Margaret Sanger

file:SangerAndSons.tiff

Sanger's parents were Irish Catholics who separately emigrated from Ireland. Her father, Michael Hennessey Higgins, immigrated to Canada with his family, then moved to the U.S. at the age of 14, and joined the Union army in the Civil War as a drummer at 15. Upon leaving the army, he studied medicine and phrenology but ultimately became a stonecutter.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=9–12}}{{sfn|Sanger|1938|pp=11–20}} Her mother, Anne Purcell Higgins, immigrated to the U.S. with her family during the Great Famine.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=9–12}} Anne and Michael were married in 1869.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=9–12}}

Sanger was born Margaret Louise Higgins September 14, 1879 in Corning, New York. She spent her early years in a bustling household, under the influence of her father, who was a free-thinker, a socialist, and an agnostic.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=27}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=16–18}} In 22 years, Anne Higgins conceived 18 times, and gave birth to 11 live babies. She died at the age of 50, when Margaret was 19 years old.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=9–12}}{{efn|Sanger tersely wrote in her 1931 autobiography: “Mother bore eleven children; she died at forty-eight. My father lived until he was eighty.”{{sfn|Sanger|1931|p=9}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=9}} Her mother was actually 50 years old when she died.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=9}}}}

With financial help from two elder sisters, Margaret Higgins attended the Hudson River Institute at Claverack College from 1896 to 1900, then nursing school at White Plains Hospital from 1900 to 1902.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=22–33}} After graduating as a nurse, she married architect William Sanger in 1902. Although she suffered from tuberculosis, she settled down to a quiet life in Hastings-on-Hudson and had three children.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=28}}

File:The Woman Rebel issue1.jpg

In 1911, after a fire destroyed their home, the Sangers abandoned the suburbs for a new life in New York City. Margaret Sanger worked as a nurse, making house calls in the slums of the East Side, while her husband worked as an architect and artist. The couple socialized with the bohemian community of Greenwich Village, including local intellectuals, left-wing artists, socialists and social activists, such as John Reed, Upton Sinclair, Mabel Dodge, and Emma Goldman. Sanger and her husband embraced socialism; Margaret joined the Women's Committee of the Socialist Party of New York and took part in the labor actions of the Industrial Workers of the World, including the 1912 Lawrence textile strike and the 1913 Paterson silk strike.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=29–32}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=57–90 (Lawrence strike pp. 74–76, Paterson strike: pp. 78–81)}}{{cite web

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/aboutms/msbio/

|title=Biographical Sketch

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|access-date=December 1, 2024

}}

Working as a nurse, Sanger visited many working-class immigrant women in their homes; many of them underwent frequent childbirth, miscarriages, and self-induced abortions.{{sfn|Kennedy|1970|pp=15–18}} Availability of contraceptive information was limited, due to the Comstock Act, a federal anti-obscenity law which prohibited{{snd}}among other things{{snd}}mailing contraceptives, or even information about contraception.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=13–19. In addition to the federal Act, many states had laws with similar provisions. Enforcement of the laws was selective: condoms were widely available, but diaphragms and birth control manuals were not}} In 1913, she visited public libraries, searching for publications that instructed women how to avoid conception, but she found none.{{harvnb|Kennedy|1970|pp=18–19.}} Kennedy points out that some materials on birth control were available in New York libraries in 1913. Sanger's description of the search: {{harvnb|Sanger|1938|pp=93–94}}.

The hardships women faced were epitomized in a story that Sanger often recounted in her speeches: while working as a nurse, she was called to the apartment of a woman, "Sadie Sachs", who had a severe sepsis infection due to a self-induced abortion. Sadie begged the attending doctor to tell her how she could prevent this from happening again. The doctor laughed and said "You want your cake while you eat it too, do you? Well it can't be done. I'll tell you the only sure thing to do .... Tell Jake to sleep on the roof {{bracket|abstain from sex}}." A few months later, Sanger was called back to Sadie's apartment and found that Sadie had attempted yet another self-induced abortion; she died shortly after Sanger arrived. Sanger would sometimes end the story by saying, "I threw my nursing bag in the corner and announced ... that I would never take another case until I had made it possible for working women in America to have the knowledge to control birth."{{sfn|Kennedy|1970|pp=16–18}}{{harvnb|Chesler|2007|p=63}}. Chesler concluded that Sachs may have been "an imaginative, dramatic composite" of several women; Engelman shares that view: {{harvnb|Engelman|2011|p=29}}. Additional insight into the Sadie Sachs story can be found in:

• {{harvnb|Baker|2011|pp=49–51}}.

• {{harvnb|Engelman|2011|p=29}}. Several patients with sepsis.

• {{harvnb|Sanger|1917|p=9}}. A version of the story with the "threw my nursing bag" line.

The Sadie Sachs episode was described by Sanger as the origin of her commitment to spare women from dangerous and illegal abortions.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=29}} Sanger opposed abortion, not on religious grounds, but as a societal ill and public health danger, which would disappear, she believed, if women were able to prevent unwanted pregnancy.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=63–65}}

Searching for a way to share her ideas with the public, she wrote two columns for the New York Call socialist magazine: What Every Mother Should Know (1911–12) and What Every Girl Should Know (1912–13).{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=65–71}} The columns gave advice to women and girls on love, masturbation, and sex; and emphasized the distinction between sex and love.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=64–65,69–70}}{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=32}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=65–66}} By the standards of the day, Sanger's articles were extremely frank in their discussion of sexuality, and many New York Call readers were outraged by them. Other readers, however, praised the series for its integrity and candor.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=65–66}} Both series were later published in book form.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=32}}

Sanger's political interests, her emerging feminism, and her nursing experience led her to believe that only by liberating women from the risk of unwanted pregnancy would fundamental social change take place. In 1914, she undertook a decades-long campaign to free women, starting with The Woman Rebel, an eight-page monthly newsletter that used the slogan "No Gods, No Masters."{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=39–42}}{{efn

|Sanger did not create the slogan "No Gods, No Masters"; it was originally used in the 1880s by anarchists in Europe.}} The newsletter contained articles about a variety of progressive subjects, including contraception, and was designed to challenge governmental censorship of contraceptive information through confrontation.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=30–42}}{{efn|Seven issues of The Woman Rebel were published, from March to September, 1914.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=42}}}} The Woman Rebel helped popularize the term "birth control", which was selected by Sanger and fellow activists as a more candid alternative to euphemisms then in use, such as "family limitation".{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=xviii}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=97}}{{efn|

The term birth control was suggested in early 1914 by a young friend, Otto Bobsein.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=97}} Other expressions considered were: conception control, family limitation, pregnancy prevention, limitation of offspring, regulation of reproduction, preventive arts, neo-Malthusianism,

voluntary parenthood, and voluntary motherhood.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=xviii}} An early use of the term "birth control" in print was in the June 1914 issue of The Woman Rebel.{{cite journal

|title=Suppression

|journal=The Woman Rebel

|editor-first=Margaret

|editor-last=Sanger

|volume=1

|issue=4

|page=25

|date=June 1914a

|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31970019043014&seq=53

|access-date=March 11, 2025

}}

}}

Sanger became estranged from her husband in 1913, and their divorce was finalized in 1921.{{sfn|Cox|2005|p=76}}

File:1917 Edition of Family Limitations.jpg.{{cite book

|title=Family Limitation

|url=https://www.saada.org/item/20130117-1222

|access-date=February 17, 2025

|year=1919a

|edition=Ninth

|last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

|work=South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)

|page=12

}} The first edition of Family Limitation had no illustrations; they were gradually added in subsequent editions.]]

Sanger's first obstacle to educating women about contraception was the Comstock Act, which banned dissemination of information about contraception. Her strategy was to deliberately violate the Act, hoping that the confrontation would eventually lead to amendment of the law.{{sfn|McCann|2010|pp=750–51}}{{sfn|Kennedy|1970|pp=17–24}} Throughout 1914, she attempted to mail copies of the monthly The Woman Rebel newsletter.{{efn|Most copies of The Woman Rebel were distributed by a network of activists, not mailed.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=44}}}} Postal authorities intercepted five of its seven issues, but Sanger continued publication.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=97-98}}{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=42. Five of seven issues}} In August that year, Sanger was finally arrested for sending The Woman Rebel through the postal system.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=99}}

While awaiting trial, she wrote a 16-page pamphlet, Family Limitation, which detailed several contraceptive methods, discussed marriage and sex, and chided husbands who{{snd}}after sex{{snd}} fell asleep without bringing their wife to a climax.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=102–103}}{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=45}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=86–87}} Fearing arrest, several printers refused to print the pamphlet; she finally found a socialist printer willing to undertake the job, and he resorted to printing it secretly, at night.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=85–87}} The pamphlet was very popular: 100,000 copies were printed of its first edition, it went through 18 editions, and it was translated into a dozen languages.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=45}}

Facing imprisonment if she went to trial, she fled to Canada, where fellow activists forged a passport that permitted her to sail to England in early November.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=103–105}}{{efn|The July issue of The Woman Rebel contained an article, written by an obscure activist, titled "A Defense of Assassination" ({{cite magazine

|title=A Defense of Assassination

|magazine=The Woman Rebel

|volume=1

|issue=5

|author-first=Herbert

|author-last=Thorpe

|page=1

|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31970019043014&seq=61

|access-date=February 28, 2025

}}) President McKinley had been assassinated in 1901, so Sanger felt the chance of conviction was high.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=43}}}} Sanger spent most of her self-imposed exile in England, where contact with British Malthusians{{snd}}such as Charles Vickery Drysdale and Bessie Drysdale{{snd}} helped refine her socioeconomic justifications for birth control. She shared the concern of Malthusians that overpopulation led to poverty, famine, and war.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=268}} She would return to Europe in 1922 to attend the Fifth International Neo-Malthusian Conference{{snd}}where she became the first woman to chair a session;{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=178}} and she organized the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth-Control Conference that took place in New York in 1925.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=225, 235, 279}}{{sfn|Kennedy|1970|p=101}} Overpopulation would remain a concern of hers for the rest of her life.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=268}}

During her stay in England, she was profoundly influenced by British physician Havelock Ellis{{snd}}author of the multi-volume Studies in the Psychology of Sex.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=30–31,48}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=61,93–94}} Under his tutelage, she expanded her birth control strategy to incorporate the additional benefit of stress-free, enjoyable sex; and came to adopt his view of sexuality as a powerful, liberating force.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=13–14,111–117}}{{sfn|Cox|2005|p=55}}{{sfn|Kennedy|1970|p=127}}

While abroad, Sanger met with several Spanish anarchists, including activist Lorenzo Portet, with whom she had a passionate affair.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=98–99, 153, 261}}{{efn|She made plans to retrieve her children, return to Europe, marry Portet, and set up life in Paris{{snd}}but those plans never came to fruition.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=109}}}}

News reports from America signaled to Sanger that support for birth control was increasing, so she returned from England in October 1915 to face trial. Shortly before the December trial, her five-year-old daughter, Peggy, died of pneumonia she caught while at a boarding school.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=133–134}}{{efn|Sanger's younger son Grant was distraught, and blamed his mother for his sister's death, due to Sanger's long absence.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=133–134}}}} Sanger was offered a plea bargain, but refused, because she wanted to use the trial as a forum to advocate for the right of women to control their own bodies.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=105–106}} The prosecutor dropped the charges because he did not want to turn Sanger into a martyr.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=62}}{{harvnb|Baker|2011|p=108}}. For a detailed legal discussion of the case, see {{Cite web

|last=Shechtman|first=Paul|date=August 23, 2024

|title=The Story of United States v. Margaret Sanger

|url=https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2024/08/23/the-story-of-united-states-v-margaret-sanger/?slreturn=20250110160707

|access-date=2025-01-10

|website=New York Law Journal

|issn= 0028-7326

|language=en}}

Early in 1915, an undercover representative of anti-vice politician Anthony Comstock asked Sanger's estranged husband, William, for a copy of Family Limitation, and William obliged. William was tried and convicted, spending thirty days in jail while attracting interest in birth control as an issue of civil liberty.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=96}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=126–128}}Additional insight into the anti-obscenity laws can be found in:

• {{cite book

|last=Haight

|first=Anne Lyon|title=Banned books: informal notes on some books banned for various reasons at various times and in various places

|year=1935

|publisher=R.R. Bowker Company

|location=New York

|url=http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3921312?urlappend=%3Bseq=81

|page=65

|hdl=2027/uc1.b3921312?urlappend=%3Bseq=81

}}

• {{cite news

|author=

|title=Anthony Comstock Dies in His Crusade

|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19150922&id=EogtAAAAIBAJ&pg=4706,2842572|newspaper=Reading Eagle

|location=Reading, Pennsylvania

|date=September 22, 1915

|page=6

|access-date=February 15, 2025

}}

{{Main|Birth control movement in the United States}}

File:SangerOnCourtSteps2.jpg, on the steps of a New York courthouse during a trial in 1917.{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |pp=80–91. Engelman used this photo for the cover of his book}}]]

Some European countries had more liberal policies towards contraception than the United States. When Sanger visited a Dutch birth control clinic in 1915, she encountered diaphragms and became convinced that they were a more effective means of contraception than the suppositories and douches that she had been distributing back in the United States.{{sfn|Cox|2005|p=56}} Diaphragms were generally unavailable in the United States due to the Comstock Act, so Sanger and others began importing them from Europe, in defiance of United States law.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=228, 261, 276}}

On October 16, 1916, Sanger opened a family planning and birth control clinic{{snd}}the first in the United States{{snd}}in the Brownsville neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=115}}{{efn|The first clinic was located at 46 Amboy Street, Brooklyn.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=82}}}} She was unable to find a physician to join the staff, so she turned to her sister, Ethel Byrne (a nurse), to fill the medical role.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=151}}{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=80}}{{efn|Other clinic workers included Fania Mindell (administrative help) and Elizabeth Stuyvesant (social worker).{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=151}}{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=80}}}} Nine days after the clinic opened, Sanger was arrested for giving a birth control pamphlet to an undercover policewoman.{{sfn|Cox|2005|p=7}} After she bailed out of jail, she continued assisting women in the clinic until the police arrested her a second time.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=152–153}} The clinic closed permanently after one month of operation, when the police forced the landlord to evict Sanger.Katz – Brownsville Clinic.

