Margret Sanger | Intentions
“The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal … we do not want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
- Margaret Sanger
I want to start by saying that this episode is NOT about reproductive rights. Today, we will be talking about Margaret Sanger.
Put her name into a search engine and you will be provided with a variety of titles such as “political activist”, “feminist”, “American social reformer”, and “sex educator”. You will be treated to the history of a person who fought hard for women’s reproductive rights. To be clear, all of this is true.
Her time as a nurse exposed her to countless situations where mothers were unable to take care of their children, and as a result, she deduced what she defined as a solution to the issue. This solution, and the motivations behind it, has been discussed, spun, and buried over the last 100 years. To this day, her intentions to eradicate African American populations and those she defined as “weak”, are shrouded in high praise for her contributions. Today, we take a deep dive into the motivations of Margaret Sanger, what – according to history – drove her “solutions”, and why even Planned Parenthood is beginning to disavow her.
One more thing. In the last few episodes, Jon and I have been fairly direct in our opinions regarding the people and events. We will not be doing that with this episode. We will be covering facts. In today’s world, viewpoints are plentiful, and everyone has an opinion. While Jon and I absolutely stand by our summations and views regarding the likes of Vlad the Impaler and Khmer Rouge, we don’t want to make a habit of voicing our viewpoints over the facts we present to you in these episodes. We will save that for the discussion. In presenting the facts to you, we trust you, as always, to come to your own conclusions.
Early Life and Nursing
Margaret Higgins Sanger was born on September 14th, 1879. Her father served in the Civil War and became a stone cutter, while her mother, an Irish immigrant, stayed home to raise the growing family. Margaret was one of the only siblings to receive a higher education. She attended Claverack College and the Hudson River Institute, before working as a nurse practitioner at White Plains Hospital and the Manhattan Eye and Ear Clinic. She first married in 1900, and after a house fire, the couple went to start a new life in New York City, joining various socialist clubs which marked the beginning of her local and national activism.
During her time as a nurse, Sanger worked with numerous immigrant mothers who experienced many childbirths. Most of these women and families were in poverty, and simply could not afford to have more children. As a result, they sought what was defined as “back alley” abortions and other means to end their pregnancy. After witnessing several of these botched attempts and the effects they had on patients, she pushed for change within her workplace to explore birth control or prevention, all of which were ignored. Many historians cite this time as a defining moment in Sanger’s life, with some saying that her drive to promote birth control showed her dislike of abortion. This manifested itself in other ways in her life, such as when she helped deliver her niece, only to see her sister’s drunk husband come home and throw the newborn into a snowbank outside. Sanger recused the infant and secured a safe place for her sister away from the abusive, murderous man.
Her exposure to poverty-stricken families continued, as did her involvement with socialist circles in New York. These two worlds, combined with her growing attraction to Eugenics, sparked an interest and drive toward her cause, which according to some historians, was to empower women to avoid unwanted pregnancies and remove legal barriers to contraception.
Activism
In 1912, Sanger fully devoted herself to this cause. She published articles on the topics of birth control and sex, created a magazine, and distributed pamphlets advocating her views and providing insights on how to avoid pregnancy. These caused her legal issues, as they violated Comstock Laws – which prohibited obscenity – , and she was indicted as a result. Instead of standing trial, she fled to England, where she embraced the neo-Malthusians – a group known for the belief that population growth was exponential, and would eventually destroy the world through famine, poverty, and war. This fell in line with her socialist views, and as some historians have noted, caused a more radical shift in her justification for birth control. She would employ this new philosophy through conferences and other speaking engagements, highlighting the need to control populations, especially certain types.
Her travels to Europe also exposed her to new forms of contraception, which were allowed in many countries. During her time there, she set up relationships with those who could smuggle in said contraceptives through Canada, and upon returning to New York in 1916, she opened a family planning and birth control clinic. Within a few days of opening, she was arrested and sent home with a fine. Once home, she reopened the clinic and was arrested again. This time she – and her sister – were given more severe sentences due to breaking a law that prohibited contraceptives from being handed out. The judge in this case tried to offer an easier sentence if Sanger promised not to commit the crime again. She refused, and a sentence of 30 days in a labor house was issued. Sanger appealed, and as a result, the sentence was overturned. In addition, the appellate court issued the right for doctors to prescribe contraception if needed. This was a major win for the birth control movement and an advancement for Sanger’s cause.
In 1921, she founded the American Birth Control League, which was intended to grow support for birth control in the middle class. Though she eventually split with the organization, she continued to champion its causes. In addition, she traveled throughout the world, understanding how different cultures control populations and working to limit abortions and infanticide through contraception awareness and availability.
Upon returning again to the United States in 1925, she continued speaking and lecturing about birth control to any and all groups, including the Klu Klux Klan. In 1929, she formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control which was intended to overturn laws against contraception. Even with momentum, the committee did not achieve the intended goals. To accelerate progress, Sanger ordered a contraceptive from Canada which on its entry into the United States, was confiscated. This promoted a legal challenge that overturned large portions of the Comstock laws and in 1937, caused the American Medical Association to prescribe contraceptives as a regular medical service.
