fit women to produce abundant offspring.[238][243][274][ap]
This sign in theNoHo neighborhood of New York was present from 1993 to 2021.[276]
Sanger achieved her goal of improving the well-being of women around the world through family planning: contraception is now legal in the U.S., family planning clinics are commonplace, contraception is taught in medical schools, tens of millions of women have made use of Planned Parenthood services, and hundreds of millions of women around the globe have access to birth control pills.[277][278] As a result, Sanger is viewed today as an importantfirst-wave feminist and a founder and leader of the birth control movement.[279][280][281]
Martin Luther King Jr. praised Sanger's work in his acceptance speech for the 1966Margaret Sanger Award: "[Sanger] went into the slums and set up a birth control clinic, and for this deed she went to jail because she was violating an unjust law.... She launched a movement which is obeying a higher law to preserve human life under humane conditions.... Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger."[289][aq]
Since thelegalization of abortion in 1973, Sanger has become a target of frequent attacks byopponents of abortion.[302][303][304][as] The attacks usually include falsehoods, and they often attribute quotes to Sanger that are either fabricated or presented out of context.[145][249][267][309][at] Common falsehoods are: she was a racist, she was a proponent of abortion, she was a Nazi sympathizer, or she supported the KKK.[235][267][311][312][au] Another persistent falsehood is the claim that Sanger applied her birth control policies with the intention of suppressing the African American community.[313][av]
Beginning in 2015, Planned Parenthood – hoping to improve relations with minority communities – took steps to distance itself from its founder: it removed Sanger's name from its annual awards, published an editorial in which it repudiated Sanger's advocacy of eugenics, and removed Sanger's name from its family planning clinic in Manhattan.[320][ar] EssayistKatha Pollitt and Sanger biographer Ellen Chesner criticized Planned Parenthood for succumbing to pressure from the anti-abortion movement.[324][325]
Sanger, Margaret (1912) [1911].What Every Mother Should Know. RetrievedDecember 15, 2024. Originally published in 1911 as a column in theNew York Call. The column was based on a set of lectures Sanger gave to groups of Socialist party women in 1910–1911. Multiple editions were published in book form starting in 1912 by Max N. Maisel and Sincere Publishing, with the titleWhat Every Mother Should Know, or how six little children were taught the truth.
—— (1916) [1912-1913].What Every Girl Should Know. RetrievedJanuary 15, 2025. Originally published as a column in 1912-1913; published in book form in 1916.
—— (1920).Woman and the New Race. Truth Publishing.OCLC7301455. RetrievedJanuary 15, 2025. Foreword by Havelock Ellis. Published in England with the titleThe New Motherhood.
——, ed. (1928).Motherhood in Bondage. Brentanos.LCCN28028778. RetrievedJanuary 15, 2025. A collection of letters women wrote to Sanger; many were initially published inBirth Control Review.
The Woman Rebel – Seven issues published monthly from March 1914 to September 1914. Sanger was publisher and editor.Digital copies of all issues.
Birth Control Review – Published monthly from February 1917 to 1940 (although some issues covered two or three months). Sanger was editor until 1929, when she resigned from the ABCL.[86]Digital copies of volumes 1 to 13 (1917 to 1929).
Sanger, Margaret (November 18, 1921a)."The Morality of Birth Control". Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. RetrievedFebruary 20, 2025.
—— (1921–1922)."A Moral Necessity for Birth Control". Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. RetrievedFebruary 20, 2025.
—— (March 30, 1925)."The Children's Era". Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. RetrievedFebruary 20, 2025.
—— (April 16, 1929)."Ford Hall Forum Address". Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. RetrievedFebruary 20, 2025. Sanger's statement, read byArthur M. Schlesinger Sr.
—— (January 25, 1937)."Woman and the Future". Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. RetrievedFebruary 20, 2025.