Sanger and her sister were charged with distributing contraceptives in violation of New York state law. They went to trial on 29 January 1917.{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |pp=80–91}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=151–157}} Byrne was convicted and sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse, where she went on a hunger strike. She was force-fed, the first woman hunger striker in the U.S. to be so treated.{{cite news

| title = First woman in US given English dose

| newspaper = The Seattle Star

|issn=2159-5577

| date = January 27, 1917

| page = 1

| url = http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093407/1917-01-27/ed-1/seq-1/

| access-date = November 16, 2014

}} After ten days{{snd}}when Sanger pledged that Byrne would never break the law{{snd}}her sister was pardoned.{{cite news | title = Mrs. Byrne pardoned; pledged to obey law;

| newspaper = New York Times

|issn=0362-4331

| date = February 2, 1917

| url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1917/02/02/102316826.pdf | access-date = November 16, 2014}} Sanger was also convicted; the trial judge was not persuaded by Sanger's argument that women had the right to enjoy sex without worrying about conceiving an unwanted child.{{harvnb|Engelman|2011|p=91}}. Original court decision at {{cite journal

|title= A Birth Control Decision

|journal=The Medical Times

|date=May 1917

|volume=45

|issue=5

|location=New York

|editor-first=Sheridan

|editor-last=Baketel

|issn=0092-7309

|page=142

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbA1AQAAMAAJ

}} The judge wrote that women do not have "the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception." Sanger was offered a more lenient sentence if she promised not to break the law again, but she refused and said: "I cannot respect the law as it exists today."{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=91}}{{harvnb|Katz|2000}}. Against the wishes of her attorney, she chose a thirty-day sentence in a workhouse, rather than a $5,000 fine.{{sfn|Cox|2005|p=65}}

An initial appeal was rejected, but in a subsequent court proceeding in 1918 (after Sanger had served her sentence) the birth control movement secured a major victory when the New York Court of Appeals (New York's highest court) issued a ruling which allowed physicians in New York to dispense contraceptives.{{harvnb |Engelman |2011 |pp=101–103}}.{{Cite journal

|last=Vullo

|first=Maria

|date=June 1, 2013

|title=People v. Sanger & the Birth of Family Planning in America

|url=https://history.nycourts.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Judicial-Notice-Issue-09_People-v-Sanger.pdf

|journal=Judicial Notice: A Periodical of New York Court History

|volume=9

|issue=1

|pages=43–57

}}{{efn

|The high court ruling upheld Sanger's conviction, but declared that the anti-contraception law could not be applied to physicians. The court decision, by judge Frederick E. Crane, is [https://casetext.com/case/people-v-sanger People v. Sanger, 222 N.Y. 192, 195, 118 N.E. 637, 638 New York Appeals Court].{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=159}}

}} The publicity surrounding Sanger's arrest, trial, and appeal sparked birth control activism across the United States, and generated momentum for the birth control movement.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=62–63}}{{sfn|McCann|2010|p=751}}

In February 1917, Sanger began publishing the periodical Birth Control Review, serving as its editor until 1929. The magazine was published monthly until 1940.Katz – Birth Control Review History.

In her 1920 book Woman and the New Race, Sanger framed her fight for birth control in the context of history, psychology, and feminism.{{harvnb|Chesler|2007|pp=192–193}}. Chesler writes that the word "race" in the title of the book means "not ... distinctions of color but ... in the generic sense, as 'in the human race'".{{sfn|McCann|1994|pp= 30–33, 48}}{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=116–117}} She wrote that male-dominated institutions, such as the church and state, have prohibited birth control throughout history{{snd}}leading women to have too many children, too closely spaced. This, in turn, was a direct cause of mental distress and social pathology, and prevented women from full expression of their "feminine spirit". Sanger asserted that women have always fought back against this oppression through secretive use of abortion, contraception, or infanticide.{{harvnb|Chesler|2007|pp=192–193}}. In the book, Sanger created the concept of a "feminine spirit": an essence that was common to all women. She believed that these efforts to limit family size were a manifestation of women's desire for freedom, writing:

{{blockquote|text="A free race cannot be born of slave mothers. A woman cannot choose but give a measure of that bondage to her sons and daughters. No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother."{{sfn|Sanger|1920|p=94}}}}

Sanger had a long-term, though infrequent, love affair with the novelist H. G. Wells from 1920 until his death in 1946.{{sfn|Katz|1996a}} In 1922, she married her second husband, businessman James Noah H. Slee.{{harvnb|Chesler|2007|pp=243–247}}. Slee was president of 3-in-One Oil company.

File:Kitty Marion in USA selling BC Review in 1925.jpg sold copies of Birth Control Review on the streets of New York for 13 years.{{ cite journal

|last=Woodworth

|first = Christine

|title= The Company She Kept: The Radical Activism of Actress Kitty Marion from Piccadilly Circus to Times Square

|journal= Alabama Review

|publisher=Alabama Historical Association

|issn=2166-9961

|year=2012

|volume=65

|issue=3

|page=86

|access-date=February 18, 2025

|url= https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lkh&AN=82350371&site=eds-live&scope=site

}} In this photo Marion is selling {{cite magazine

|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015016464623&seq=67

|magazine=Birth Control Review

|volume=9

|issue=8

|title=Public Health Number

|date=March 1925

}}]]

After World War I, Sanger continued to be frustrated by the inverted priorities of charities: they provided free obstetric and post-birth care to indigent women, yet failed to offer birth control or assistance in raising the children. She wrote: "The poor woman is taught how to have her seventh child, when what she wants to know is how to avoid ... her eighth."{{cite book

|page=352

|title=War and Public Health

| last=Levy

| first =B.S.

| isbn=9780875530239

| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E9YgB0cxC0UC

| year=2000

| publisher=American Public Health Association

}} Levy quotes Sanger from: {{harvnb|Sanger|1922|p=342}}. Sanger saw a societal need to limit births by those least able to afford children: the affluent and educated already limited their childbearing, yet the poor and uneducated lacked access to contraception and information about birth control.{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |p=130}}

Support from wealthy donors in the early 1920s enabled Sanger to expand her reach beyond local, small-scale activism, and allowed her to organize the American Birth Control League (ABCL).{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=129–130}} The founding principles of the ABCL were:

{{Blockquote|quote="We hold that children should be (1) Conceived in love; (2) Born of the mother's conscious desire; (3) And only begotten under conditions which render possible the heritage of health. Therefore we hold that every woman must possess the power and freedom to prevent conception except when these conditions can be satisfied."These principles were adopted at the first meeting of the ABCL in late 1921, and were published in

{{cite book

|chapter=The American Birth Control League

|title=The Proceedings of the First American Birth Control Conference

|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/birthcontrolwhat00ameruoft/page/n215/mode/2up

|access-date=February 21, 2025

|date=November 11, 1921

|pages= 207–209}} Also in

{{cite magazine

|magazine=Birth Control Review

|title=The American Birth Control League

|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015082132963&seq=624

|access-date=February 21, 2025

|volume= 5

|issue= 12

|date= December 1921

|first=Margaret

|last= Sanger

|page=18}}

}}

The 1918 New York court decision had created an exception to the Comstock Act: contraceptives could be obtained, provided they were prescribed by a physician. To exploit this new loophole, in 1923 she established the Clinical Research Bureau (CRB){{snd}}a medical clinic with physicians on staff.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=273–275}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=196}}{{efn|The CRB opened on January 2, 1923.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=138}}}} The CRB was the first birth control clinic in the U.S. that could dispense contraceptives directly to patients; and its staff of doctors, nurses, and social workers was entirely female.{{harvnb|Baker|2011|pp=196–97}}. See also {{harvnb|Sanger|2007|p= 54}}.{{efn|Sanger's 1916 clinic, in the Brownsville neighborhood, provided birth control information, but did not dispense contraceptives.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=151}}}} The clinic received extensive funding from John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his family, who continued to make anonymous donations to Sanger's causes in subsequent decades.{{cite book |last1=Harr

|first1=John Ensor

|last2=Johnson

|first2=Peter J. |title= The Rockefeller Century: Three Generations of America's Greatest Family

|url=https://archive.org/details/rockefellercentu00harr

|url-access=registration

|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |location=New York |year=1988

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/rockefellercentu00harr/page/191 191], 461–462

|isbn=978-0684189369

}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=277, 293, 425, 558}}

In 1922, soon after the formation of the ABCL, Sanger raised her international profile by traveling to Asia{{snd}}giving speeches in Korea, Japan, and China.{{sfn|Cox|2005|p=77}}{{cite journal

|url=https://jayna.usfca.edu/asia-pacific-perspectives/pdfs/app-v14.1-david-the-task-is-hers.pdf

|access-date=February 21, 2025

|first=David

|last=Mirela

|title='The Task Is Hers': Going Global, Margaret Sanger's Visit to China in 1922

|journal=Asia Pacific Perspectives

|issn=2167-1699

|volume=14

|issue= 1

|year=2016

|pages= 75–99

}} She ultimately visited Japan seven times, working with feminist Shidzue Katō to promote birth control in Japan.{{sfn|Katz|1996b}}{{cite book

| title=Facing Two Ways: The Story of My Life

| last=Katō

| first=Shizue

| author-link=Shidzue Katō

| isbn=9780804712392

| url= https://archive.org/details/facingtwowayssto00kato/

|access-date=February 21, 2025

| year=1984

| publisher=Stanford University Press

|pages= 183, 220–221, 226–231, 371; Afterword xxviii

}}

As president of the ABCL, she chafed at bureaucratic interference from younger members of the board of directors.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=237–238}} Seeking more independence, she resigned from the presidency in 1928 and took full control of the CRB, renaming it the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau (BCCRB). The two organizations, ABCL and BCCRB, continued to collaborate, but Sanger had complete control over the BCCRB's operations. This marked the beginning of a schism that would last until 1939.{{sfn|McCann|1994|pp=177–178}} By the 1930s, the BCCRB was serving over 10,000 patients per year, providing a range of gynecological services, conducting research, and training physicians and students.Katz – Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau History.

In 1925, Sanger's second husband, Noah Slee, contributed to the birth control movement by smuggling diaphragms into New York from Canada, hidden inside his company's cargo.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=153}} He then co-founded Holland-Rantos{{snd}}the first manufacturer of legal diaphragms in the United States.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=153}}

File:Birth Control Review 1919.jpg

Sanger invested a great deal of effort in promoting birth control to the public. In 1916, she embarked on a cross-country lecture tour, speaking in dozens of cities{{snd}} at churches, women's clubs, homes, and theaters. Her audience included workers, churchmen, liberals, socialists, scientists, and upper-class women.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=64–68}} She once lectured on birth control to the women's auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Silver Lake, New Jersey.{{harvnb|Engelman|2011|pp=151–152}}. Sanger's description of KKK: {{harvnb|Sanger|1938|pp=361,366–367}}. Explaining her decision to address them, Sanger said that she was willing to speak to any group that would listen, if it helped promote the birth control cause. She described the experience as weird, and reported that she had the impression that the audience were dull, and so she spoke to them in the simplest possible language, as if talking to children.{{efn| Of the KKK experience, Sanger wrote: "[It was] one of the weirdest experiences I had.... I was sure that if I uttered one word ... outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand."{{sfn|Sanger|1938|pp=361,366–367}}}}

She wrote several books that had a nationwide impact in promoting the cause of birth control. Between 1920 and 1926, she sold 567,000 copies of Woman and the New Race and her 1922 book The Pivot of Civilization.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=161}} She wrote two autobiographies, both aimed at promoting birth control: Margaret Sanger: My Fight for Birth Control published in 1931; and Margaret Sanger An Autobiography published in 1938.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=382}}

During the 1920s, Sanger received hundreds of thousands of letters, many of them written in desperation by women begging for information on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=117–119}}{{cite journal

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/motherhood_in_bondage/

|access-date=February 11, 2025

|title =Motherhood in Bondage

|journal= Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|issue=6

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|year=1993

}} Number of letters. Many of the letters were printed in the monthly Birth Control Review, and 470 of these letters were compiled into the 1928 book, Motherhood in Bondage.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=216}}

Throughout the 1920s, Sanger and the ABCL expanded outward from their New York base by creating a network of birth control clinics across the country: Chicago (1924), Los Angeles (1925), San Antonio (1926), Detroit and Baltimore (1927), Cleveland, Newark, and Denver (1928), and Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Oakland (1929). These clinics were managed by local birth control advocates, and funded by local donors. Those that met Sanger's standards became official affiliates of the BCCRB.{{cite journal

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/ms_and_glorious_chain/

|title= Margaret Sanger and 'a Glorious Chain of Clinics'

|year=1995a

|access-date=2025-01-10

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|issue=9

|journal=Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

}} A survey in 1930 showed that twelve of the clinics were, collectively, seeing a total of about 8,000 new patients per year.{{cite book

|title=Seventy Birth Control Clinics: A survey and analysis including the general effects of control on size and quality of population

|last=Robinson

|first=Caroline

|publisher=Arno

|date=1972

|orig-date=1930

|url=https://archive.org/details/seventybirthcont0000robi/mode/2up

|pages=14–19

| isbn= 978-0405038754

}} The 1972 edition is a reprint of the original 1930 edition.

