Margaret Sanger

Woman and the New Race (Dodo Press) Margaret Sanger

Margaret Higgins Sanger (1879-1966) was an American birth control activist, an advocate of negative eugenics, and the founder of the American Birth Control League. Initially met with fierce opposition to her ideas, Sanger gradually won some support, both in the public as well as the courts, for a woman's choice to decide how and when she will bear children. Sanger was instrumental in opening the way to universal access to birth control. She also criticized the censorship of her message about sexuality and contraceptives by the civil and religious authorities as an effort by men to keep women in submission. An atheist, Sanger attacked Christian leaders opposed to her message, accusing them of Obscurantism and insensitivity to women's concerns. Her very personal views on this issue are evident in the last pages of What Every Girl Should Know (1920).