Successes of Margaret Sanger
An Image of an article she launched in the newspaper New York Call
Margaret’s plan of action for the promotion of birth control dealt with many successes. She passed out information, contraceptives, as well as birth control. She also published books/articles as a different way of promotion. She published her book “What Every Girl Should Know.” She has also published many articles such as; “Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics” in 1920, “The Eugenic Conscience” in 1921, “the purpose of Eugenics” in 1924, and many more. Margaret also started the “Negro Project” in 1939. The Negro project was a eugenics plan for the black Americans in New York City. Her plan was to exterminate the African American population, but didn’t want people to think she was racist. She started by placing African Americans on the advisory board of the clinics so they couldn’t suspect whites of trying to get rid of the black American population. Margaret Sanger had written a letter to Dr. Clarence J Gamble who is the head of the Birth Control clinical research bureaus of the south, saying “We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the 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.” (Margaret Sanger) Margaret also opened clinics. Her first clinic was opened in 1916. She also organizes the Birth Control Information Centre with Edith How-Martynom, which merged into being called Birth Control Federation of America. Lastly Margaret Sanger is the founder of todays Planned Parenthood.
Failures of Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger Sits inside one of her clinics with a group of woman from her community.
Although
Sanger’s hard work paid off in the end she had to go through a lot of failures
to get to where she is now. She was aware of the fact that everything she
wanted to do was not always going to be legal and not everyone was going to
like it. It was against the law to promote any kind of awareness on info, contraceptives, & birth control but she
continued to do so.She risked scandal, danger, her life, and
imprisonment by going against the law. She was arrested more then nine times in account to not
following the laws of New York City. Arrested
along with her sister Ethel, and Fania Mindeel for operating the clinic,
violating 1141 New York state penal code. The Comstock law is passed leading to
the stopping of importation or mailing of "contraception
devices". Even though she
opened clinics as a way of getting out into the public, they were slowly shut
down one by one. Sanger reopened one of her clinics called Brownsville Clinic,
which lead to her being arrested. This time she went to court for it, and her
trial was taken into the Supreme Court on January 29th, 1917. She was found guilty of not following
the laws and charged with creating a nuisance. "With me it is not a
question of personal imprisonment or personal disadvantage. I am today and have
always been more concerned with changing the law and the sweeping away of the
law, regardless of what I have to undergo to have it done. I cannot respect the
law as it exists today" (Margaret Sanger) She took 30 days of imprisonment
rather than a 5,000 dollar fee because she felt as if though it was a
popularity stunt to promote and get her idea across in a different way.