File:WEB DuBois 1918.jpg served on the board of Sanger's Harlem clinic.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=296}}]]

Women of all races and religions were served by Sanger's birth control clinics. Sanger did not tolerate bigotry among her staff, nor would she tolerate any refusal to work within interracial projects.{{harvnb|McCann|1994|pp=150–154}}, Bigotry: p. 153. See also {{harvnb|Sanger|2003|p=45}}. By 1929 about 12% of clinic patients listed Harlem as their address.{{sfn|Muigai|2010}}

In 1924, James H. Hubert, an African American social worker and the leader of New York's Urban League, asked Sanger to consider opening a clinic in an African American neighborhood.{{sfn|McCann|1994|pp=139–140}}{{sfn|McCann|2006a}} In response, she established a clinic in the Columbus Hill neighborhood of New York City, but the clinic operated for only three months before closing due to low patient numbers.{{sfn|Muigai|2010}}{{sfn|McCann|1994|pp=139–140}}{{efn|Columbus Hill was a small section of the larger San Juan Hill neighborhood. Both neighborhoods were demolished in the 1950's to make room for the Lincoln Center. African Americans were leaving Columbus Hill in the 1920's, favoring Harlem instead.{{sfn|McCann|1994|pp=139–140}}}}

In 1929, Hubert approached Sanger again, this time suggesting a clinic in Harlem.{{sfn|McCann|2006a}}{{sfn|Roberts|1998|pp=86–88}}{{sfn|Hajo|2010|pp=84–86}}

Sanger secured funding from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and opened the clinic in 1930.{{sfn|McCann|1994|p=141}}{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=160}} The clinic was supported by an all-African American advisory board of 15 members and exclusively employed African American staff, including doctors, nurses, and social workers.{{sfn|Muigai|2010}}{{Cite book

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eIITCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA137

|title=Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace: American Jewish Women's Activism, 1890–1940

|last=Klapper

|first=Melissa R.

|date= 2014

|publisher=NYU Press

|isbn=978-1479850594

|pages=137–138

|language=en}}{{efn|The administration and finances were managed by white employees of the CRB and ABCL.{{sfn|McCann|2006a}}}} The clinic was publicized in the African American press as well as in African American churches, and it received the approval of W. E. B. Du Bois, the co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the editor of its magazine, The Crisis.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=296}}{{sfn|Muigai|2010}}{{sfn|Hajo|2010|p=85}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=200–202}} The clinic's clientele was about half African American and half white, and almost 3,000 patients visited the clinic in its first year and a half.{{sfn|Muigai|2010}} The Harlem clinic provided contraceptives and information to thousands of African American women until it closed in the mid-1940s.{{sfn|McCann|2006a}}{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=160}}

In June 1932, Sanger published a special issue of Birth Control Review titled "The Negro Number". Seven African American authors{{snd}}including W.E.B Du Bois, George Schuyler, and Charles S. Johnson{{snd}}contributed articles to the issue, providing reasons why contraception was beneficial for the African American community.{{sfn|McCann|2006b}}{{efn

|The issue contained seven articles by African American authors, and four by white authors.{{sfn|McCann|2006b}} Two representative articles are: {{cite magazine

|title=Black Folk and Birth Control

|last= Du Bois

|first=W. E. B.

|url=https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1000670632

|access-date=February 19, 2025

|magazine=Birth Control Review

|date= June 1932

|volume=16

|issue=6

|pages =166–167

}} And {{cite magazine

|title=Quantity or Quality

|url=https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1000672596

|access-date=February 19, 2025

|last= Schuyler

|first=George

|magazine=Birth Control Review

|date= June 1932

|volume=16

|issue=6

|pages =165–166

}}

Thirteen years earlier, the September 1919 issue of Birth Control Review contained articles by African American authors: {{cite magazine

|title=The New Emancipation: Negroes' Need for Birth Control, As Seen By Themselves

|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000041607486&seq=399

|access-date=February 19, 2025

|editor-last= Sanger

|editor-first=Margaret

|magazine=Birth Control Review

|date= September 1919a

|volume=3

|issue=9

}} }}

During the 1920s and 1930s, Sanger toured the South and observed that African American women were neglected by the medical establishment, particularly in segregated areas.{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |pp=175–177}} In 1939, she worked with fellow birth control advocates Mary Lasker and Clarence Gamble to create the Negro Project, an effort to deliver information about birth control to impoverished African American people.{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |pp=175–177}}{{sfn|Katz|2001}} Sanger knew that the church played an important role in African American communities, so she advised Gamble (both Sanger and Gamble were white) on the importance of affiliating with African American ministers, writing:

{{blockquote|text="The ministers work is also important and also he should be trained, perhaps by the [Birth Control] Federation [of America] as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."{{harvnb|Sanger|1939}}.}}

When academic and activist Angela Davis, author of Women, Race and Class, analyzed that quote, she concluded that by 1939 the birth control movement had lost its progressive potential, and had evolved into a racist program of population control.{{sfn|Davis|2011|p=215}}{{

efn|Davis' 1981 book also contains the observation: "it was assumed within birth control circles that poor women, Black and immigrant alike, had a 'moral obligation to restrict the size of their families.' What was demanded as a 'right' for the privileged came to be interpreted as a 'duty' for the poor."{{sfn|Davis|2011|p=210}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=485}} In the book, Davis also writes that birth control should not be equated with black genocide.{{sfn|Davis|2011|p=203}} In a 2014 interview, Davis said: "While I would never argue that birth control or abortion rights constitute genocide, I have to take into consideration how sterilization has been imposed on poor people, especially people of color, and that someone like Margaret Sanger argued [birth control] was a privilege for affluent women but a duty for poorer women."{{cite news

|title= Angela Y. Davis on what's radical in the 21st century (interview)

|newspaper=Los Angeles Times

|issn=2165-1736

|author-first=Patt

|author-last=Morrison

|date=May 6, 2014

|url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-morrison-davis-20140507-column.html

|access-date=February 25, 2025

}}

}}{{

efn| Historian Cathy Hajo discusses the African American community's reluctance to establish birth control clinics: {{harvnb|Hajo|2010|pp=86–88}}. See also {{harvnb|McCann|1994|pp=146–147}}.

}} Davis' interpretation has been amplified by anti-abortion activists, leading many people to believe that Sanger was racist.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=484–489}}{{sfn|Gandy|2015}} However, most scholars interpret the passage as Sanger's effort to prevent the spread of unfounded rumors about nefarious purposes, and they find no evidence that Sanger was a racist.{{sfn|Roberts|1998|pp=78–79}}{{sfn|Gordon|2002|p=235. Gordon wrote: "Sanger genuinely wanted this to be a project for black uplift, and she meant to avoid the substance as well as the appearance of trying to reduce the black population"}}{{sfn|Valenza|1985}}{{efn

|Additional publications that conclude that the letter to Gamble was without racist intent:

• {{harvnb|Chesler|2007|p=488}}.

• {{harvnb|Katz|1997}}.

• {{harvnb|Katz|2001}}.

}}{{efn|

In 1942, in correspondence about the Negro Project in 1942, Sanger wrote: "I think it is magnificent that we are in on the ground floor, helping Negroes to control their birth rate, to reduce their high infant and maternal death rate, to maintain better standards of health and living for those already born, and to create better opportunities for those who will be born. In other words, we're giving Negroes an opportunity to help themselves, and to rise to their own heights through education and the principles of a democracy."{{sfn|Katz|2001}}

}}

After the Negro Project was initiated, management was handed to the Birth Control Federation of America. The project lasted from 1940 to 1943, but was unsuccessful: no new clinics were established, and participation rates remained low.{{sfn|Katz|2001}}

{{Main|Planned Parenthood}}

File:17-23 West 16th St.jpg in this building in 1930, and it operated in New York City for 43 years. It is now a National Historic Landmark.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=291–292}}]]

In 1929, Sanger formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control to lobby for legislation to overturn restrictions on contraception.Katz – National Committee on Federal Legislation on Birth Control.{{efn|Mary Dennett, Sanger's rival in the birth control movement, was also lobbying for changes to the Comstock Act through her organization, the Voluntary Parenthood League.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=111–122}}}} The lobbying did not produce results, so Sanger changed tack and in 1933 she ordered diaphragms from Japan to trigger a decisive battle in the courts.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=371–373}} The diaphragms were seized by the U.S. government, and Sanger's subsequent legal challenge to the confiscation led to a breakthrough 1936 court decision{{snd}}United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries{{snd}} which permitted physicians to dispense contraceptives nationwide.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=167–169}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=372–377}}{{efn

|Mary Dennett was arrested and convicted of violating the Comstock act in 1929, and her successful federal appeal in 1930 contributed to the legal momentum culminating in the One Package decision.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=167–169}}

}} This court victory motivated the American Medical Association to adopt contraception as a normal medical service (1937) and a key component of medical school curriculums (1942).{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=169–170}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=374}}{{cite journal

|title=The Teaching of Contraceptive Measures in Medical Colleges

|journal=Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges

|issn=0095-9545

|last=Upham

|first=J.H.J.

| year=1943

| volume=18

|issue=5

| pages=307–312

|doi=10.1097/00001888-194309000-00005

|s2cid=71729662

}}

Eager to take advantage of the One Package of Japanese Pessaries court ruling, which permitted birth control clinics across the country to begin dispensing contraceptives, leaders of the birth control movement took steps in 1937 to mend the rift between the ABCL and the BCCRB.{{cite web

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/aboutms/organization_bcca/

|title= Birth Control Council of America History

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|access-date=2025-01-24

}} The two organizations merged in 1939 as the Birth Control Federation of America and, simultaneously, Sanger stepped down from her role as President/Chairman.{{sfn|Katz|1995b}}{{efn|Sanger continued to participate in an advisory capacity, holding the titles of Honorary Chairman of the BCFA (1939 to 1942), and Honorary President of the PPFA (1942 onward).{{sfn|Katz|1995b}}}} She no longer wielded the same power as she had in the early years of the movement, and in 1942 more conservative forces within the organization changed the name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a name Sanger objected to because she considered it too euphemistic.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=393}}

In the late 1940s, Sanger reduced her involvement in Planned Parenthood, and turned her attention to improving access to birth control globally. In 1948 she founded an exploratory committee, the International Committee on Planned Parenthood, which brought together representatives from birth control organizations in several countries around the world. Four years later, in 1952, the committee evolved into the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which{{snd}}{{As of|2025|lc=y}}{{snd}}is the world's largest family planning NGO, consisting of 150 member associations working in 146 countries.Katz – International Planned Parenthood Federation History.

{{cite web

|url=https://www.ippf.org/about-us

|title=About Us

|date=September 8, 2021

|access-date=January 29, 2025

|publisher= International Planned Parenthood Federation

}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=410, 423–427, 437}} Sanger was the organization's first president and served in that role from 1952 to 1959.

In the early 1950s, Sanger persuaded philanthropist Katharine McCormick to provide funding for biologist Gregory Pincus to develop the first birth control pill, which was eventually sold under the name Enovid.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp= 433–436, 443–446, 450–457}}{{sfn|Eig|2014}} Pincus recruited John Rock, a gynecologist at Harvard, to investigate clinical use of progesterone to prevent ovulation.{{sfn|Eig|2014}}{{sfn|Katz|2010}} Pincus would later say that Sanger's role was essential in the development of the pill.{{sfn|Eig|2014|p=312}}

In 1954, Sanger returned to Japan for her fourth visit, and gave a speech before a committee of the National Diet on the topic of "Population Problems and Family Planning".{{sfn|Katz|1996b}}{{Cite journal

|last=Tipton

|first=Elise K.

|date=September 1997

|title=Ishimoto Shizue: The Margaret Sanger of Japan |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612029700200151

|journal=Women's History Review

|language=en

|volume=6

|issue=3

|page=350

|doi=10.1080/09612029700200151

|issn=0961-2025}} "... she was invited to speak to a Diet committee, the

first foreigner to do so."{{efn

|Sanger was invited to give the speech by fellow birth control activist Shidzue Katō, who was then a senator in the Diet. The short speech was given to the Public Welfare committee on April 15, 1954.{{cite news

|newspaper=Nippon Times

|date=16 April 1954

|page=2

|issn=0447-5763

|title= Mrs. Margaret Sanger, the noted birth control exponent now on her fourth visit here

}} Newspaper has a photo of Sanger with information about the speech in the caption, which provides date of speech, and name of the committee. Sanger wanted to visit earlier, but was prohibited from visiting by Douglas Macarthur.{{cite book

|title=The cultural evolution of postwar Japan : the intellectual contributions of Kaizō's Yamamoto Sanehiko

|last=Keaveney

|first= Christopher

|page=191

|year=2013

|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US

|isbn= 9781137366214

|url=https://archive.org/details/culturalevolutio0000keav

|access-date=March 19, 2025

}} Macarthur prohibiting visit. Some sources state that Sanger was the first foreign woman to give a speech to the Diet or one of its committees.{{sfn|Katz|1996b}}

}}

In the late 1930s, Sanger began spending the winters in Tucson, Arizona, intending to play a less critical role in the birth control movement. She moved to Arizona full-time in 1943, after her husband died. In spite of her intention to retire, she remained active in the birth control movement through the 1950s.{{sfn|Cleere|2022}}

Faced with declining health, Sanger moved into a convalescent home at age 83.{{sfn|Cleere|2022}} Before her death, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Griswold v. Connecticut, which struck down state laws prohibiting birth control in the United States.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=303–304}} The defendant in that case, Estelle Griswold, was the director of the Connecticut affiliate of Planned Parenthood.{{cite book

|page=223

| title=Griswold V. Connecticut: Birth Control and the Constitutional Right of Privacy

|last=Johnson

|first=J.W.

| isbn=9780700613779

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UXXuAAAAMAAJ

|year=2005

| publisher=University Press of Kansas

}} A year before Sanger died, the Japanese government bestowed upon her the Order of the Precious Crown in recognition of her contributions to Japanese society.{{sfn|Katz|1996b}} She died of arteriosclerosis on September 6, 1966 in Tucson, Arizona, aged 86. Her funeral was held at St. Philip's in the Hills Episcopal Church in Tucson, followed a month later by a memorial service at St. George's Episcopal Church in Manhattan.{{cite web

| url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0914.html?searchResultPosition=3

| title=Margaret Sanger is Dead at 82; Led Campaign for Birth Control (Obituary)

|work=New York Times

|issn=0362-4331

|date=September 7, 1966

|access-date=2025-01-10

}} Sanger is buried in Fishkill, New York, next to her sister, Nan Higgins, and her second husband, Noah Slee.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=307}}

File:Sanger Flyer.jpg

In the early 1900s, when Sanger started as an activist, abortion was illegal throughout the United States{{snd}}though medically necessary abortions were permitted in some states.{{cite report

|last= Lewis

|first= Karen J.

|date= January 2, 2001

|title= Abortion Law Development: A Brief Overview

|url= https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20010102_95-724A_ad1f1fd461891bb40b3f054a2027edf9429958dc.pdf

|work= Report for Congress, Order Code # 95–724 A

|publisher= Congressional Research Service – The Library of Congress

|page= CRS-2

|access-date= January 19, 2025

}} Although abortion was illegal, it was widespread: in 1930, there were an estimated 800,000 illegal abortions performed in the U.S., resulting in 8,000 to 17,000 women's deaths from complications.{{cite book

| title=Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe V. Wade

| last=Garrow

|first = D.J.

|pages=271–272

| isbn=9780520213029

| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dol7vaFd-ugC

| year=1998

| publisher=University of California Press

}} Garrow obtained his estimates from data collected by Alan Frank Guttmacher and Frederick J. Taussig.

