Thursday 9 May 2013

Birth Control Reality Check

Margaret Sanger


It was today, May 9, in 1960, that the US Food and Drug Administration first approved the use of the birth control pill[1] and it was Margaret Sanger who apparently first coined the phrase, ‘birth control’, in about 1914.

We should today also remember some other important facts about this woman who coined the phrase “birth control’. Truths which the advocates of contraceptives and abortion will not readily highlight.

Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in New York in 1921. In 1942 this organisation became what we today know as Planned Parenthood. The organisation was originally founded primarily to promote the establishment of birth control clinics amongst the Black and Latino population.[2]

Margaret Sanger believed that birth control would do a great deal in helping to “assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit.[3] She was without doubt one of the most prominent feminists to champion the eugenics agenda.

Sanger “saw birth control as a means to prevent unwanted children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and incorporated the language of eugenics to advance the movement. Sanger also sought to discourage the reproduction of persons who, it was believed, would pass on mental disease or serious physical defect. She advocated sterilization in cases where the subject was unable to use birth control.[4]

In 1920, in "Women and the New Race", Margaret Sanger wrote this: [My emphases]

Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives. So, in compliance with nature’s working plan, we must permit womanhood its full development before we can expect of it efficient motherhood. If we are to make racial progress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in every individual woman. Then and then only can the mother cease to be an incubator and be a mother indeed. Then only can she transmit to her sons and daughters the qualities which make strong individuals and, collectively, a strong race.

It should however be noted that Margaret Sanger, unlike the modern Planned Parenthood, was completely against abortion. She saw contraception as a measure to prevent abortion. She wrote this in her autobiography in 1938:

…we explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way—it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the world would again realise this truth - Life begins at conception! Wouldn't it also be wonderful if the world came to the realisation that the promotion of artificial birth control is not necessarily based on the good of the individual. 



[1] Birth Control, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, 2013
[2] American Birth Control League, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Birth_Control_League, accessed May 9, 2013
[3] Margaret Sanger, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger, accessed May 9, 2013
[4] Eugenics in the United States, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States, accessed May 9, 2013

1 comment:

  1. There are dangers about birth control pills. Aside from moral issues, we need to be concerned about health and the environment. http://www.thoughtful-living.org/2013/07/01/featured/planned-parenthood-damages-girl-power-health/

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