^They became estranged in 1913, but the divorce was not finalized until 1921.[1]
^Sanger tersely wrote in her 1931 autobiography: “Mother bore eleven children; she died at forty-eight. My father lived until he was eighty.”[6][7] Her mother was actually 50 years old when she died.[7]
^The termbirth control was suggested in early 1914 by a young friend, Otto Bobsein.[29] Other expressions considered were: conception control, family limitation, pregnancy prevention, limitation of offspring, regulation of reproduction, preventive arts, neo-Malthusianism, voluntary parenthood, and voluntary motherhood.[28] An early use of the term "birth control" in print was in the June 1914 issue ofThe Woman Rebel.[30]
^The July issue ofThe Woman Rebel contained an article, written by an obscure activist, titled "A Defense of Assassination" (Thorpe, Herbert."A Defense of Assassination".The Woman Rebel.1 (5): 1. RetrievedFebruary 28, 2025.)President McKinley had been assassinated in 1901, so Sanger felt the chance of conviction was high.[44]
^She made plans to retrieve her children, return to Europe, marry Portet, and set up life in Paris – but those plans never came to fruition.[55]
^Sanger's younger son Grant was distraught, and blamed his mother for his sister's death, due to Sanger's long absence.[56]
^The first clinic was located at 46 Amboy Street, Brooklyn.[67]
^Other clinic workers included Fania Mindell (administrative help) and Elizabeth Stuyvesant (social worker).[68][69]
^Sanger's 1916 clinic, in the Brownsville neighborhood, provided birth control information, but did not dispense contraceptives.[68][72]
^Caption at the bottom of this July 1919 issue reads: "Must She Always Plead in Vain? 'You are a nurse—can you tell me? For the children's sake—help me!'"
^ Of the KKK experience, Sanger wrote: "[It was] one of the weirdest experiences I had.... I was sure that if I uttered one word ... outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand."[116]
^Columbus Hill was a small section of the larger San Juan Hill neighborhood. Both neighborhoods were demolished in the 1950's to make room for theLincoln Center. African Americans were leaving Columbus Hill in the 1920's, favoring Harlem instead.[126]
^The administration and finances were managed by white employees of the CRB and ABCL.[127]
^The issue contained seven articles by African American authors, and four by white authors.[135] Two representative articles are:Du Bois, W. E. B. (June 1932)."Black Folk and Birth Control".Birth Control Review.16 (6):166–167. RetrievedFebruary 19, 2025. AndSchuyler, George (June 1932)."Quantity or Quality".Birth Control Review.16 (6):165–166. RetrievedFebruary 19, 2025.Thirteen years earlier, the September 1919 issue ofBirth Control Review contained articles by African American authors:Sanger, Margaret, ed. (September 1919a)."The New Emancipation: Negroes' Need for Birth Control, As Seen By Themselves".Birth Control Review.3 (9). RetrievedFebruary 19, 2025.
^Davis' 1981 book also contains the observation: "it was assumed within birth control circles that poor women, Black and immigrant alike, had a 'moral obligation to restrict the size of their families.' What was demanded as a 'right' for the privileged came to be interpreted as a 'duty' for the poor."[140][141] In the book, Davis also writes that birth control should not be equated withblack genocide.[142] In a 2014 interview, Davis said: "While I would never argue that birth control or abortion rights constitute genocide, I have to take into consideration how sterilization has been imposed on poor people, especially people of color, and that someone like Margaret Sanger argued [birth control] was a privilege for affluent women but a duty for poorer women."[143]
^ Historian Cathy Hajo discusses the African American community's reluctance to establish birth control clinics:Hajo 2010, pp. 86–88. See alsoMcCann 1994, pp. 146–147.
^Additional publications that conclude that the letter to Gamble was without racist intent: •Chesler 2007, p. 488. •Katz 1997. •Katz 2001.
^In 1942, in correspondence about the Negro Project in 1942, Sanger wrote: "I think it is magnificent that we are in on the ground floor, helping Negroes to control their birth rate, to reduce their high infant and maternal death rate, to maintain better standards of health and living for those already born, and to create better opportunities for those who will be born. In other words, we're giving Negroes an opportunity to help themselves, and to rise to their own heights through education and the principles of a democracy."[137]
^Mary Dennett was arrested and convicted of violating the Comstock act in 1929, and her successful federal appeal in 1930 contributed to the legal momentum culminating in theOne Package decision.[153]
^Sanger continued to participate in an advisory capacity, holding the titles of Honorary Chairman of the BCFA (1939 to 1942), and Honorary President of the PPFA (1942 onward).[159]
^Sanger was invited to give the speech by fellow birth control activist Shidzue Katō, who was then a senator in the Diet. The short speech was given to the Public Welfare committee on April 15, 1954.[169] Sanger wanted to visit earlier, but was prohibited from visiting byDouglas Macarthur.[170] Some sources state that Sanger was the first foreign woman to give a speech to the Diet or one of its committees.[107][168]
^The motto of Sangers first periodical was "No Gods, No Masters."[25]
^Sanger's second husband, Noah Slee, was Episcopalian.[174]
^The official cause of death was listed "abortion" for 2,700 women in 1930, accounting for 18% of maternal deaths that year.[182]
^In the first edition ofFamily Limitation she wrote: "If you are going to have an abortion, make up your mind to it in the first stages, and have it done. On the other hand, there is often a feeling of the strongest desire to continue with the pregnancy. It is for each woman to decide this for herself, but act at once, whichever way you decide."[190]
^In the 1918 eighth edition of the pamphlet, Sanger removed the abortion advice and replaced it with words of disapproval.[190]