{{efn

|The official cause of death was listed "abortion" for 2,700 women in 1930, accounting for 18% of maternal deaths that year.{{cite web

|title =Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past be Prologue?

|last = Gold

|first = Rachel Benson

| date = March 1, 2003

|publisher = Guttmacher Institute

|url=https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2003/03/lessons-roe-will-past-be-prologue

|access-date=2025-01-10

}}

}} Abortion frequency ranged from an estimated one abortion per five live births, to one abortion per 2.5 live births.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=119,144}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=63}} Despite the high rates of morbidity and death from back-alley abortions, there was no prospect of legalizing abortion in Sanger's era; serious efforts to legalize abortion did not begin in the U.S. until the mid-1950s.{{cite book

|pages= 14–15, 140

| title=When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1973, with a New Preface

| last=Reagan

|first= L.J.

| isbn=9780520387423

| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4cxwEAAAQBAJ

|access-date=January 31, 2025

| year=2022

| publisher=University of California Press

}} Efforts to legalize abortion began earlier, in the 1930s, in Europe.

Sanger focused all her efforts on promoting contraception, rather than campaigning to make abortion legal. In her view, contraception was beneficial for many reasons: it was safe, simple, inexpensive, reduced the number of unwanted pregnancies, addressed overpopulation, and{{snd}}most importantly{{snd}}it eliminated the need for dangerous abortions.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=84–86, 112}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=271}} Historian Peter Engelman notes an irony in Sanger's desire to end abortions: "... the birth control movement of the early 20th century, which evolved into a reproductive rights movement that vowed to make and keep abortion legal, set out initially to end the practice of abortion, which was then illegal."{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=2 }}

The majority of the educational material that Sanger produced was focused on contraception, and abortion was rarely mentioned. In her Family Limitation pamphlet, published in 1914, she wrote that every woman is entitled to make a choice of whether to have an abortion or not, and she suggested (incorrectly) that quinine could be used to induce abortion.{{harvnb|Engelman|2011|pp=44–45}}.{{efn

|In the first edition of Family Limitation she wrote: "If you are going to have an abortion, make up your mind to it in the first stages, and have it done. On the other hand, there is often a feeling of the strongest desire to continue with the pregnancy. It is for each woman to decide this for herself, but act at once, whichever way you decide."{{sfn|Katz|2012}}

}} That pamphlet was the only time she mentioned a technique for abortion.{{efn|In the 1918 eighth edition of the pamphlet, Sanger removed the abortion advice and replaced it with words of disapproval.{{sfn|Katz|2012}}}}

Sanger made many public statements discouraging abortion.{{efn

|Sanger's views on abortion were expressed often. In 1916, when her first clinic opened, she told patients "that abortion was the wrong way{{snd}}no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way{{snd}}it took a little time, a little trouble, but it was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun."{{sfn|Sanger|1938|p=217}} In her 1919 article "Why Not Birth-Control Clinics in America?" she discussed medically necessary abortions: "The absurd cruelty of permitting thousands of women each year to go through abortions to prevent the aggravation of diseases for which they are under treatment assuredly cannot be much longer ignored by the medical profession."{{sfn|Sanger|1919b}} In her 1920 book Woman and the New Race she wrote: "Family limitation will always be practiced ... either by birth control or by abortion.... The one means health and happiness – a stronger, better race. The other means disease, suffering, death."{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=119}}

}} When she opened her first birth control clinic in 1916, she distributed flyers to women, exhorting{{snd}}in all capitals{{snd}}"Do not kill, do not take life, but prevent."{{harvnb|Engelman|2011|p=82}}. Flyer is reprinted in {{harvnb|Sanger|1931|p=155}}. After Pope Pius XI published Of Chaste Wedlock, an encyclical on sex, Sanger wrote a critical reply in 1932, which included:

{{blockquote|text="[Abortion] is an alternative that I cannot too strongly condemn. Although abortion may be resorted to in order to save the life of the mother, the practice of it merely for limitation of offspring is dangerous and vicious."{{sfn|Sanger|1932}}

}}

Abortions were not performed at clinics managed by Sanger. For many years, staff were not even permitted to refer patients to physicians (in other facilities) for medically necessary abortions.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=300–302}} In 1932, sixteen years after the first clinic opened, Sanger authorized staff to refer patients to hospitals for medically necessary abortions.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=300}}{{efn|Sanger's first clinic opened in 1916. Her second clinic{{snd}}the CRB{{snd}}opened in 1923. Biographer Chesler states that there is evidence that, prior to 1932, CRB staff sometimes did refer patients to physicians outside the clinic for medically necessary abortions.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=301}}}} Planned Parenthood clinics would not offer abortions until 1970, several years after Sanger's death.

{{cite web

|url= https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/our-history

|title=History of Planned Parenthood

|publisher=Planned Parenthood

|access-date=2025-01-10

}}

Despite Sanger's public statements denouncing abortion for the purpose of limiting family size, historian Jean Baker suggests that Sanger privately felt that the procedure was ethical{{snd}}but only as a last resort.{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=302–303. Baker based her opinion on Sanger's strong belief that women had a right to control their own bodies}}

File:Sanger Gagged H.png read her statement of protest, April 16, 1929.{{cite news

|title=Iconoclasts Gag Mrs. Sanger

|newspaper=Brooklyn Eagle

|issn=2577-9397

|location=New York

|date=April 18, 1929

|page=18

|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/brooklyn-eagle/165451225/

|access-date=February 10, 2025

}}]]

Advocates for birth control employed a variety of tactics. Some, such as Mary Dennett, preferred to work peacefully within the legislative system, and tried to amend the Comstock Act through lobbying. But Sanger chose to treat the undertaking as a battle for free speech, and repeatedly broke anti-obscenity laws, hoping to provoke arrest, which{{snd}}she hoped{{snd}} would lead to legal decisions in her favor.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=58,104,148. Contrasting the two approaches}}{{harvnb|Engelman|2011|pp=23–74}}. Chapter 2{{snd}} "Birth Control and Free Speech"{{snd}}describes how advocacy of free speech was at the heart of the birth control movement.{{harvnb|Gorton|2024}}. Book describes the rivalry between Sanger and Dennett.

Her first brush with censorship came when she wrote a column, What Every Girl Should Know, for the New York Call. Her final article in that series, scheduled for publication on February 9, 1913, discussed syphilis and gonorrhea, so Comstock issued an order prohibiting publication. In response, Sanger and the Call replaced the column with a statement: "What Every Girl Should Know — NOTHING! — by order of the Post-Office Department".{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=32}}

Sanger's views on free speech were expanded when Emma Goldman introduced Sanger to physician Edward Bliss Foote and lawyer Theodore Schroeder, co-founders of the Free Speech League, in New York.{{harvnb|Engelman|2011|pp=23–24, 27–29, 41–43}}. Inspired by fellow free speech advocates, in 1914 she published The Woman Rebel with the express goal of triggering a legal challenge to the Comstock anti-obscenity laws banning dissemination of information about contraception.{{sfn|McCann|2010|pp=750–751}} The Free Speech League provided funding and advice to help Sanger with legal battles.

One of the most formidable opponents to birth control in the 1920s was the Catholic Church, which often tried to prevent Sanger from giving speeches.{{sfn|Katz|1993a}}{{sfn|Kennedy|1970|pp=146–151}}{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=147–149. Other opponents of birth control included the medical establishment and various governmental individuals and agencies}} Catholics persuaded the Syracuse city council to ban Sanger from giving a speech in 1924; the National Catholic Welfare Conference lobbied against birth control; the Knights of Columbus boycotted hotels that hosted birth control events; the Catholic police commissioner of Albany prevented Sanger from speaking there; and several newsreel companies, succumbing to pressure from Catholics, refused to cover stories related to birth control.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=147–148}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=220}} Sanger turned some of the boycotted speaking events to her advantage by inviting the press, and the resultant news coverage often generated public sympathy for her cause.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=148}}

Numerous times in her career, local government officials prevented Sanger from speaking by shuttering a facility or threatening her hosts.{{sfn|Kennedy|1970|p=149}} In 1929, city officials under the leadership of Boston's Catholic mayor James Curley threatened to arrest her if she spoke.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=219–220}}{{

Cite book

|last=Davis

|first=Tom

|title=Sacred work: Planned Parenthood and its clergy alliances

|date=2005

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kAJN-OcsZhAC

| page=213

|publisher=Rutgers Univ. Press

|isbn=978-0-8135-3493-0

|location=New Brunswick, NJ

}} In response she stood on stage, silent, with a gag over her mouth, while Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. read a statement from Sanger: {{blockquote|text="... I have been gagged. I have been suppressed. I have been arrested numerous times. I have been hauled off to jail. Yet every time, more people have listened to me, more have protested, more have lifted up their own voices. As a pioneer fighting for a cause, I believe in free speech. As a propagandist I see immense advantages in being gagged. It silences me, but it makes millions of others talk and think the cause in which I live."{{sfn|Katz|1993a}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=219–220}}{{sfn|Sanger|1929}}

}}

Over the course of her career, Sanger was arrested several times for speaking or publishing prohibited information.{{Cite magazine

|date=September 16, 1966

|title=Every Child a Wanted Child (Obituary)

|url=https://time.com/archive/6630246/customs-every-child-a-wanted-child/

|magazine=Time

|issn=0040-781X

|volume=88

|issue=12

|page=96}} This Time magazine article states eight total arrests in her life. Arrests related to free speech include:

• 1914 arrest for mailing obscene material. {{harvnb|Chesler|2007|p=99}}.

• 1916 arrest in New York for distributing contraceptive pamphlet. {{harvnb|Cox|2005|p=7}}.

• 1916 arrest in Oregon for distributing obscene material. {{harvnb|Engelman|2011|p=66}}.

• 1921 arrest for obscene speech at a meeting. {{harvnb|Engelman|2011|pp=125–126}}.

File:MargSanger Cover 1923 UK edition.png

:{{further|Eugenics in the United States}}

Eugenics was one of many social reform movements that swept across America during the Progressive Era, which stretched from about 1890 to 1930. During the 1920s, when Margaret Sanger's work was gaining momentum, eugenics was a popular movement, promoted by major organizations, led by intellectuals and scientists, and funded by corporate foundations.{{sfn|Leonard|2005|pp=215–218}}{{cite web

|title=Top global foundations mount effort to confront legacies of eugenics

|first= Stephanie

|last=Beasley

|date= October 1, 2021

|publisher=Devex

|url= https://www.devex.com/news/top-global-foundations-mount-effort-to-confront-legacies-of-eugenics-101745

|access-date=February 4, 2025

}} Major U.S. philanthropies that supported eugenics included Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Kellogg and Sage.Additional insight into the popularity of eugenics in that era can be found in:

• {{harvnb|Engelman |2011 |pp=97–98, 130–134}}.

• {{harvnb|Baker|2011|pp=140–147}}.

• {{harvnb|Chesler|2007|pp=215–218}}.

Eugenic beliefs in the early 1900s covered a wide spectrum: at one extreme were those who overtly claimed the white race was superior, and wanted to reduce the population of certain other ethnicities.{{sfn|Paul|1984|pp=582–589}}{{sfn|Leonard|2005|p=208}} At the other extreme were altruists who wanted to improve the health and well-being of the entire human race.{{sfn|Paul|1984|pp=582–589}}{{harvnb|Kevles|1985|pp=164–175}}. Describes "reform eugenicists" who believed there was no scientific basis for distinguishing races, and doubted that sterilization would have much impact.{{efn

|name="nre"

|In addition to Sanger, other eugenicists that took a non-racist approach to eugenics included Gunnar Dahlberg,

Theodosius Dobzhansky,

W. E. B. Du Bois,

J. B. S. Haldane,

Herbert Spencer Jennings ,

Hermann Joseph Muller, and

Gunnar Myrdal.{{sfn|Leonard|2005|p=221. Myrdall}}{{harvnb|Paul|1984|pp=582–589}}. List of several "left" eugenicists on p. 582; list of some that signed the Eugenics manifesto on p 583.{{sfn|Dorr|2011|pp=72–76}} Several prominent non-racist eugenicists signed the Eugenics manifesto in 1939, which rejected racism and even the notion of race: "[a] major hindrance to genetic improvement lies in those economic and political conditions which foster antagonism between different peoples, nations and 'races'. The removal of race prejudices and of the unscientific doctrine that good or bad genes are the monopoly of particular peoples or of persons with features of a given kind will not be possible, however, before those conditions which make for war and economic exploitation have been eliminated."{{sfn|Paul|1984|pp=582–589}}{{ cite journal

|date=September 16, 1939

|title=Social Biology and Population Improvement

|journal= Nature

|issn=1476-4687

|volume= 144

|pages=521–522

|doi=10.1038/144521a0

|bibcode=1939Natur.144..521C

|url= http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v144/n3646/pdf/144521a0.pdf

|access-date = February 7, 2025

|last1=Crew

|first1=F. A. E.

|last2=Darlington

|first2=C. D.

|last3=Haldane

|first3=J. B. S.

|last4=Hakland

|first4=C.

|last5=Hogben

|first5=L. T.

|last6=Huxley

|first6=J. S.

|last7=Muller

|first7=H. J.

|last8=Needham

|first8=J.

|last9=Child

|first9=G. P.

|last10=Roller

|first10=P. C.

|last11=David

|first11=P. R.

|last12=Landauer

|first12=W.

|last13=Dahlbekg

|first13=G.

|last14=Plough

|first14=H. H.

|last15=Dobzhansky

|first15=Th.

|last16=Price

|first16=B.

|last17=Emerson

|first17=R. A.

|last18=Schultz

|first18=J.

|last19=Gordon

|first19=C.

|last20=Steinberg

|first20=A. G.

|last21=Hammond

|first21=J.

|last22=Waddington

|first22=C. H.

|last23=Huskins

|first23=C. L.

|issue=3646

}} Commonly referred to as the "eugenics manifesto".

