I was quite happy when, upon sitting down to write this article, I found myself stymied by excess. There are so many freethinking women who have made a powerful imprint on my life, beginning within my own family and spiraling outward. My Mother, who gave me my first introduction to feminism in the children’s book Sugarpink Rose and with it the sense that self-worth can’t be found in blind conformity; my 7th grade science teacher who taught me the value of passion and mentorship when she sank to the floor sobbing as one of her own heroines, Christa McAuliffe, lost her life in the Challenger disaster while we stared at the television open-mouthed and horrified; Liz Blackburn, who in charging the Bush administration with the political manipulation of scientific research taught me to stand in defense of rationality regardless of what might be lost; Eugenie Scott, whose tireless fight against the encroaching tentacles of creationism consistently recharges and encourages my own.
Any one of those women, or the myriad of others that sprang so easily to mind, would have served as a worthy subject for this verbose pedestal. There is one woman, however, whose cause allowed millions of others to champion their own by freeing them from unnecessary poverty, patriarchal servitude, psychosexual dysfunction, and even death. I believe H.G. Wells said it best:
“When the history of our civilization is written, it will be a biological history, and Margaret Sanger will be its heroine.”
I’m sure you’re aware of the popular TLC series “19 Kids and Counting” which chronicles the life of Mr. and Mrs. Duggar and their NINETEEN biological children. The show is popular, to be frank, because the Duggar’s are seen as freaks. They stand out in a society where the average family has a comfortably managed two children (1.86 children per American family according to the 2000 Census). We owe the fact that the average family has only two children in large part to the efforts of Margaret Sanger. She’s been crowned the founder of the birth control movement, and for good reason.
Working as a nurse in New York’s lower east side in the early 1900’s, Sanger witnessed first-hand the misery experienced by poverty stricken women powerlessly enduring cycles of unwanted pregnancies or risking their lives through self-induced abortion. She fought tirelessly against the moralistic “Comstock Laws” that made the mere mention of contraception in distributed print a federal crime. She endured arrest and harassment in the name of education and personal freedom. She smuggled illegal contraception from other countries which she distributed to poor women along with information regarding their use. She opened clinics, formed committees, arranged for the American manufacturing of the Dutch designed spring-form diaphragm, fostered research of spermicides, and helped to fund the development of the birth control pill.
I won’t pretend Sanger was devoid of issue. She discussed masturbation, one of my favorite hobbies, in terms of revolting disease. She latched on to the positive eugenics movement when it proved beneficial to her cause. She expressed the belief that, free from the fear of unwanted pregnancy, women would be more able to enjoy sexual relations, but she seemed to view sexual desire as a weakness to be overcome. She held popular opinions regarding the mentally ill and disabled that are now considered abhorrent. I cannot stand by these beliefs, nor am I required to in order to count her a heroine. She was an atheist, a feminist, a rationalist, a humanist… and a human. I find value in the fact that she stands not only as a champion for equality, freedom, compassion, empowerment and free speech but also as a reminder that one need not be perfect to be noble.
"Against the State, against the Church, against the silence of the medical profession, against the whole machinery of dead institutions of the past, the woman of today arises." - Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger lived just long enough to see the Supreme Court declare contraception a constitutional right in 1965; a triumph she celebrated with friends and fellow activists, though seriously ill, by sipping champagne through a straw. We’re now living in a time when the right she fought so hard for is often taken for granted. I turn back to the excess I was faced with as I sat down to write this article. How many of those women would have achieved all they did if not for the humble rubber, the diaphragm, the birth control pill, and the constitutional right to use them? How many of us would have the time and wits to fight the good fight, widen our horizons, or even just piss off for the evening to join fellow skeptics at the pub if we too had 19 Kids and Counting? I for one, am eternally grateful that I can only imagine a society in which women are largely seen as mere incubators for the next generation. No gods, no masters indeed, Ms. Sanger. Thank you.
Author Tanya Higgins can be reached at her blog, Daisies and Shit.
The Vatican cult of criminals should all report to jail ASP. What the Top RCC leadership did is beyond my understanding. These fools blatantly cover-up Children being molested by clergys.Its a Sad realization that the pope choose to allow more Children to be harm by priests.Just to protect the interest of the catholic church. If Joe blow did what the pope did,he would be eating cheese sandwich and drinking ice tea in a Jail cell block. The pope power of immunity should be null and void for protecting the Offender instead of the Children.