To mark Women’s History Month, SCNR is profiling individuals who had a significant impact on women in their lives and communities. This year’s theme, “Women’s True Enemy - Other Women,” focuses on those whose actions harmed women or female-centered causes.
Margaret Sanger is heralded as a feminist icon who changed the landscape of reproductive medicine.
She is widely known as the founder of Planned Parenthood, the nationwide network of health clinics that provides birth control, STD testing and abortions. The darker side of Sanger’s motivations has been swept under the rug and the negative consequences of her work have been denied. Sanger was a socialist and a eugenicist who has been rebranded as a pro-woman icon who should be thanked for ushering abortion access and widely available hormonal contraceptives into the modern world.
Born Margarert Higgins on Sept. 14, 1879 in Corning, New York, Sanger was raised by Roman Catholic parents alongside 11 siblings. She studied to become a nurse and was said to have been profoundly affected by the unwanted pregnancies experienced by immigrant mothers – some of whom sought abortions with dire consequences.
She married William Sanger in 1902 and relocated to New York City. The couple had three children and later divorced. She went on to marry Noah L. Slee.
Sanger opposed the Comstock Act which barred the discussion or distribution of material relating to birth control or contraception as the topics were considered to be obscene. Sanger published a feminist monthly magazine called “The Woman Rebel” which promoted birth control. When she faced criminal charges for her work and a possible sentence of 20 years in prison, Sanger fled to England for a year. She returned to America in 1915 when her charges were dropped. In 1916, she opened the nation’s first birth control clinic in Brooklyn. She personally alerted the press to its opening and she was arrested – and the clinic closed – within nine days. The Comstock law was repealed by the Supreme Court in 1965.
But Sanger’s ambitions regarding birth control were not entirely born from a desire to liberate women or an altruistic concern for impoverished mothers. Sanger believed in eugenics – the notion that the human population can be improved by breeding for desirable genetic qualities. A member of the New York Socialist Party and the American Eugenics Society, her views on population control and development appeared throughout her writing.
In her 1922 book The Pivot of Civilization, Sanger wrote:The lack of balance between the birth rate of the ‘unfit’ and the ‘fit,’ admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. The example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken, should not be held up for emulation to the mentally and physically fit, and therefore less fertile, parents of the educated and well-to-do classes. On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective. Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon American society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupid, cruel sentimentalism.
Sanger was concerned about the fate of the nation and regarded preventing birth among the poor as a necessary step in ensuring the future.
“But poverty multiplied by ignorance, hunger, disease, congenital defect, cannot be a proper breeding-ground for the future generations of America,” she wrote in Motherhood in Bondage, per the ACLJ.
In an article in 1921, she wrote that “the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective,” per Time Magainze.
Feminists would prefer the public remember other lines from Sanger’s writing – including, “Enforced motherhood is the most complete denial of a woman’s right to life and liberty” and “No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.”
Some feminist thought leaders have tried to argue the godmother of the fight for birth control was not actually concerned with human genetics but was instead pretending so she could win support for her cause.
Author Gloria Steinem claimed in a 1988 essay that Sanger “adopted the mainstream eugenics language of the day, partly as a tactic, since many eugenicists opposed birth control on the grounds that the educated would use it more” but that her “use of eugenics language probably helped justify sterilization abuse.”
“Her misjudgments should cause us to wonder what parallel errors we are making now and to question any tactics that fail to embody the ends we hope to achieve,” wrote Steinem.
Planned Parenthood was formed in 1942 from a research group, an advocacy organization, and a scientific journal all founded by Sanger to promote birth control. In 1970, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Syracuse became the first to offer abortion services. The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of abortion during the first three months of pregnancy in 1973 as part of its ruling in Roe v. Wade.
The organization openly acknowledges that Sanger was a eugenicist although it calls the belief system “inherently racist and ableist.”
In a description of its history, Planned Parenthood notes:Margaret Sanger pronounced her belief in and alignment with the eugenics movement many times in her writings, especially in the scientific journal Birth Control Review.
At times, Sanger tried to argue for eugenics that was not applied based on race or religion. But in a society built on the belief of white supremacy, physical and mental fitness are always judged based on race… She held beliefs that, from the very beginning, undermined her movement for reproductive freedom and caused harm to countless people.
Sanger was so intent on her mission to advocate for birth control that she chose to align herself with ideas and organizations that were ableist and white supremacist. In 1926, she spoke to the women’s auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) at a rally in New Jersey to promote birth control methods. Sanger endorsed the 1927 Buck v. Bell decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could forcibly sterilize people deemed ‘unfit’ without their consent and sometimes without their knowledge. The acceptance of this decision by Sanger and other thought leaders laid the foundation for tens of thousands of people to be sterilized, often against their will.
In 2022, Planned Parenthood published its 2020-2021 annual report. The organization received over $633 million in taxpayer-generated funding – largely through Medicaid reimbursements. Planned Parenthood performed 383,460 abortions – breaking the previous annual record documented between 2019-2020 of 354,871. During the same period, adoption reversal dropped from 2,667 to 1,940. The number of well-woman exams performed at Planned Parenthood clinics also declined from 208,248 between 2019-2020 to 127,095 during 2020-2021.
Planned Parenthood also reported $2.1 billion in assets and $1.7 billion in total revenue.
Sanger died on Sept. 6, 1966, just over a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled birth control was legal for married couples.
Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced in 2022 that it would remove Sanger’s name from its center in New York City.
“Margaret Sanger’s concerns and advocacy for reproductive health have been clearly documented, but so too has her racist legacy,” said Karen Seltzer, the board chair of PPGNY, in a press release. “There is overwhelming evidence for Sanger’s deep belief in eugenic ideology, which runs completely counter to our values at PPGNY. Removing her name is an important step toward representing who we are as an organization and who we serve.”
Despite the criticism of her beliefs, Sanger is still celebrated by some women’s organizations.
“Margaret Sanger's fight for freedom, dignity, and the unqualified right to self determination for everyone won her the respect of countless millions,” wrote Witchita State University, which dedicated a paver in its Plaza of Heroines to the birth control advocate. “The basic beliefs for which she fought her entire adult life included … a woman's right to control her body is the foundation of her civil rights … [and] every child should be a wanted child.”