}} Many eugenicists were somewhere between: they did not categorize ethnicities as superior or inferior; but their list of unfit traits included attributes such as illiteracy or low scores on IQ tests which{{snd}}even if well-intended{{snd}}often had the effect of targeting certain ethnicities.{{sfn|Paul|1984|pp=582–589}}

Sanger was surrounded by influential people who approved of eugenics, including close friends Havelock Ellis{{sfn|McCann|1994|p=104}}{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |p=48}} and H. G. Wells,{{sfn|Katz|1996a}} and colleagues W. E. B. Du Bois{{sfn|Dorr|2011|pp=72–76}}{{cite book

| last=Levering

|first=Lewis David

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RD75BE1Alr4C

|year=2001

|title= W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919–1963

|publisher= Owl Books

|isbn=978-0-8050-6813-9

|page=223}}. and Winston Churchill.{{harvnb |Engelman |2011 |pp=97–98, 130–134}}. Contains a list of notable eugenicists.{{efn|Churchill was a sponsor of the first ABCL conference in 1921.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=200}}}} Some associates of Sanger used eugenics to support their white supremacist beliefs, including Charles Davenport{{ cite book

|first=Aaron

|last=Gillette

|title=Eugenics and the Nature-Nurture Debate in the Twentieth Century

|location=New York

|publisher= Palgrave Macmillan|year= 2007

|isbn=9780230608900

|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=8rSHDAAAQBAJ|pages= 123–124}}.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=217}}{{sfn|Katz|2002}} and Lothrop Stoddard, a member of the KKK, and a founding board member of the ABCL who contributed an article to Birth Control Review.{{sfn|Gordon|2002|p=197}}{{cite journal

|first = Jane

|last=Carey

|title = The Racial Imperatives of Sex: birth control and eugenics in Britain, the United States and Australia in the interwar years

|journal = Women's History Review

|issn=0961-2025

|volume = 21

|number = 5

|pages = 733–752

|year = 2012

|publisher = Routledge

|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2012.658180

|doi = 10.1080/09612025.2012.658180

}} Stoddard contributed an article to Birth Control Review, "Population Problems in Asia", in 1922.

Sanger found common ground between eugenics and her birth control movement: both endeavors would benefit if contraception were legal and readily available.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=97–98, 130–134}} From her perspective as an activist struggling to develop support for her cause, Sanger viewed the eugenics movement as scientific, respectable, growing, international, and popular.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=97–98, 130–134}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=143–147}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=196}} Sanger adopted eugenics because it was an opportunity to advocate for the legalization of contraception{{snd}}eugenics was a means to her end.{{sfn|Engelman|2011 |pp=97–98, 130–134}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=143–147}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=483–484}}{{sfn|Reed|1978|pp=131,134–135}} Whether she genuinely believed in eugenic principles is a matter of debate; several historians conclude that her belief was not sincere, and suggest that she joined with the eugenics movement simply to lend legitimacy to her birth control efforts.{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |pp=97–98, 130–134}}{{sfn|Reed|1978|pp=131,134–135}}{{sfn|McCann|1994|pp=100–101}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=146–147}}

Her support of eugenics was first manifested in 1917, when she published an article on eugenics by Paul Popenoe in her periodical Birth Control Review.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=145}} From 1919 to 1921 she wrote several articles on the subject, leading to her

1922 book focused on eugenics, The Pivot of Civilization.{{harvnb|Baker|2011|p=162}}. "In The Pivot of Civilization [Sanger] embraced eugenics as a female cause with a female solution".

Sanger adopted the fundamental eugenic goal of reducing the number of unfit people. In that group, she included people who were insane, syphilitic, "paupers, morons, feeble-minded, mentally and morally deficient persons"; and included "reckless" people who were incapable of restraining themselves from having an excessive number of offspring.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=147}}{{efn

|Sanger's list of unfit traits was not strictly genetic. She, and other eugenicists of that era, included environmental factors that appeared (to them) to be passed-down between generations; these included poverty, immorality, and illiteracy.{{sfn|McCann|2010|p=101}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=147}}{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=134}}}}

To reduce the number of unfit children, Sanger initially emphasized contraceptives, which set her apart from mainstream eugenicists, who preferred sterilization.{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |pp=97–98, 130–134}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=165}}{{sfn|Roberts|2009|p=201}}{{efn

|Many eugenicists opposed birth control (for unfit parents) because they believed fit parents would make use of it, thus reducing the number of fit offspring.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=54}}

}} However, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided that involuntary sterilization was legal in 1927, she began to endorse voluntary sterilization (in addition to contraception).{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=222–223}} She also began to support involuntary sterilizations in limited circumstances: for parents who were incapable of managing their own fertility and were likely to produce disabled children.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=134}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=216}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=223–224}} About 60,000 Americans were sterilized involuntarily between 1927 and World War II.{{sfn|Reilly|2015|pp=351–368}}{{efn|After the Nazi sterilization program was uncovered during WW II, there was a drastic reduction in involuntary sterilizations in the U.S.{{sfn|Reilly|2015|pp=351–368}}}}

Sanger's approach to eugenics was heavily influenced by her feminism, which led her to deviate from mainstream eugenics in several ways:{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |p=133}}{{harvnb|Cooper|2023}}. "A lifelong campaigner for women’s rights, she gradually abandoned her anarchist and socialist convictions in favor of a distinctly feminist version of eugenics. Frustrated with the lack of interest in women’s reproductive autonomy among feminists and labor activists, Sanger turned to the science of eugenics."{{harvnb|McCann|2010|p=101}}. "Sanger's articulation of eugenics was a contradictory mix of adherence to the dominant American version of this ideology and resistance to it." She supported the right of fit parents to limit the size of their families; whereas mainstream eugenicists felt it was the duty of fit parents to have a large number of offspring.{{sfn|Roberts|2009|p=201}}{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |pp=131, 134}}{{efn

|Eugenic efforts were generally categorized as positive measures which encouraged parents to reproduce if they were deemed fit; and negative measures which discouraged parents from reproducing (via sterilization, contraception, abortion, or financial incentives) if they were deemed unfit.{{cite book

| last=Wilkinson

|first= Stephen A.

|year=2010 |chapter=On the distinction between positive and negative eugenics

|url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789042028036/B9789042028036-s011.xml

|access-date=March 12, 2025

|editor=Matti Häyry

|title=Arguments and analysis in bioethics

|location= Amsterdam

|publisher= Rodopi

|page= 116

|doi=10.1163/9789042028036_011

|isbn= 978-90-420-2803-6 }}

}} And Sanger believed that mothers{{snd}}with some exceptions{{snd}}should individually regulate their family size; whereas mainstream eugenicists believed government mandates should be employed.{{sfn|Engelman|2011 |p=133}}{{sfn|Cox|2005|p=80

}}{{efn

|Writings capturing Sanger's feelings on government regulation include: "{{sic|eugenists}} imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her duty to the state. We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother."{{sfn|Sanger|1919|pp=11–12}} And: "... we are convinced that racial regeneration ... must come from within. That is, it must be autonomous, self-directive, and not imposed from without.... this education ... must be based upon the needs and demands of the people themselves. An idealistic code of sexual ethics, imposed from above ... can never be of the slightest value in effecting any changes."{{sfn|Sanger|1921b}}

}}{{efn

|A rare instance where Sanger suggested government intervention was in her 1934 article "America Needs a Code for Babies", which appeared in a newspaper insert called American Weekly. Written when the New Deal was creating a vast number of agencies, regulations, and codes, it begins "Under the 'New Deal' everybody and everybody's business is now regulated, coded, and licensed ... Even a peanut stand must be licensed; is the producer and caretaker of an American baby less important?" The article then lists a variety of proposals, including one that requires couples to obtain a permit from the government before having a child. The article continues: "All that sounds highly revolutionary, and it might be impossible to put the scheme into practice. But for purposes of discussion... I do not pretend in the above suggestions to have arrived at the formulation of a workable baby code..."{{sfn|Sanger|1934}}

}}

Her eugenic proposals did not target specific ethnicities: instead, her goal was to improve the health of the whole human race by reducing the reproduction of those who were considered unfit.{{sfn|Katz|1995|pp=43–47}}Additional insight into the non-racist nature of Sanger's eugenic policies can be found in:

• {{harvnb|Chesler|2007|pp=195–6}}.

• {{harvnb|Engelman|2011 |pp=133,135}}.

• {{harvnb|Baker|2011|p=162}}.

• {{harvnb|McCann|1994|pp=13,16–21,117}}.

• {{harvnb|Valenza|1985}}.{{efn

|Sanger did not use race, ethnicity, or religion to determine unfitness,{{sfn|Engelman|2011|p=133}} however, in her speech "The Morality of Birth Control" she defined unfit people to include those "whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers."{{sfn|Sanger|1921a}}

}} When she used the word "race" in the context of eugenics, the word invariably meant the entire human race, rather than a specific ethnicity; when she used the word "unfit" she meant an inherited defect, not an ethnicity.{{harvnb |Engelman |2011 |pp=133–134, 166}}. "It is important to note that Sanger understood 'unfit' to indicate 'physical or mental defects.' She wrote that 'if unfit refers to race or religions, then that is another matter which I frankly deplore.'" (p 133).{{efn|name="nre"}} The consensus of scholars is that Sanger was not racist, but her collaboration with eugenicists indirectly assisted racist causes. Academic Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body, wrote "Sanger did not tie fitness for reproduction to any particular ethnic group. It appears that Sanger was motivated by a genuine concern to improve the health of poor mothers she served rather than a desire to eliminate their stock."{{harvnb|Roberts|1998|p=81}}. "Even in her most eugenical book, The Pivot of Civilization, Sanger did not tie fitness for reproduction to any particular ethnic group. It appears that Sanger was motivated by a genuine concern to improve the health of poor mothers she served rather than a desire to eliminate their stock. Sanger believed that all their afflictions arose from their unrestrained fertility, not their genes or racial heritage. For this reason, I agree that Sanger’s views were distinct from those of her eugenecist colleagues. Sanger nevertheless promoted two of the most perverse tenets of eugenic thinking: that social problems are caused by reproduction of the socially disadvantaged and that their childbearing should therefore be deterred." Roberts' assessment is echoed by other scholars, including scholar Carole McCann,{{harvnb|McCann|1994|p=117}}. McCann writes that Sanger stressed limiting the number of births, and to live within one's economic ability to raise and support healthy children, which in her view would lead to a betterment of society and the human race: "although Sanger articulated birth control in terms of racial betterment ... she always defined fitness in individual rather than racial terms." historian Peter Engelman,{{harvnb |Engelman |2011 |p=135}}. Engelman concluded that Sanger was not a racist, but added: "Sanger quite effortlessly looked the other way when others spouted racist speech. She had no reservations about relying on flawed and overtly racist works to serve her own propaganda needs." and biographer Ellen Chesler.{{harvnb|Chesler|2007|p=15}}. "Margaret Sanger was never herself a racist, but she lived in a profoundly bigoted society, and her failure to repudiate prejudice unequivocally{{snd}}especially when it was manifest among proponents of her cause{{snd}}has haunted her ever since."

Sanger had affiliated with eugenicists in the hope of gaining their support for her birth control movement{{snd}}but her devotion was not reciprocated: the American Eugenics Society refused to accept any papers submitted by Sanger, most eugenicists ridiculed the birth control movement, and only a few would associate with her.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=217}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=164}} The reasons were that Sanger was a woman, she had no academic credentials, and she insisted that mothers should have the power to decide if and when to have children, which ran contrary to the mainstream eugenic policy that the state should order fit women to produce abundant offspring.{{sfn|Engelman|2011|pp=97–98, 130–134}}{{sfn|McCann|1994|pp=100–101}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=164}}{{efn

|Some eugenicists began to support birth control in the 1930s,{{sfn|McCann|1994|pp=100–101}} but by then the eugenics movement was in decline.{{sfn|Leonard|2005|pp=219–220}} }}

File:Margaret-Sanger-Square NYC.jpg neighborhood of New York was present from 1993 to 2021.]]

Sanger achieved her goal of improving the well-being of women around the world through family planning: contraception is now legal in the U.S., family planning clinics are commonplace, contraception is taught in medical schools, tens of millions of women have made use of Planned Parenthood services, and hundreds of millions of women around the globe have access to birth control pills.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=445,482}}Planned Parenthood usage estimated from data in:

• {{cite web

|url=https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/30/5f/305f85b9-c80f-4313-811a-fa20a164586e/2024-bythenumbers-factsheet.pdf

|title=By the Numbers

|publisher=Planned Parenthood

|date= April 2024

|access-date=2025-01-10

}}

• {{cite web

|title = Birth Control Has Expanded Opportunity for Women – In Economic Advancement, Educational Attainment, and Health Outcomes

|date=June 2015

|url =https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/80/e9/80e9b56e-c0d6-4579-8a20-1973e02218a0/bc_factsheet_may2015_updated_1.pdf

|publisher = Planned Parenthood

|access-date = January 12, 2025

}}

As a result, Sanger is viewed today as an important first-wave feminist and a founder and leader of the birth control movement.{{cite book

| title=The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics

| last=Waylen

| first= Georgina

| isbn=9780199751457

| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g1Y0M7msWpsC

| access-date=February 1, 2025

| year=2013

| publisher=Oxford University Press USA

| page=223

}} First wave feminist.{{sfn|Baker|2011|p=70}}{{sfn|Chesler|2007|pp=144,149,245}}

Sanger's personal papers are held in two locations: the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College,Sofia Smith's Margaret Sanger collection information and the Library of Congress.Library of Congress's Margaret Sanger collection information The papers were curated by the Margaret Sanger Papers Project, led by Esther Katz, which published them in four printed volumes.NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project information. Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, and Volume 4.

