There’s absolutely not any question that when we look into the lives of inspirational women, each girl born in the Western world now was affected by Margaret Sanger. The fact that as women we like reproductive rights stems from a the vigilant hard work of the very controversial woman.
Let’s start
She’s still controversial (the net being filled with claims of racism, eugenics, etc.) and this is indicative of the time she lived and the sorts of ideas that believing people were hashing about during the early 1900s. But who was this girl who had such impact? This report attempts to unpack the life and thoughts of the inspirational woman. Difficulties of women in childbirth, and powerful radical political activities were utilized to assemble through out Margaret’s life.
Born Margaret Louise Higgins she was the middle child in a family of 11 kids. Her father was called a freethinking man and his politics should have had affected her, as did watching her mother died at age 50 after 18 pregnancies. Her own reproductive life has been made harder by frequent bouts of tuberculosis, although she had three kids with her husband William Sanger. Two other influences come into play as she and her husband loved the revolutionary political intellectual world of Greenwich Village in New York City in the early 1900s, in precisely the exact same time she worked as a visiting nurse in city tenements.
Let’s see…
Who knows or understands the problems taken on through a single-handed pursuit of everything you believe is appropriate? That both of the Sanger ceased at reproductive rights were correct is apparent once you follow their history from 1910 to 1920. First Margaret wrote a pamphlet called family restriction, at precisely the exact same time she wrote articles and a free book called the woman radical. This brought her up against the national postal obscenity laws of the time and she flees to England while her husband stayed in the US distributing her job.
In 1915 when he was detained she came home to face the charges against her personal tragedy in the shape of the passing of her five-year-old daughter sparked public sympathy and the charges were dismissed. While in Europe, she visited Holland, thinking back to the United States with a feeling of what birth control might be. This prompted her work in public health leading to lines of Jewish Italian immigrant women crowding into our practices daily. Courageous work in the struggle of the standard of the time always brings backlash from the people in power. As was true with many suffragettes, Margaret and her sister had been convicted, JL, and participated in hunger strikes.
Good to know
The publicity surrounding these actions made birth control a topic of public discussion, thus turning the tide so that by the 1920s public prefer towards her ideas started to make legislative change potential. Her work branched out from the United States to the worldwide level, where she lectured to large audiences throughout the remainder of her life. It’s sobering to remember that it wasn’t till 1965, a month or two after her death, the Supreme Court of the United States made birth control legal for married couples. Nevertheless, the controversy that brought her racist and points to her eugenics philosophies aren’t wrong when seeing her with the eyes of the 21st century girl. And I believe that is one possible outcome of single-minded attention — it becomes easier to lose sight of this wider picture, in this case human rights.
Final word
Nor did she think about the rights of the unborn child when she discussed abortion. These problems are still being sorted out by cultures around the world. In his book, Leadership without Easy Answers, one Heifetz discusses the changes caused by Margaret Sanger as an example of informal leadership. One individual, doggedly pursuing what they think is right in one place can make great change because they do not need to be accountable for the results of anything other than what they’re focused on. This is another sort of inspirational story, then the preceding article in this series on Roosevelt. Margaret committed her life to one thing, being a formal direction, had to think about the wider range of people’s needs and thoughts. Nevertheless, both women lived lives that remain inspirational many years after their departure.