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Margaret Sanger's What Every Mother Should Know

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Margaret Sanger knew first-hand what it was like to experience the effects of a life without birth control, being the sister of ten siblings. Her activism for birth control was strongly influenced by her personal experience. At the young age of nineteen, she tragically watched her own mother die from tuberculosis. She personally blamed her father for causing this, saying her mother died from “having too many children and working herself to death” (Amory, 2011). As a result of this tragedy, Sanger’s passion for birth control and women everywhere exploded. After her mother’s death, she moved to New York to attend nursing school. She began to work as a nurse on the Lower East Side of New York City. She was inundated with several women who …show more content…

Of course this led to an even stronger desire for Sanger to legalize contraceptives and provide women with accurate information about them. She stated that “women should have knowledge of contraception. They have every right to know about their own bodies” (Amory, 2011). While in New York, Sanger became actively involved in the Socialist Party and the International Workers of the World, which was a radical labor organization. She gave many speeches on the subject of health, and her talks became quite popular, especially among the female population. In 1911, she began to publish a collection of articles for The New York Call entitled “What Every Mother Should Know.” A year later, these articles were expurgated by the Post Office Department, due to their defilement of the Comstock Law, “which forbade the mailing of ‘lewd, lascivious, indecent, or obscene’ material” (McPherson, 1984). In 1914, she invented the term “birth control” and began to provide women with more information. Sanger started her own newspaper and called it Woman Rebel. She stated that the main goal of this paper was “to stimulate working women to think for themselves and to build up a conscious fighting character” (McPherson, 1984). But most of the articles contained content regarding Sanger’s thoughts

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May credited Margaret Sanger and fellow women's rights proponent and philanthropist Katherine McCormick for driving, and funding, the push for an oral contraceptive, with the original intent to give women control of fertility. However, the majority of developers and advocates endorsed the birth control pill to solve "the problems of the world," specifically rising population, and particularly among lower socio-economic groups and in developing countries." Advocates feared widespread poverty in developing countries, poverty resulting from communism, and overpopulation in the United States due to the baby boom.

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After read this article “No Healthy Race without Birth Control” by Margaret Sanger who really makes my mind stuck out with two points: first is her title “No Healthy Race without Birth Control” and another she used birth Control as a vehicle for women to gain their freedom. Firstly, I do not agree with her augment is that “No Healthy Race without Birth Control”. I have never heard a maxim like this in my life: such as women will not have a good health if they do not do birth control. This argument is not entirely true.

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Margaret Sanger was a nurse turned educator who opened the first US birth-control clinic. She was arrested for this, but eventually was legally allowed to open another clinic. Sangers made an enormous contribution to woman today. Her contributions allowed woman to gain some control over the decision of having children. She did this in a world where woman had very little rights.

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The names jointly associated with the pills development are three males— Carl Djerassi, Gregory Pincus and John Rock. The two females who played a central role in its development, Katharine McCormick and Margaret Sanger, are often not associated. Also the hundreds of women who volunteered to participate in the pill’s risky clinical trials are not associated with its development, May depicts the reason for failure of recognition by shedding light to the darkness of the pill. She dedicates several pages to specifying the moral and physical risks posed by the pill. May provides supportive information about numerous research trials all over the world (including the U.S.), and the stories of countless women whose suffrage heavily contributed to the development of the pill and the approval for

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Some words Margaret Sanger used include the following: dim, distant, silly, unwelcome, unwanted, unprepared, unknown, exhausted, inefficient, struggle, meaningless, and waste. Including the sentence, “Worry, strain, shock, unhappiness, enforced maternity, may all poison the blood of the enslaved mothers,” provides the negative tone to hint that she does not like the fact that birth control is illegal in the United States. Her habitual word choices is a consequence of where she comes from. Diction reveals things about Sanger’s past and how she reacts and views the present. Margaret Sanger, a memorable and important woman of American history, used her determination and emotional influence to appeal to the national birth control committee, and, as a result, created a lasting speech filled with rhetorical

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In this quote Sanger relates the the subjugation of women to the bondage of the freedom of humanity. She relates to the male audience by speaking of a Father and Husband who was a sober, hard working gentleman, who turned into an alcoholic when five more children were added to the family. She shows the importance of birth control not only for the health of the woman, but also the future of the child/children and father. She uses pathos to emotionally connect to the hardships faced by men in low and middle class families who cannot support their families due to to big of a