Several biographers have documented Sanger's life, including David Kennedy, whose 1970 book Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger won the Bancroft Prize and the John Gilmary Shea Prize. Television films Portrait of a Rebel: The Remarkable Mrs. Sanger and Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story have portrayed Sanger's life{{cite web

|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081359/

|title=Portrait of a Rebel: The Remarkable Mrs. Sanger

|date=April 22, 1980

|access-date=January 10, 2025

|website=IMDb.com

}}{{annotated link|Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story|Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story}}. as well as two graphic novels.{{cite web

|url=https://www.comics.org/issue/1163895/

|title= The Margaret Sanger Story

|website=Comics.org

|access-date=2025-01-10

}}{{cite web

|url=https://www.comics.org/issue/1600076/

|title= Our Lady of Birth Control: A Cartoonist's Encounter with Margaret Sanger

|website=Comics.org

|access-date=2025-01-10

}}

Martin Luther King Jr. praised Sanger's work in his acceptance speech for the 1966 Margaret Sanger Award: "[Sanger] went into the slums and set up a birth control clinic, and for this deed she went to jail because she was violating an unjust law.... She launched a movement which is obeying a higher law to preserve human life under humane conditions.... Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger."{{cite web

| url=http://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-gulf-coast/mlk-acceptance-speech

| title=The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Upon Accepting the Planned Parenthood Sanger Award

| author=Planned Parenthood Federation of America

| year=2004

| access-date=March 11, 2016

| archive-date=July 14, 2014

| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714134712/http://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-gulf-coast/mlk-acceptance-speech

| url-status=dead

}}{{efn

|Martin Luther King Jr. was unable to attend the award ceremony, so his wife, Coretta Scott King, read the speech.{{cite news

|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=R9MmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jgIGAAAAIBAJ&dq=margaret-sanger-award&pg=4042,2100494

|work=The Afro American

|issn=2473-5973

|title=Mrs. King receives award for husband

|date=May 21, 1966

|access-date=January 27, 2025}}

}}

Time magazine designated Sanger as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century.{{cite magazine

|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,991227-1,00.html

|title=TIME 100 Persons Of The Century

|magazine=Time

|issn=0040-781X

|date= June 14, 1999

|volume= 153

|issue=23

}} Between 1953 and 1963, Sanger was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 31 times.{{cite web

|url= https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=8093

|work=Nobel Prize

|title= Nomination Database

|date=April 2020

|access-date=2025-01-23

}} In 1957, the American Humanist Association named her Humanist of the Year.{{Cite web

|url=https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/humanist-of-the-year-awards/

|title = Annual Humanist Awardees

| date=August 12, 2023

|access-date=2025-01-10 }} There is a bust of Sanger in the National Portrait Gallery, which was a gift from Cordelia Scaife May.{{cite news

|author= Lauren Hodges

|url= https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/27/435205265/national-portrait-gallery-says-it-wont-remove-bust-of-planned-parenthood-founder

|title= National Portrait Gallery Won't Remove Bust of Planned Parenthood Founder : The Two-Way

|newspaper= NPR

|date= August 27, 2015

|access-date= June 30, 2016

}} Smith College awarded Sanger an honorary doctorate degree in 1949.{{sfn|Chesler|2007|p=412}} In 1966, Planned Parenthood began issuing its Margaret Sanger Awards annually to honor "individuals of distinction in recognition of excellence and leadership in furthering reproductive health and reproductive rights".{{cite news

|title= Rockefeller 3d Wins Sanger Award

|url= https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0615F93D5B117B93CBA9178BD95F438685F9

|access-date= February 14, 2011

|newspaper=The New York Times

|issn=0362-4331

|date= October 9, 1967

|url-status= dead

|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121106055029/http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0615F93D5B117B93CBA9178BD95F438685F9

|archive-date= November 6, 2012

}}{{efn|name=award}} In 1981, Sanger was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.{{cite web

|url=https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/margaret-sanger/|title=Sanger, Margaret

|website=National Women's Hall of Fame

|access-date=2025-01-10

}} In 1993, the United States National Park Service designated the Margaret Sanger Clinic{{snd}}where she provided birth-control services in New York in the mid-twentieth century{{snd}}as a National Historic Landmark.{{cite web|url= http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=2157&ResourceType=Building

|title= National Historic Landmark Program

|publisher= National Park Service, National Historic Landmarks Program

|date= September 14, 1993

|url-status= dead

|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120318060012/http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=2157&ResourceType=Building

|archive-date= March 18, 2012

|access-date=2025-01-10

}} Government authorities and other institutions have memorialized Sanger by dedicating several landmarks in her name, including a room in Wellesley College's library,{{cite web

|url= http://www.wellesley.edu/sites/default/files/assets/departments/resources/files/folspring2003.pdf

|title= Friends of the Library Newsletter

|publisher= Wellesley.edu

|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150617125325/http://www.wellesley.edu/sites/default/files/assets/departments/resources/files/folspring2003.pdf

|archive-date= June 17, 2015

|url-status= dead

|access-date=2025-01-10

}} and Margaret Sanger Square in New York City's Noho area.{{Cite web

|url=https://villageview.nyc/2024/08/04/the-honor-of-co-named-streets-margaret-sanger-square/

|title=Margaret Sanger Square

|date=August 5, 2024

|publisher=The Village View

|access-date=February 16, 2025

}} The street sign designating "Margaret Sanger Square" was placed in 1993 at the intersection of Bleeker Street & Mott St (the location of Planned Parenthood's Manhattan birth control clinic), and was removed in 2021. There is a Margaret Sanger Lane in Plattsburgh, New York and an Allée Margaret Sanger in Saint-Nazaire, France.{{cite web

|url=https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/21/the-childrens-era-march-301925/

|title=The Children's Era

|last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

|publisher= Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics

|access-date= February 20, 2025

}} Sanger, a crater in the northern hemisphere of Venus, is named after her.{{cite web

|title=Venus – Sanger

|work=Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature

|publisher =USGS

|url=https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/5307

|access-date=January 28, 2025

}}

Since the legalization of abortion in 1973, Sanger has become a target of frequent attacks by opponents of abortion.{{sfn|Katz|1997}}{{sfn|Baker|2011|pp=3–4}}{{sfn|Cooper|2023}}{{efn|

The attacks have been launched by anti-abortion members of several groups, including the religious right,{{sfn|Cooper|2023}} the African American community,{{sfn|Cooper|2023}}{{Cite journal

|title=The Myth of Abortion as Black Genocide: Reclaiming our Reproductive Cycle

|journal=National Black Law Journal

|issn=2769-6553

|volume=26

|issue=1

|pages=112–127

|url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0988p9xp

|last=Dobbins-Harris

|first= Shyrissa

|year=2017

}} and Republican politicians.{{sfn|Sorkin|2015}} U.S. government officials who have repeated false claims about Sanger include Sen. Ted Cruz,{{sfn|Sorkin|2015}}

Rep. Louis Gohmert,{{sfn|Sorkin|2015}} Rep. William O'Brian,{{sfn|Wirestone|2015}} and Ben Carson.{{Cite web

| url=https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/14/432080520/fact-check-was-planned-parenthood-started-to-control-the-black-population

|title=Fact Check: Was Planned Parenthood Started To 'Control' The Black Population? 

|date= August 14, 2015

|access-date=2025-01-10

|first=Amita

|last= Kelly

|publisher=NPR}}

}} The attacks usually include falsehoods, and they often attribute quotes to Sanger that are either fabricated or presented out of context.{{sfn|Gandy|2015}}{{sfn |Engelman |2011 |p=134}}{{sfn|Katz|1995|pp=43–47}}Examples of fact-checkers debunking falsehoods related to Sanger:

• {{cite web

|url= https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/planned-parenthood-founder-margaret-sangers-1939-quote-on-exterminating-black-p-idUSL2N2X11YN/

|publisher=Reuters

|date =May 9, 2022

|access-date=2025-01-10

|title = Fact Check: Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger's 1939 quote on exterminating Black population taken out of context}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/fabricated-quote-about-human-weeds-attributed-to-planned-parenthood-founder-idUSL1N2XP1SB/

|publisher=Reuters

|date =June 2, 2022

|access-date=2025-01-25

|title =Fact Check: Fabricated quote about 'human weeds' attributed to Planned Parenthood founder}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2011/apr/08/herman-cain/cain-claims-planned-parenthood-founded-planned-gen/

|publisher=Politifact (The Poynter Institute)

|date =April 8, 2011

|access-date=2025-01-25

|last=Mariano

|first=Willoughby

|ref=none

|title =Herman Cain said Planned Parenthood's early objective was to "help kill black babies before they came into the world"}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://www.factcheck.org/2011/11/cains-false-attack-on-planned-parenthood/

|publisher=Annenberg Public Policy Center

|date =November 1, 2011

|access-date=2025-01-25

|last=Robinson

|first=Lori

|ref=none

|title =Cain's False Attack on Planned Parenthood}}

• {{cite web

|url= https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/margaret-sanger-weeds/

|publisher=Snopes

|date = July 31, 2015

|access-date=2025-01-10

|title = Did Margaret Sanger Decry Slavs and Jews as 'Human Weeds'?}}

• {{cite web

|url= https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/09/13/margaret-sanger-exterminate-negro-population

|publisher=Snopes

|access-date=2025-01-10

|date = September 13, 2023

|title = Margaret Sanger Did Not Advocate 'Exterminating the Negro Population'

|ref=none

|first=Nur

|last=Ibrahim }}{{efn|

Examples of quotes falsely attributed to Sanger

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Misattributed can be found in Wikiquote]. An example of a quote which is accurate, but is often presented out of context is;: "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it" from her book Woman and the New Race. In that passage, she was discussing the high rate of infant death within poor families living in crowded conditions and suffering from malnutrition and disease. The full quote is "[to demonstrate] the immorality of large families ... it may be offered ... The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it [emphasis added]. The same factors which create the terrible infant mortality rate, and which swell the death rate of children between the ages of one and five, operate even more extensively to lower the health rate of the surviving members. Moreover, the overcrowded homes of large families reared in poverty further contribute to this condition. Lack of medical attention is still another factor, so that the child who must struggle for health in competition with other members of a closely packed family has still great difficulties to meet after its poor constitution and malnutrition have been accounted for. The probability of a child handicapped by a weak constitution, an overcrowded home, inadequate food and care, and possibly a deficient mental equipment, winding up in prison or an almshouse, is too evident for comment."{{sfn|Sanger|1920|pp=62–63}}

}} Common falsehoods are: she was a racist, she was a proponent of abortion, she was a Nazi sympathizer, or she supported the KKK.{{sfn|Katz|2002}}{{sfn|Katz|1995|pp=43–47}}{{

cite web

|title = Opposition Claims About Margaret Sanger

|url =https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/cc/2e/cc2e84f2-126f-41a5-a24b-43e093c47b2c/210414-sanger-opposition-claims-p01.pdf

|publisher = Planned Parenthood

|date=April 2021

|access-date = January 5, 2025

}}{{cite web

|url=http://www.plannedparenthoodnj.org/library/topic/contraception/margaret_sanger

|title=The Truth about Margaret Sanger

|publisher=Planned Parenthood Affiliates of New Jersey

|url-status=dead

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100317231816/http://www.plannedparenthoodnj.org/library/topic/contraception/margaret_sanger

|archive-date=March 17, 2010

|access-date=2025-01-10

}}{{efn

|Scholars have concluded that Sanger was not a racist, nor a proponent of abortion,{{sfn|Gandy|2015}} nor associated with the Nazi party,{{sfn|Katz|2002}}

{{cite journal

| last = O'Brien

| first=Gerald V.

| title = Margaret Sanger and the Nazis: How Many Degrees of Separation?

| journal = Social Work

|issn=1545-6846

| volume = 58

| number = 3

| pages = 285–287

| year = 2013

| doi = 10.1093/sw/swt026

| pmid=24032311

| url = https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swt026

}} nor a supporter of the KKK.{{sfn|Wirestone|2015}}

}} Another persistent falsehood is the claim that Sanger applied her birth control policies with the intention of suppressing the African American community.Sanger was a eugenicist, but scholars have concluded that she was not racist, and also concluded that she did not target minority communities. See {{harvnb|Chesler|2007|pp=15,195–6}}; {{harvnb|Cooper|2023|pp=60–73}}; {{harvnb|Engelman|2011 |pp=133,135}}; {{harvnb|Katz|1995|pp=43–47}}; {{harvnb|McCann|1994|pp=13,16–21,117}}; {{harvnb|Roberts|1998|p=81}}; and {{harvnb|Valenza|1985}}. For additional details, see the Eugenics section of this article.{{efn|

Two U.S. Supreme court decisions related to abortion have referred to the false claim that Sanger intended to use birth control as a mechanism to achieve racist goals.{{cite journal

|title=A Vigorous Campaign against Abortion": Views of American Leaders of Eugenics v. Supreme Court Distortions

|volume=51

|doi=10.1017/jme.2023.90

|number=3

|journal=Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics

|issn=1748-720X

|last=Lombardo

|first= Paul A.

|year=2023

|pages=473–479

|doi-access=free

|pmid=38088609

}}

{{cite magazine

|url= https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/06/thomas-and-alito-are-appropriating-racial-justice-to-push-a-radical-agenda/

|access-date=January 28, 2025

|title = Thomas and Alito Are Appropriating Racial Justice to Push a Radical Agenda

|date=June 28, 2022

|first=Melissa

|last=Murray

|magazine=Mother Jones

|issn=0362-8841

}}

{{cite journal

|url=https://jach.law.wisc.edu/abortion-eugenics-discourse-in-dobbs/

|access-date= January 28, 2025

|date=February 14, 2024

|title=Abortion-Eugenics Discourse in Dobbs: A Social Movement History

|journal= Journal of American Constitutional History – Abortion Symposium

|issn=2997-4755

|publisher=University of Wisconsin Law School

|volume=2

|issue=1

|first=Reva

|last=Seigel

}} In Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Clarence Thomas approvingly cited a friend of the court brief that contained falsehoods about Sanger.{{cite web

|url=https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-483/72192/20181115123021558_37089%20pdf%20Mannix.pdf

|title= Brief of the Restoration Project; Pastor Joseph Parker of Greater Turner Chapel A.M.E. Church; ... in Support of Petitioners

|publisher=U.S. Supreme Court

|author=Thomas L. Brejcha

|access-date=February 15, 2025

|display-authors=etal

}} This brief is cited in Thomas' concurring opinion to Box as "Brief for Restoration Project et al. as Amici Curiae 5–6". In his concurring opinion, Thomas singled-out by Sanger by name, and connected Sanger to eugenics, and eugenics to racism. And in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Samuel Alito cited a friend of the court brief which contained several false claims about Sanger.{{cite web

|url=https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/184908/20210726131118652_19-1392_Amici%20Brief%20In%20Support%20of%20Petitioners.pdf

|title= Brief for Amici Curiae African American, Hispanic, Roman Catholic and Protestant Religious and Civil Rights Organizations and Leaders Supporting Petitioners

|publisher=U.S. Supreme Court

|author=Mathew D. Staver

|access-date=February 15, 2025

|display-authors=etal

}} The brief is cited by Alito in footnote 41 of the Dobbs decision.}}

Beginning in 2015, Planned Parenthood{{snd}}hoping to improve relations with minority communities{{snd}}took steps to distance itself from its founder: it removed Sanger's name from its annual awards, published an editorial in which it repudiated Sanger's advocacy of eugenics, and removed Sanger's name from its family planning clinic in Manhattan.{{Cite news

|last=Stewart

|first=Nikita

|date=2020-07-21

|title=Planned Parenthood in N.Y. Disavows Margaret Sanger Over Eugenics

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/nyregion/planned-parenthood-margaret-sanger-eugenics.html

|access-date=2025-01-14

|work=The New York Times

|language=en-US

|issn=0362-4331}} The Times article is discussing a press release issued by the New York City affiliate: {{cite web

|url= https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-greater-new-york/about/news/planned-parenthood-of-greater-new-york-announces-intent-to-remove-margaret-sangers-name-from-nyc-health-center

|date= 21 July 2020

|access-date=29 Jan 2025

|title=Planned Parenthood of Greater New York Announces Intent to Remove Margaret Sanger's Name from NYC Health Center

|publisher=Planned Parenthood of Greater New York

}} A year later, the president of the national Planned Parenthood organization published a similar statement: {{Cite news

|last=Johnson

|first=Alexis McGill

|date=April 17, 2021

|title=I'm the Head of Planned Parenthood. We're Done Making Excuses for Our Founder.

|department=Opinion

|language=en-US

|newspaper=The New York Times

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/opinion/planned-parenthood-margaret-sanger.html

|access-date=April 17, 2021

|issn=0362-4331}}{{efn|name=award|The Margaret Sanger Award and the Maggie Award have not been awarded since 2015. Comparable awards awarded in 2024 were the Reproductive Health Icon Award and the Media Excellence Award, respectively.