^Sanger's views on abortion were expressed often. In 1916, when her first clinic opened, she told patients "that abortion was the wrong way – no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way – it took a little time, a little trouble, but it was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun."[191] In her 1919 article "Why Not Birth-Control Clinics in America?" she discussed medically necessary abortions: "The absurd cruelty of permitting thousands of women each year to go through abortions to prevent the aggravation of diseases for which they are under treatment assuredly cannot be much longer ignored by the medical profession."[192] In her 1920 bookWoman and the New Race she wrote: "Family limitation will always be practiced ... either by birth control or by abortion.... The one means health and happiness – a stronger, better race. The other means disease, suffering, death."[193]
^Sanger's first clinic opened in 1916. Her second clinic – the CRB – opened in 1923. Biographer Chesler states that there is evidence that, prior to 1932, CRB staff sometimes did refer patients to physicians outside the clinic for medically necessary abortions.[197]
^abIn addition to Sanger, other eugenicists that took a non-racist approach to eugenics includedGunnar Dahlberg,Theodosius Dobzhansky, W. E. B. Du Bois,J. B. S. Haldane,Herbert Spencer Jennings,Hermann Joseph Muller, andGunnar Myrdal.[223][224][225][226] Several prominent non-racist eugenicists signed theEugenics manifesto in 1939, which rejected racism and even the notion of race: "[a] major hindrance to genetic improvement lies in those economic and political conditions which foster antagonism between different peoples, nations and 'races'. The removal of race prejudices and of the unscientific doctrine that good or bad genes are the monopoly of particular peoples or of persons with features of a given kind will not be possible, however, before those conditions which make for war and economic exploitation have been eliminated."[221][227]
^Churchill was a sponsor of the first ABCL conference in 1921.[232]
^Sanger's list of unfit traits was not strictly genetic. She, and other eugenicists of that era, included environmental factors that appeared (to them) to be passed-down between generations; these included poverty, immorality, and illiteracy.[248][247][249]
^Many eugenicists opposed birth control (for unfit parents) because they believed fit parents would make use of it, thus reducing the number of fit offspring.[252]
^After the Nazi sterilization program was uncovered during WW II, there was a drastic reduction in involuntary sterilizations in the U.S.[256]
^Eugenic efforts were generally categorized aspositive measures which encouraged parents to reproduce if they were deemed fit; andnegative measures which discouraged parents from reproducing (via sterilization, contraception, abortion, or financial incentives) if they were deemed unfit.[261]
^Writings capturing Sanger's feelings on government regulation include: "eugenists [sic] imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her duty to the state. We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother."[263] And: "... we are convinced that racial regeneration ... must come from within. That is, it must be autonomous, self-directive, and not imposed from without.... this education ... must be based upon the needs and demands of the people themselves. An idealistic code of sexual ethics, imposed from above ... can never be of the slightest value in effecting any changes."[264]
^A rare instance where Sanger suggested government intervention was in her 1934 article "America Needs a Code for Babies", which appeared in a newspaper insert calledAmerican Weekly. Written when theNew Deal was creating a vast number of agencies, regulations, and codes, it begins "Under the 'New Deal' everybody and everybody's business is now regulated, coded, and licensed ... Even a peanut stand must be licensed; is the producer and caretaker of an American baby less important?" The article then lists a variety of proposals, including one that requires couples to obtain a permit from the government before having a child. The article continues: "All that sounds highly revolutionary, and it might be impossible to put the scheme into practice. But for purposes of discussion... I do not pretend in the above suggestions to have arrived at the formulation of a workable baby code..."[265]
^Sanger did not use race, ethnicity, or religion to determine unfitness,[257] however, in her speech "The Morality of Birth Control" she defined unfit people to include those "whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers."[269]
^Some eugenicists began to support birth control in the 1930s,[243] but by then the eugenics movement was in decline.[275]
^Martin Luther King Jr. was unable to attend the award ceremony, so his wife,Coretta Scott King, read the speech.[290]
^abTheMargaret Sanger Award and theMaggie Award have not been awarded since 2015. Comparable awards awarded in 2024 were theReproductive Health Icon Award and theMedia Excellence Award, respectively.[321][322][323]
^Examples of quotes falsely attributed to Sangercan be found in Wikiquote. An example of a quote which is accurate, but is often presented out of context is: "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it" from her bookWoman and the New Race. In that passage, she was discussing the high rate of infant death within poor families living in crowded conditions and suffering from malnutrition and disease. The full quote is "[to demonstrate] the immorality of large families ... it may be offered ...The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it [emphasis added]. The same factors which create the terrible infant mortality rate, and which swell the death rate of children between the ages of one and five, operate even more extensively to lower the health rate of the surviving members. Moreover, the overcrowded homes of large families reared in poverty further contribute to this condition. Lack of medical attention is still another factor, so that the child who must struggle for health in competition with other members of a closely packed family has still great difficulties to meet after its poor constitution and malnutrition have been accounted for. The probability of a child handicapped by a weak constitution, an overcrowded home, inadequate food and care, and possibly a deficient mental equipment, winding up in prison or an almshouse, is too evident for comment."[310]
^Scholars have concluded that Sanger was not a racist,[313] nor a proponent of abortion,[145] nor associated with the Nazi party,[235][314] nor a supporter of the KKK.[307]
^Engelman 2011, pp. 13–19. In addition to the federal Act, many states had laws with similar provisions. Enforcement of the laws was selective:condoms were widely available, but diaphragms and birth control manuals were not.