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Trying to prevent neglected children and back-alley abortions, Margaret Sanger gave the moving speech, “The Children’s Era,” in 1925 to spread information on the benefits and need for birth control and women's rights. Margaret Sanger--activist, educator, writer, and nurse--opened the first birth control clinic in the United States and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. During most of the 1900’s, birth control and abortions were illegal in the United States, causing women to give birth unwillingly to a child they must be fully responsible for. This caused illness and possible death for women attempting self-induced abortion. Sanger uses literary devices such as repetition and analogies

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Where she had to drop out to help take care of her ill mother; Margaret’s mother got really sick from having to many children. This is one of the many reasons Margaret dedicated her life to help women. She did not want other women to have to go through what her mother went through. Margaret worked hard to have birth control and abortion legalized. She was also apart of the women’s rights movement (Margaret Sanger 1).

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Margaret worked as a visiting nurse in the impoverished neighborhoods of New York City’s Lower East Side. After working with numerous patients that were poor, immigrant women suffering the health consequences of botched abortions and repeated pregnancies (“Margaret Sanger,” n.d.). Seeing women suffer was the catalyst which brought about her belief that the ability to limit family size was an essential component to maintaining women’s health and breaking the cycle of poverty. Therefore, Margaret redirected her attention from nursing to advocating for the use and legalization of birth control and contraceptives (Margaret Sanger,” n.d.). During this time, it was illegal to provide contraceptives information due to the Comstock Act passed by Congress in 1873.

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The argument over a woman’s right to choose over the life of an unborn baby has been a prevalent issue in America for many years. As a birth control activist, Margaret Sanger is recognized for her devotion to the pro-choice side of the debate as she has worked to provide sex education and legalize birth control. As part of her pro-choice movement, Sanger delivered a speech at the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference in March of 1925. This speech is called “The Children’s Era,” in which she explains how she wants the twentieth century to become the “century of the child.” Margaret Sanger uses pathos throughout her speech as she brings up many of the negative possibilities that unplanned parenthood can bring for both children and parents.

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She had left to stay in Europe where she had assisted in a birth control clinic. When she returned to the United States, she had decided to open up her first Birth Control Clinic which only lasted 10 days in Brownsville district of Brooklyn. She was then arrested for giving out contraceptives in 1917. However, by then many people were already aware of Margaret Sanger and her contraceptive movement and she got a lot of support from women.

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Shortly after writing an article about venereal disease, Comstock ordered that the newspaper stop printing this column. Even though her first column was shut down, this did not stop Sanger from starting the newsletter The Women Rebel which contained information specifically about birth control which directly violated the Comstock Law. The Postal Service refused to distribute her newsletters, and Margaret Sanger was arrested in 1914 for violating the Comstock Law. Margaret Sanger was going to do whatever she had to do to make sure women had information on birth control. Instead of facing her charges, Margaret Sanger went to England where birth control was widely accepted.

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Children Children remain a controversial issue in the law for women and occur frequently in debates today. The birth control movement started in 1873 with the Comstock Law, which outlawed the distribution of birth control information and devices through mail. This included birth control related items imported from outside the United States. The Comstock Law also outlawed possession of information about birth control, as well as possession of actual birth control devices or medications, including those for abortions or contraceptives.

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Before the Progressive Era, women were at home most of the day, and their main purpose was to have children. However, during the Progressive Era, women wanted to be in control of their destiny when it came to childbirth, and therefore created a movement to increase the use of birth control. This movement was led by Margaret Sanger, who believed that women should be able to control their lives instead of men. She led many protests and also distributed large amounts of birth control to spread her ideas. Before these movements, men created laws that prevented women from controlling their destiny, and through the ABCL (which she founded)

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In 1960, the first birth control pill was put on the market. This was the first time a woman’s reproductive health was in her own control. Ever since the 1900’s women have been fighting for the right to their own reproductive rights (“The Fight for Reproductive Rights”). With the upcoming presidential election the right to obtain birth control and other contraceptives for women could be jeopardized, and taken out of the control of the woman. Thus, the history of birth control, the statistics of how it affects today’s society, why women should have the ability to obtain it easily, and how if outlawed it would not only hurt women, but also the economy are all important topics in the women’s rights movement and very relevant in modern day society.

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