{{cite magazine

|title=Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger Problem

|first= Ruth

|last=Graham

|date=July 24, 2020

|url=https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/07/planned-parenthood-margaret-sanger-history.html

|magazine=Slate

|access-date=January 15, 2025

}}{{ cite web

|url=https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/campaigns/ppfa-media-excellence-awards

|access-date=February 21, 2025

|title=PPFA Media Excellence Awards

|publisher=Planned Parenthood Federation of America

}}

{{

cite web

|url=https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/pressroom/planned-parenthood-federation-of-america-and-planned-parenthood-action-fund-honors-rep-barbara-lee-with-reproductive-health-icon-award

|access-date=February 21, 2025

|title=Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund Honors Rep. Barbara Lee with Reproductive Health Icon Award

|publisher=Planned Parenthood Federation of America

|date=September 16, 2024

}}

}} Essayist Katha Pollitt and Sanger biographer Ellen Chesner criticized Planned Parenthood for succumbing to pressure from the anti-abortion movement.{{Cite news

|date=April 20, 2021

|last=Chesner

|first=Ellen

|title= Defending Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood's Founder (Letter to the Editor)

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/20/opinion/letters/margaret-sanger-planned-parenthood.html

|access-date=2025-01-08

|work=The New York Times

|issn=0362-4331

|language=en-US

}}{{Cite magazine

|magazine=The Nation

|issn=0027-8378

|publication-date=August 20, 2020

|last=Pollitt

|first=Katha

|date=September 7, 2020

|title=Canceling Margaret Sanger Only Helps Abortion Opponents

|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/society/canceling-margaret-sanger/

|access-date=2025-01-14

|language=en-US

}}

{{refbegin|30em|indent =yes}}

• {{cite book

| title=What Every Mother Should Know

|year=1912

|orig-year=1911

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FssvAQAAMAAJ

|access-date=December 15, 2024

| last=Sanger

|first=Margaret}} Originally published in 1911 as a column in the New York Call. The column was based on a set of lectures Sanger gave to groups of Socialist party women in 1910–1911. Multiple editions were published in book form starting in 1912 by Max N. Maisel and Sincere Publishing, with the title What Every Mother Should Know, or how six little children were taught the truth.

• {{cite book

| author-mask=2

|title=Family Limitation

|edition= First

|year=1914

|last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

}} Eighteen editions of this pamphlet were published, including:
• {{cite book

|title=Family Limitation

|edition= Sixth

|year=1917

|url= https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31790/pg31790-images.html

|access-date=January 15, 2025

|ref=none

}}
• {{cite book

|title=Family Limitation

|work= South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)

|edition= Ninth

|year=1919

|url= https://www.saada.org/item/20130117-1222

|access-date=January 15, 2025

|ref=none

|last1= Sanger

|first1= Margaret

}}
• {{cite book

|title=Family Limitation

|edition= Eighteenth

|year=1931

|url=https://archive.org/details/39002086349256.med.yale.edu

|access-date=January 15, 2025

|ref=none

}}

• {{cite book

| author-mask=2

|title=What Every Girl Should Know

|year=1916

|orig-year=1912-1913

| last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pm1RAQAAMAAJ

|access-date=January 15, 2025

}} Originally published as a column in 1912-1913; published in book form in 1916.

• {{cite book

| author-mask=2

| last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| title=The Fight for Birth Control

|date= 1916a

|lccn=2003558097

|ref=none

|url= http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbcmisc.awh0004

|access-date=January 15, 2025}} Pamphlet.

• {{cite book

| author-mask=2

| last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| title=The Case for Birth Control: A Supplementary Brief and Statement of Facts

|year=1917

| publisher=Modern art printing Company

| isbn=9780598730961

|access-date=January 15, 2025

|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=EkUSAAAAYAAJ}} Filed with court to support a legal battle.

• {{cite book

| author-mask=2

| last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| publisher=Truth Publishing

| title=Woman and the New Race

|date= 1920

| isbn=9781414221984

|access-date=January 15, 2025

|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=AywKAAAAIAAJ }} Foreword by Havelock Ellis. Published in England with the title The New Motherhood.

• {{cite book

| author-mask=2

| last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

|ref=none

| publisher=Haldeman-Julius Company

| title=Debate on Birth Control

|date= 1921

| lccn=2004563524

|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=KXs9AQAAMAAJ

|access-date=January 15, 2025

}} Transcript of a debate between several prominent figures: Sanger, Theodore Roosevelt, Winter Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Robert L. Wolf, and Emma Sargent Russell.

• {{cite book

| author-mask=2

| last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| publisher=Brentanos

| title=The Pivot of Civilization

|year=1922

|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1689

|access-date=November 1, 2024

}} Entire book reprinted, with commentary and contemporary writings, in {{cite book

|title=The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective: The Birth Control Classic

| editor-last=Perry

| editor-first= M.W.

| first=Margaret

|last=Sanger

|display-authors=etal

|isbn=9781587420085

| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NysSmD9t9o4C

|access-date = February 6, 2025

| year=2001

| ref=none

| publisher=Inkling Books

}}

• {{cite book

| editor-mask=2

| editor-last=Sanger

| editor-first= Margaret

| publisher=Brentanos

| title=Motherhood in Bondage

|year=1928

| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MU4iAAAAYAAJ

| lccn= 28028778

|access-date=January 15, 2025

}} A collection of letters women wrote to Sanger; many were initially published in Birth Control Review.

• {{cite book

|author-mask=2

| last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| title =My Fight for Birth Control

| year = 1931

| publisher=Farrar & Rinehart

| lccn= 31028223

|access-date=January 15, 2025

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ICEEAQAAIAAJ }}

• {{cite book

|author-mask=2

| last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| url=https://archive.org/details/margaretsangerau1938sang/

|access-date=January 15, 2025

| title = Margaret Sanger An Autobiography

| year = 1938

| publisher =W. W. Norton

| location = New York }} Republished starting in 1971 titled {{cite book

| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IQKAfF_ycEoC

| title = The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger

| year = 2012

| publisher = Dover

| isbn =9780486120836}}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin|30em|indent =yes}}

• {{cite book

| last=Sanger

|first= Margaret

| title=The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 1: The Woman Rebel, 1900–1928

|editor1= Esther Katz

|editor2= Cathy Moran Hajo

|editor3= Peter Engelman

|publisher=University of Illinois Press

|year= 2003

|isbn= 978-0252027376

|oclc=773147056

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P0GTPwAACAAJ }}

• {{cite book

| author-mask=2

| last=Sanger

|first= Margaret

|title=The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 2: Birth Control Comes of Age, 1928–1939

|editor1= Esther Katz

|editor2= Cathy Moran Hajo

|editor3= Peter Engelman

|publisher=University of Illinois Press

|year= 2007

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yngbAQAAMAAJ

|isbn=9780252031373 }}

• {{cite book

| author-mask=2

| last=Sanger

|first= Margaret

|title=The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 3: The Politics of Planned Parenthood, 1939–1966

|editor1= Esther Katz

|editor2= Cathy Moran Hajo

|editor3= Peter Engelman

|publisher=University of Illinois Press

|year= 2010

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P4sLQgAACAAJ

|isbn= 9780252033728

}}

• {{cite book

| author-mask=2

| last=Sanger

|first= Margaret

|title=The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 4: Round the World for Birth Control, 1920-1966

|editor1= Esther Katz

|editor2= Cathy Moran Hajo

|editor3= Peter Engelman

|publisher=University of Illinois Press

|year= 2016

| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=-aGHDQAAQBAJ

|isbn= 9780252098802 }}

• {{cite web

| url= https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/826

|title= The Margaret Sanger Papers at Smith College

|publisher=Smith College

|access-date=2025-01-10

|ref=CITEREFsofiacollection }}

• {{cite web

| url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu

|publisher= Sponsored by New York University

|title= The Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|access-date=2025-01-10

|ref=CITEREFnyumspp

}}

• {{cite web

|title= Margaret Sanger papers, 1900–1966

|publisher=Library of Congress

|url= https://findingaids.loc.gov/db/search/xq/searchMferDsc04.xq?_id=loc.mss.eadmss.ms998010&_faSection=contentsList&_faSubsection=series&_dmdid=d106493e25&_start=1&_lines=125

|access-date= 6 March 2025

| ref=CITEREFloccollection

}}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin|30em|indent =yes}}

• {{cite magazine

|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000041607486&seq=277

|access-date=February 21, 2025

| last = Sanger

| first = Margaret

| title = Birth Control and Racial Betterment

| magazine = Birth Control Review

| publisher = The New York Women's Publishing Company

| volume = 3

| issue = 2

| date = February 1919

| pages = 11–12 }}

• {{cite journal

|last1=Sanger

|first1=Margaret

| author-mask=2

|title=Why Not Birth Control Clinics in America?

|journal=American Medicine

|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=chi.64435938&seq=220

|date=March 1919b

| volume=25

|issn=0898-6304

|access-date=2025-01-10

| pages=164–167

}} Included as chapter 16 in Sanger's 1920 book Woman and the New Race.

• {{cite magazine

| last = Sanger

| first = Margaret

| author-mask=2

| title = The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda

| magazine = Birth Control Review

| volume = 5

| issue = 10

| year = 1921b

|page =5

| url = https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015082132963&seq=571

|access-date=March 11, 2025

}}

• {{cite journal

|last1=Sanger

|first1=Margaret

| author-mask=2

|title=The Pope's Position on Birth Control

|journal=The Nation

|issn=0027-8378

|date=January 27, 1932

|volume=135

|issue=3473

|pages=102–104

|url= https://archive.org/details/sim_nation_1932-01-27_134_3473/page/102/mode/2up

|access-date=January 29, 2025

}}

• {{cite news

|last=Sanger

|first= Margaret

| author-mask=2

|date= May 27, 1934

|title= America Needs a Code for Babies

|work= The Washington Herald (American Weekly insert)

|issn= 1941-0662

|location= Washington DC

|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1043726343/

|access-date= January 16, 2025

}}

• {{cite letter

|last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| author-mask=2

|title=Letter from Margaret Sanger to Dr. C.J. Gamble |recipient=Clarence Gamble

|date=December 10, 1939

|publisher=Smith Libraries Exhibits

|url=https://libex.smith.edu/omeka/items/show/495

|access-date=2024-12-13

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230412085945/https://libex.smith.edu/omeka/items/show/495

|archive-date=2023-04-12

|url-status=dead

|page=2

}}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin|30em|indent =yes}}

• The Woman Rebel{{snd}}Seven issues published monthly from March 1914 to September 1914. Sanger was publisher and editor. [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31970019043014&seq Digital copies of all issues.]
• Birth Control Review{{snd}}Sometimes styled The Birth Control Review. Published monthly from February 1917 to 1940 (although some issues covered two or three months). Sanger was editor until 1929, when she resigned from the ABCL. [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ls?q1=Birth+control+review&field1=ocr&a=srchls&ft=ft&lmt=ft Digital copies of volumes 1 to 13 (1917 to 1929).]

{{refend}}

{{refbegin|30em|indent =yes}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/21/the-morality-of-birth-control-nov-28-1921/

|title=The Morality of Birth Control

|last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

|date=November 18, 1921a

|publisher= Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics

|access-date= February 20, 2025

}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2020/10/29/a-moral-necessity-for-birth-control-c-1921-1922/

|title=A Moral Necessity for Birth Control

|last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| author-mask=2

|date= 1921–1922

|publisher= Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics

|access-date= February 20, 2025

|ref=none

}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/21/the-childrens-era-march-301925/

|title=The Children's Era

|last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| author-mask=2

|ref=none

|date=March 30, 1925

|publisher= Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics

|access-date= February 20, 2025

}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2018/03/05/ford-hall-forum-address-april-16-1929/

|title=Ford Hall Forum Address

|last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| author-mask=2

|date=April 16, 1929

|publisher= Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics

|access-date= February 20, 2025

}} Sanger's statement, read by Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr.