^Kennedy 1970, pp. 18–19. Kennedy points out that some materials on birth control were available in New York libraries in 1913. Sanger's description of the search:Sanger 1938, pp. 93–94.
^Chesler 2007, p. 63. Chesler concluded that Sachs may have been "an imaginative, dramatic composite" of several women; Engelman shares that view:Engelman 2011, p. 29. Additional insight into the Sadie Sachs story can be found in: •Baker 2011, pp. 49–51. •Engelman 2011, p. 29. Several patients with sepsis. •Sanger 1917, p. 9. A version of the story with the "threw my nursing bag" line.
^Sanger, Margaret (1919a).Family Limitation (Ninth ed.). p. 12. RetrievedFebruary 17, 2025 – via South Asian American Digital Archive. The first edition ofFamily Limitation had no illustrations; they were gradually added in subsequent editions.
^Engelman 2011, p. 91. Original court decision atBaketel, Sheridan, ed. (May 1917)."A Birth Control Decision".The Medical Times.45 (5). New York: 142.ISSN0092-7309. The judge wrote that women do not have "the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception."
^Chesler 2007, pp. 192–193. Chesler writes that the word "race" in the title of the book means "not ... distinctions of color but ... in the generic sense, as 'in the human race'".
^These principles were adopted at the first meeting of the ABCL in late 1921, and were published in"The American Birth Control League".The Proceedings of the First American Birth Control Conference. November 11, 1921. pp. 207–209. RetrievedFebruary 21, 2025. Also inSanger, Margaret (December 1921)."The American Birth Control League".Birth Control Review.5 (12): 18. RetrievedFebruary 21, 2025.
^Katz, Esther, ed. (1993)."Motherhood in Bondage".Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter (6). NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project. RetrievedFebruary 11, 2025. Number of letters.
^Gordon 2002, p. 235. Gordon wrote: "Sanger genuinely wanted this to be a project for black uplift, and she meant to avoid the substance as well as the appearance of trying to reduce the black population".
^"Mrs. Margaret Sanger, the noted birth control exponent now on her fourth visit here".Nippon Times. April 16, 1954. p. 2.ISSN0447-5763. Newspaper has a photo of Sanger with information about the speech in the caption, which provides date of speech, and name of the committee.
^Wallace 1957. In 1957, in response to a question about her religion, Sanger replied: "...I feel that we have divinity with within us, and the more we express the good part of our lives, the more the divine within us expresses itself. I suppose I would call myself Episcopalian, by religion. And there's uh many other, if you travel around the world, you get quite a bit of the feeling of all religions have so much alike in the divine part of our own being..."
^Lewis, Karen J. (January 2, 2001).Abortion Law Development: A Brief Overview(PDF).Report for Congress, Order Code # 95–724 A (Report). Congressional Research Service – The Library of Congress. p. CRS-2. RetrievedJanuary 19, 2025.
^Engelman 2011, pp. 58, 104, 148. Contrasting the two approaches.
^Engelman 2011, pp. 23–74. Chapter 2 – "Birth Control and Free Speech" – describes how advocacy of free speech was at the heart of the birth control movement.
^Gorton 2024. Book describes the rivalry between Sanger and Dennett.
