Margaret Sanger

[[File:MargaretSanger-Underwood.LOC.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Sanger in 1922]]
{{abortion}}
'''Margaret Sanger''' {{lived|14 September 1879|6 September 1966}} founded the {{wpl|American Birth Control League||,}} led by {{wpl|Lothrop Stoddard||,}} which later became the [[Planned Parenthood|Planned Parenthood Federation of America]]. Since Planned Parenthood became [[pro-choice]] after her death, the [[Religious Right]] works itself into a lather itself by [[quote mining]] her speeches into portraits of a [[racist]] eugenicist madwoman. A few examples of quotes that have been misattributed to Sanger can be found on Wikiquotes.<ref>[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Misattributed Margaret Sanger] ''Wikiquote''.</ref>

Sanger appeared to support white supremacist, repressive laws restricting immigration such as the [[Johnson-Reed Act]], lauding Congress in 1926 for taking "certain steps to control the quality of our population through its drastic immigration laws, whereby our gates are closed to those she considers undesirables."<ref>Ellen Chesler, "Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America," p. 614.</ref>

==Alleged KKK support?==
Enter the mid-1920s, when the racist, pro-[[eugenics]] [[Ku Klux Klan]] was at a national peak. Sanger unified progressive activists in both birth control and eugenics supporters, and received an invitation by the Klavern of {{wpl|Silver Lake, Essex County, New Jersey|Silver Lake|,}} [[New Jersey]], for a speech about birth control,<ref>''The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition.''</ref> which she accepted.<ref>''Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion,'' pp. 183-84.</ref><ref>''Encyclopedia of the Jazz Age: From the End of World War I to the Great Crash · Volumes 1-2,'' p. 457.</ref> No evidence of actual KKK membership exists, although her autobiography describes arrival at the city to speak to the Klan.<ref>''The Rise and Fall of the Ku Klux Klan in New Jersey,'' p. 92.</ref>

Some right-wingers claim the existence of a picture showing Sanger's speech given to the KKK, an assertion thoroughly debunked.<ref>https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/27/viral-image/no-isnt-photo-margaret-sanger-kkk-meeting/</ref>

The KKK was involved in much of the early feminist movement, including the [[Nineteenth Amendment]].<ref>https://19thnews.org/2020/12/first-came-suffrage-then-came-the-women-of-the-ku-klux-klan/</ref> This does not make the 19th Amendment a bad thing, nor would a hypothetical connection between them and Sanger make what she supported bad. Despite this, many on the right have attempted to connect abortion with the Ku Klux Klan and eugenics because of Sanger's ties, even though the KKK has historically been a far-right group who, even when they support goals that are similar to those of modern progressives, did so for very different reasons. (For example: Supporting abortion because you believe it's the right of a woman to decide if they should have to remain pregnant or not vs. supporting abortion because you want to forcefully abort all non-white children.)

However, she described her experience with the KKK 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}}}} Despite allegations of racism towards Sanger, she had in fact taken in African-Americans as clients in her birth control clinics, and tolerated no bigotry from her staff. Most scholars interpret the passage "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" as Sanger's effort to prevent the spread of unfounded rumors about nefarious purposes, and they find no evidence that Sanger was a racist.

==Negative eugenics?==
Sanger said some pretty kooky shit in regards to the [[eugenics]] [[woo]] that was a popular [[pseudoscience]] trend in the 1930s. She believed that people with hereditary [[disabilities]] should be encouraged to use [[birth control]]. This was not the same as [[Hitler]]'s [[state]]-enforced eugenics program and she decried the [[Nazi]] [[euthanasia]] programs.

She and other abortion proponents wrote for the Eugenics Publishing Company, which was more like an exploitation publisher (publishing books about sex, including Bronislaw Malinowski's classic [[anthropology]] text, ''The Sexual Life of Savages'') rather than an actual eugenics publisher.<ref>[http://www.textbookhistory.com/purity-pornography-and-eugenics-in-the-1930s-part-i/ Purity, Pornography and Eugenics in the 1930s (Parts I & II)] by Ronald Ladouceur (January 2, 2022) ''Textbook History''.</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/details/sexuallifeofsava0000unse_g7y3/page/n9/mode/2up ''The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia''] by Bronislaw Malinowski (1929) Eugenics Publishing Company.</ref>

Even [[Planned Parenthood]] has had internal disputes about whether she supported eugenics.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/nyregion/planned-parenthood-margaret-sanger-eugenics.html Planned Parenthood in N.Y. Disavows Margaret Sanger Over Eugenics: Ms. Sanger, a feminist icon and reproductive-rights pioneer, supported a discredited belief in improving the human race through selective breeding.] by Nikita Stewart (July 21, 2020) ''The New York Times''.</ref>

==External links==
*[http://liveaction.org/blog/racist-planned-parenthood-founder-margaret-sanger-was-not-so-pro-choice A typical anti-abortion depiction of Sanger]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

{{stub|abortion}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sanger, Margaret}}
[[Category:Eugenics supporters]]
[[Category:Feminists]]
[[Category:Frequently misquoted people]]
[[Category:Left-wing activists]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience promoters]]
[[Category:Socialists]]

Categories: Eugenics supporters, Feminists, Frequently misquoted people, Left-wing activists, Pseudoscience promoters, Socialists