• {{cite web

|url=https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/21/woman-and-the-future-jan-25-1937/

|title=Woman and the Future

|last=Sanger

|first=Margaret

| author-mask=2

|date=January 25, 1937

|publisher= Iowa State University Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics

|access-date= February 20, 2025

|ref=none

}}

{{refend}}

{{notelist}}

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin|30em|indent =yes}}

• {{cite book

|last=Baker

|first=Jean

|author-link=Jean H. Baker

|title=Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion

|publisher=Hill and Wang

|location=New York

|year=2011

|isbn=978-1-4299-6897-3

|id={{OCLC|863501288|1150293235}}

|url=https://archive.org/details/margaretsangerli0000bake

}}

• {{cite book| last = Chesler

| first = Ellen

| title = Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America

| publisher = Simon and Schuster

| location = New York

| year = 2007

|orig-year=1992

| isbn = 978-1-4165-4076-2

| url = https://books.google.com/books?isbn=141655369X

}} Originally published in 1992 (Simon and Schuster ISBN 9780671600884), it was republished in 2007 with a new afterward.

• {{

cite news

| url=https://tucson.com/news/local/the-tucson-history-of-margaret-sanger-planned-parenthood-founder/article_05744d68-f3df-11ec-8ea2-6f0b170db1c3.html

|work=Arizona Daily Star

|issn=2641-3833

| first=Jan

| last= Cleere

|title =The Tucson history of Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood founder

|date=June 24, 2022

}}

• {{cite journal

|last=Cooper

|first=Melinda

|author-link=Melinda Cooper (scholar)

|date=January 1, 2023

|title=The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Ghost of Margaret Sanger

|url=https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-anti-abortion-movement-and-the-ghost-of-margaret-sanger

|access-date=January 20, 2023

|journal=Dissent

|issn=0012-3846

|volume=70

|pages=60–73

|issue=Winter 2023|doi=10.1353/dss.2023.0031

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Cox

|first=Vicki

|title=Margaret Sanger: Rebel for Women's Rights

|publisher=Chelsea House Publishers

|location=Philadelphia

|year=2005

|isbn=9780791080306

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0A8zuAAACAAJ

|access-date=January 15, 2025

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Davis

|first= Angela

|author-link=Angela Davis

|title= Women, Race, & Class

|year=2011

|orig-year=1981

|chapter=Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights

|publisher= Knopf Doubleday

|pages=215

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=74QzFiv1w10C

|isbn=9780307798497

|access-date=January 20, 2025

}}.

• {{cite book

|chapter=Quality, Not Mere Quantity, Counts

|last=Dorr

|first=Gregory Michael

|editor-last=Lombardo

|editor-first= Paul A.

|year=2011

|title=A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era

| isbn=9780253222695

| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=FAB-6RzKAQIC

|publisher= Indiana University Press

}} Covers Du Bois' views on eugenics.

• {{Cite book

|last=Eig

|first=Jonathan

|author-link=Jonathan Eig|title=The birth of the pill: how four crusaders reinvented sex and launched a revolution

|date=2014

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WxJ0AwAAQBAJ

|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company

|isbn=978-0-393-07372-0

|location=New York}}

• {{cite book

|last=Engelman

|first=Peter

|title=A History of the Birth Control Movement in America

|publisher=Praeger

|location=Santa Barbara, CA

|year=2011

|isbn=978-0-313-36510-2

|oclc=728097821|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofbirthco0000enge

}}

• {{Cite web

|last=Gandy

|first=Imani

|date=2015-08-20

|title=How False Narratives of Margaret Sanger Are Being Used to Shame Black Women

|url=https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2015/08/20/false-narratives-margaret-sanger-used-shame-black-women/

|access-date=2025-01-14

|website=Rewire News Group

|language=en-US}}

• {{cite book

| title=The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America

| last=Gordon

| first=Linda

| author-link=Linda Gordon

| isbn=9780252027642

| url=https://archive.org/details/moralpropertyofw0000gord_l0f6/

|access-date=February 4, 2025

| year=2002

| publisher=University of Illinois Press

}}

• {{cite book

| title=The Icon and the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Control to America

| last=Gorton

| first= Stephanie

| isbn=9780063036314

| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dxL4EAAAQBAJ

| year=2024

| publisher=HarperCollins

}}

• {{cite book| last = Hajo | first = Cathy | title = Birth control on main street: organizing clinics in the United States, 1916–1939 | publisher = University of Illinois Press | location = Urbana | year = 2010 | isbn = 978-0-252-07725-8 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=17ZZTGWTodIC }}

• {{cite journal

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/sanger_censorship_and_catholic_church/

|title=Sanger, Censorship, and the Catholic Church – The Latest Battle in a Long War

|access-date=February 14, 2025

|year=1993a

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|issue=6

|journal=Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

}}

• {{Cite journal |last=Katz

|first=Esther |year= 1995

|title=The Editor as Public Authority: Interpreting Margaret Sanger

|url=https://online.ucpress.edu/tph/article/17/1/41/88704/The-Editor-as-Public-Authority-Interpreting

|journal=The Public Historian

|issn= 0272-3433

|language=en

|volume=17

|issue=1

|pages=41–50

|doi=10.2307/3378350

|jstor=3378350

|pmid=11640051

}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/images/publications/SmithGuide.pdf

|access-date=February 25, 2025

|title=The Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm Edition: Smith College Collection Series

|year=1995b

|editor-first=Esther

|editor-last=Katz

|isbn= 1-55655-529-6

|pages=30, 33, 55, 68, 75

|publisher= University Publications of America

}}

• {{cite journal

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/passionate_friends/

|year =1996a

|issue=12

|title= The Passionate Friends: H. G. Wells and Margaret Sanger

|journal=Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|access-date=2025-01-23

}}

• {{cite journal

|title =The Heart to go to Japan

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|year=1996b

|issue=12

|journal= Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|access-date=2025-01-10

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/heart_to_japan/

}}

• {{cite journal

|journal=Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/demonization_of_ms/

|title=The Demonization of Margaret Sanger

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|issue=16

|year=1997

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|access-date=November 27, 2016

}}

• {{cite journal

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/sanger_on_trial/

|access-date=March 3, 2025

|title=Sanger on Trial: The Brownsville Clinic Testimony

|issue=25

|year = 2000

|journal=Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-first=Esther

|editor-last=Katz

}}

• {{cite journal

|journal=Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/bc_or_race_control/

|title=Birth Control or Race Control? Sanger and the Negro Project

|issue=28

|date=2001

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|access-date=January 23, 2025 }}

• {{ cite journal

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/sanger-hitler_equation/

|title=The Sanger-Hitler Equation

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|date=2002

|issue=32

|journal= Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|access-date=January 25, 2025

}}

• {{ cite journal

|url=https://www.sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/johnrock/

|title=John Rock's Catholic Faith: Sanger's Hard Pill to Swallow

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|date=2010

|issue=55

|journal= Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|access-date=March 17, 2025

}}

• {{cite journal

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/ms_abortion/

|title=Margaret Sanger Answers Questions on Abortion

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|issue=60

|journal=Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|date=2012

|access-date=2025-01-10

}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/aboutms/organization_brownsville_clinic/

|access-date=January 15, 2025

|title= Brownsville Clinic and Committee of 100 History

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|ref=CITEREFbrownsville

}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/aboutms/organization_bcr/

|title= Birth Control Review History

|access-date=2025-01-10

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|ref=CITEREFbcr2

}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/aboutms/organization_bccrb

|title= Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau History

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|access-date=2025-01-10

|ref=CITEREFbccrbh

}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/aboutms/organization_ippf/

|title=International Planned Parenthood Federation History

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|access-date=January 26, 2025

|ref=CITEREFippf

}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://www.sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/aboutms/organization_ncflbc/

|access-date= February 10, 2025

|title=National Committee on Federal Legislation on Birth Control

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|ref=CITEREFncflbc

}}

• {{cite book| last=Kennedy| first=David |author-link=David M. Kennedy (historian)| title=Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger| publisher=Yale University Press| location=New Haven| year=1970| isbn=978-0-300-01202-6| oclc=70781307|url=https://archive.org/details/birthcontrolinam00kenn}}

• {{cite book

| last = Kevles

| first = Daniel

|author-link=Daniel Kevles

| title = In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity | publisher = University of California Press

| location = Berkeley and Los Angeles

| year = 1985

| isbn = 978-0-520-05763-0

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8esnhRxBomMC

|access-date=February 15, 2025

}}

• {{cite journal

|journal=The Journal of Economic Perspectives

|issn=0895-3309

|volume=19

|issue= 4

|year=2005

|last=Leonard

|first= Thomas C.

|author-link=Thomas C. Leonard

|pages=208–221

|url=https://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/retrospectives.pdf

|title=Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era

|doi=10.1257/089533005775196642

|access-date =January 29, 2022

}}

• {{cite book |last=McCann

|first=Carole

|author-link=Carole McCann

|title=Birth control politics in the United States, 1916-1945

|publisher=Cornell University Press

|year=1994

|oclc=988564989

|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780801424908/mode/2up

|isbn=978-0-8014-8612-8}}

• {{cite book

|url=https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1000671764

|access-date=February 19, 2025

|title= What Perspectives Did African American Advocates Bring to the Birth Control Movement and How Did Those Perspectives Shape the History of the Harlem Branch Birth Control Clinic?

|chapter= Introduction

|series=Women and Social Movements in the United States 1600–2000

|first= Carole

|last= McCann

|author-link=Carole McCann

|publisher=Alexander Street Press

|year= 2006a

}}

• {{cite book

|url=https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1000672596

|access-date=February 19, 2025

|title= What Perspectives Did African American Advocates Bring to the Birth Control Movement and How Did Those Perspectives Shape the History of the Harlem Branch Birth Control Clinic?

|chapter= Document 17A: George S. Schuyler, 'Quantity or Quality'

|series=Women and Social Movements in the United States 1600–2000

|first= Carole

|last= McCann

|author-link=Carole McCann

|publisher=Alexander Street Press

|year= 2006b

}}

• {{cite book

|last=McCann

|first=Carole

|author-link=Carole McCann

|chapter=Women as Leaders in the Contraceptive Movement

|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/genderwomenslead0002unse/page/748/mode/2up

|editor-last=O'Connor

|editor-first=Karen

|title=Gender and Women's Leadership: A Reference Handbook

|volume=2 |publisher=SAGE Reference

|location=Thousand Oaks, Calif

|year=2010

|url=https://archive.org/details/genderwomenslead0002unse

|isbn=978-1-84972-763-1

|oclc=568741234}}

• {{Cite journal

|url=https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/articles/harlem/

|title=Looking Uptown: Margaret Sanger and the Harlem Branch Birth Control Clinic

|first=Wangui

|last=Muigai

|date=Spring 2010

|publisher=NYU Margaret Sanger Papers Project

|issue=54

|journal= Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter

|editor-last=Katz

|editor-first=Esther

|access-date=2025-01-23

}}

• {{cite journal

|last =Paul

|first= Diane B.

|author-link=Diane Paul

|year=1984

|title=Eugenics and the Left

|journal= Journal of the History of Ideas

|issn=0022-5037

|volume= 45

|issue=4

|pages= 567–590

|doi=10.2307/2709374

|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press

|jstor= 2709374

|pmid= 11611620

|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709374

|access-date = February 7, 2025

}}

• {{cite book

|title=From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society Since 1830

|last=Reed

|first =James

| isbn=9780465025824

|url=https://archive.org/details/fromprivatevicet0000reed/

| year=1978

| publisher=Basic Books

}}

• {{cite journal

|last=Reilly

|first=P.R.

|title= Eugenics and Involuntary Sterilization: 1907-2015.

|journal= Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics

|issn=1527-8204

|year= 2015

|volume=16

|issue=351

|pages=351–368

|doi=10.1146/annurev-genom-090314-024930

|pmid=26322647

}}

• {{cite book

| title=Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

| last=Roberts

| first =Dorothy

|author-link=Dorothy Roberts

| isbn=9780679758693

| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Te-LDQAAQBAJ

| year=1998

| publisher=Knopf Doubleday

}}

• {{Cite book

|last=Roberts

|first=Dorothy

|author-link=Dorothy Roberts

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UsI1jv3hicAC

|chapter=Margaret Sanger and the Racial Origins of the Birth Control Movement

|title=Racially Writing the Republic: Racists, Race Rebels, and Transformations of American Identity

|date=2009

|pages=198–213

|isbn=9780822392156

|editor-last=Baum

|editor-first=Bruce

|publisher=Duke University Press

}}

• {{cite magazine

|url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/ted-cruz-vs-margaret-sangers-portrait

|access-date=January 28, 2025

|title=Ted Cruz Vs. Margaret Sanger's Portrait

|first=Amy Davidson

|last=Sorkin

|date=October 28, 2015

|magazine=The New Yorker

|issn= 0028-792X

}}

• {{cite journal

| last = Valenza

| first = Charles

| title = Was Margaret Sanger a Racist?

| journal = Family Planning Perspectives

| issn= 2325-5617

| publisher = Guttmacher Institute

| year = 1985

| pages = 44–46

| volume = 17

| issue = 1

| doi = 10.2307/2135230

| pmid=3884362

| jstor=2135230}}

• {{cite web

|url=https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/mar/18/william-obrien/nh-rep-bill-obrien-says-margaret-sanger-was-active/

|access-date=January 28, 2025

|title=NH Rep. Bill O'Brien says Margaret Sanger was active participant in KKK

|first=Clay

|last= Wirestone

|date=March 18, 2015

|publisher= PolitiFact (The Poynter Institute)

}}

{{refend}}

{{Sister project links |wikt=no |commons=yes |commonscat=yes |n=no |q=yes |s=yes |b=no |v=no}}

• [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?lookfor=Margaret+sanger&searchtype=author&ft=ft&setft=true Works by Margaret Sanger] at HathiTrust Digital Library
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Margaret Higgins Sanger}}
• {{Librivox author |id=3073}}
• {{OL author|18066A}}
• {{gutenberg author|id=693 |name=Margaret Sanger}}
• {{cite web

| url=https://hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15878coll90/id/27/

|first=Mike

|last=Wallace

|date=1957-09-21

|access-date=February 10, 2025

|ref=none

| title=Interview with Margaret Sanger (video recording)

|publisher= Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas Austin

}}

{{Feminism}}

{{Public health}}

{{Human reproductive health}}

{{Women's rights in the United States}}

{{Portal bar|Feminism|Socialism|United States}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanger, Margaret}}

Category:1879 births

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Category:Deaths from arteriosclerosis

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Category:Presidents of Planned Parenthood

Category:Progressive Era in the United States

Category:Writers from New York City