Margaret Sanger Research Paper

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Margaret Sanger, the founder of the birth control movement and a prominent figure in the American reproductive rights and feminist movements was also associated with eugenics. Due to this, Sanger left a complicated legacy. She is originally credited with originating the term “birth control.” She recognized the need for women to have access to information about contraception and family planning. Her work in this field helped lay the groundwork for organizations like Planned Parenthood. Her desire to work in that field likely came from her childhood. Margaret Sanger, born Margaret Higgins, had seen her mother pass while she was relatively young. “Anne Higgins died from tuberculosis at the age of fifty, Margaret, the sixth of eleven children, …show more content…
Since she was a nurse who focused on sexual education, she had an abundance of knowledge on contraception and women’s health. She likely thought that what she was doing for “unwanted” children was a good thing. Along with being a nurse, “In 1912 she began writing a column on sexual education for the New York Call entitled “What Every Girl Should Know.” This experience led to her first battle with censors, who suppressed her column on venereal disease, deeming it obscene”4. Sanger “influenced by the ideas of anarchist Emma Goldman, began to argue for the need for family limitation as a tool by which working-class women would liberate themselves from the economic burden of unwanted pregnancy”. This was not the first time she faced something that challenged her thoughts. The Comstock Law occurred during Margaret Sanger’s lifetime, and it impacted her work. It was passed in 1873 and it criminalized several activities related to sexual health, contraception, and abortion. “In 1938, in a case involving Margaret Sanger, Judge August Hand lifted the federal ban on birth control, effectively ending the use of the Comstock Law to target birth control information and devices”6. This is just one example of how her work has had lasting