^"Every Child a Wanted Child (Obituary)".Time. Vol. 88, no. 12. September 16, 1966. p. 96.ISSN0040-781X. ThisTime magazine article states eight total arrests in her life. Arrests related to free speech include: • 1914 arrest for mailing obscene material.Chesler 2007, p. 99. • 1916 arrest in New York for distributing contraceptive pamphlet.Cox 2005, p. 7. • 1916 arrest in Oregon for distributing obscene material.Engelman 2011, p. 66. • 1921 arrest for obscene speech at a meeting.Engelman 2011, pp. 125–126.
^abcBaker 2011, p. 162. "InThe Pivot of Civilization [Sanger] embraced eugenics as a female cause with a female solution".
^Additional insight into the popularity of eugenics in that era can be found in: •Engelman 2011, pp. 97–98, 130–134. •Baker 2011, pp. 140–147. •Chesler 2007, pp. 215–218.
^abKevles 1985, pp. 164–175. Describes "reform eugenicists" who believed there was no scientific basis for distinguishing races, and doubted that sterilization would have much impact.
^Crew, F. A. E.; Darlington, C. D.; Haldane, J. B. S.; Hakland, C.; Hogben, L. T.; Huxley, J. S.; Muller, H. J.; Needham, J.; Child, G. P.; Roller, P. C.; David, P. R.; Landauer, W.; Dahlbekg, G.; Plough, H. H.; Dobzhansky, Th.; Price, B.; Emerson, R. A.; Schultz, J.; Gordon, C.; Steinberg, A. G.; Hammond, J.; Waddington, C. H.; Huskins, C. L. (September 16, 1939)."Social Biology and Population Improvement"(PDF).Nature.144 (3646):521–522.Bibcode:1939Natur.144..521C.doi:10.1038/144521a0.ISSN1476-4687. RetrievedFebruary 7, 2025. Commonly referred to as the "eugenics manifesto".
^abEngelman 2011, pp. 133–134, 166. "It is important to note that Sanger understood 'unfit' to indicate 'physical or mental defects.' She wrote that 'if unfit refers to race or religions, then that is another matter which I frankly deplore.'" (p 133).
^Cooper 2023. "A lifelong campaigner for women’s rights, she gradually abandoned her anarchist and socialist convictions in favor of a distinctly feminist version of eugenics. Frustrated with the lack of interest in women’s reproductive autonomy among feminists and labor activists, Sanger turned to the science of eugenics."
^McCann 2010, p. 101. "Sanger's articulation of eugenics was a contradictory mix of adherence to the dominant American version of this ideology and resistance to it."
^abcRoberts 1998, p. 81. "Even in her most eugenical book,The Pivot of Civilization, Sanger did not tie fitness for reproduction to any particular ethnic group. It appears that Sanger was motivated by a genuine concern to improve the health of poor mothers she served rather than a desire to eliminate their stock. Sanger believed that all their afflictions arose from their unrestrained fertility, not their genes or racial heritage. For this reason, I agree that Sanger’s views were distinct from those of her eugenecist colleagues. Sanger nevertheless promoted two of the most perverse tenets of eugenic thinking: that social problems are caused by reproduction of the socially disadvantaged and that their childbearing should therefore be deterred."
^Baker 2011, p. 201. "Sanger never applied the term 'unfit' to entire races or religions."
^McCann 1994, p. 117. McCann writes that Sanger stressed limiting the number of births, and to live within one's economic ability to raise and support healthy children, which in her view would lead to a betterment of society and the human race: "although Sanger articulated birth control in terms of racial betterment ... she always defined fitness in individual rather than racial terms."
^Engelman 2011, p. 135. Engelman concluded that Sanger was not a racist, but added: "Sanger quite effortlessly looked the other way when others spouted racist speech. She had no reservations about relying on flawed and overtly racist works to serve her own propaganda needs."
^Chesler 2007, p. 15. "Margaret Sanger was never herself a racist, but she lived in a profoundly bigoted society, and her failure to repudiate prejudice unequivocally – especially when it was manifest among proponents of her cause – has haunted her ever since."
^ab"Margaret Sanger Square". The Village View. August 5, 2024. RetrievedFebruary 16, 2025. The street sign designating "Margaret Sanger Square" was placed in 1993 at the intersection of Bleeker Street & Mott St (the location of Planned Parenthood's Manhattan birth control clinic), and was removed in 2021.
Katz, Esther, ed. (1996b)."The Heart to go to Japan".Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter (12). NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project. RetrievedJanuary 10, 2025.
Katz, Esther, ed. (1997)."The Demonization of Margaret Sanger".Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter (16). NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project. RetrievedNovember 27, 2016.
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