In 1952, Sanger created the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which she would lead as the first president until the age of 80. She passed away in 1966 at the age of 86, one year after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to legalize birth control in the United States.
Motivations, Eugenics, and Race
On April 17, 2021, Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and chief executive of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America published an op-ed in the New York Times. In it, she wrote,
“Up until now, Planned Parenthood has failed to own the impact of our founder’s actions. We have defended Sanger as a protector of bodily autonomy and self-determination while excusing her association with white supremacist groups and eugenics as an unfortunate “product of her time.” Until recently, we have hidden behind the assertion that her beliefs were the norm for people of her class and era, always being sure to name her work alongside that of W.E.B. Dubois and other Black freedom fighters. Reassessing Sanger’s history doesn’t negate her feminist fight, but it does tarnish it. In the name of political expedience, she chose to engage white supremacists to further her cause. In doing that, she devalued and dehumanized people of color. We will no longer make excuses or apologize for Margaret Sanger’s actions.”
While this statement may seem surprising, it shouldn’t be when one looks objectively at Sanger’s stated motivations for birth control. While there is the idea that her drive for birth control started with good intent, many historians believe that her motivations devolved based on a now, debunked scientific theory, called Eugenics. This theory stated that it would be possible to improve the human race by eradicating a portion of it. That portion included the weak, feeble-minded, and certain “undesirable” races that according to eugenics supporters hinder the human race. Starting in the late 1800’s, this monstrous fake theory perpetuated itself among self-proclaimed intellectual circles, political factions, and some governments. Its prevalence in society at the time directly influenced Sanger’s push for birth control as a means of curbing such populations. As one neuroscientist put it,
“Sanger strongly backed the field of eugenics and saw birth control as an innovative and safe way to medically allow for limiting the abilities of certain populations to reproduce. Her eugenic beliefs also found themselves rooted in race, greatly affecting African American populations in America and furthering beliefs that people of color were lesser than, or appropriate for being used as test subjects for medical advancements. Both of these belief systems drove Sanger’s fight for widespread, easy access to birth control in America.”
After her exposure to the neo-Malthusians, Sanger wrote about how the country was suffering greatly due to uncontrolled reproduction, specifically the unstable majority of the “feeble-minded”, people living in city slums, overridden with disease, poverty, and other struggles. In her writings, she associated such feeble-mindedness with high fertility rates, which she defined as a biological menace. In those same writings, she stated that such things were the drivers of her advocation for contraception as a way to protect society from such inferior people reproducing.
In addition, she stated that society was too accepting of personal freedom, saying, “respecting the personal liberty of the individual only in regard to the unrestricted and irresponsible bringing into the world of filth and poverty and overcrowding procession of infants foredoomed to death or heritable disease.” She went on to say, “Birth control… is really the greatest and most truly eugenic method, and its adoption as part of the program of Eugenics would immediately give a concrete and realistic power to that science.”
Based on Sanger’s writings and the majority of historical interpretations of them, the African American population was directly in her crosshairs. As one historian noted, “In the book, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, Harriet Washington describes that while Sanger was a “complex, passionate woman” that shaped American reproductive policy by instigating the fall of the Comstock Laws, pushing the developing of the birth control pill, and founding what we know today as Planned Parenthood, she did so in ways that blatantly harmed the black American population.” In her work, The Pivot of Civilization, Sanger details the account of an African American girl who had sixteen children, and whom Sanger considered feeble-minded. As several historians have noted, race is emphasized in these writings, and as Sanger wrote more and more, she knew that alliances with prominent African American figures and clergy would be required to advance her cause. To accomplish this, she forged friendships with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Adam Glayton Powell Jr., and physicians that, by mere association, negated suspicions of racism and bad intent.
From culling the weak to working to eliminate African American populations, Sanger expressed harmful intent against those that, based on her writings, were not important enough to be born, or live. Historians and even some of her supporters have in recent years, had to acknowledge this fact and now, are finally addressing it and the harmful implications of said intentions being put into action.
Acknowledging Evil
We can have two conversations. The benefits of contraception and reproductive rights while being honest about the person and her stated, evil intent behind both. As said at the beginning of this podcast, our intent here is to show you the facts of history and let you decide on the outcome. What has been communicated to you here today are strictly facts, and in reviewing the facts, we can join the many historians and common humanity when we state that any intention to eradicate human beings is an evil one. Targeting and working to destroy people on the basis of race is extremely evil and must be stopped.
Margaret Sanger’s motivations for birth control may or may not have stemmed from a virtuous beginning. What is clear is that her continued motivation, driven by a desire to curb specific populations from procreating and shaping humanity into an image that she deemed acceptable, was evil, and because of that, and that alone, she is included here in this season.
When we look to history, we have to be serious about it, acknowledging the good and the bad. We cannot subjectively look at what we see, take the facts we want, and dismiss the rest. Doing so puts us at risk of using history to support opinion, rather than learning history to inform or change an opinion. In reviewing the life of Margret Sanger, we acknowledge the evil behind her intent, while continuing the conversations about reproductive rights, and being honest about the intended outcomes.
