Women's History Month - Margaret Sanger
Mar. 1st, 2011 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vivienI'd planned to start my thirty days of incredible women with this personal hero of mine, and now her story is more timely than ever.
From http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/p_sanger.html:
Margaret Sanger devoted her life to legalizing birth control and making it universally available for women. Born in 1879, Sanger came of age during the heyday of the Comstock Act, a federal statute that criminalized contraceptives. Margaret Sanger believed that the only way to change the law was to break it. Starting in the 1910s, Sanger actively challenged federal and state Comstock laws to bring birth control information and contraceptive devices to women. Her fervent ambition was to find the perfect contraceptive to relieve women from the horrible strain of repeated, unwanted pregnancies.
From http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847bx.htm:
In 1952, she founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation and served as its first president until 1959. Sanger died in Tucson, Arizona, aged 87 years, a few months after the 1965 Supreme Court decision, Griswold vs. Connecticut, that made birth control legal for married couples, the culmination of events Sanger had started 50 years earlier.
Margaret was a nurse whose mother died after 18 pregnancies. She saw the damage back alley abortions caused to women's bodies and lives. She went to jail and received horrible criticism to blaze the trail for generations of women to enjoy reproductive freedom. It sickens me that reproductive freedom - what I choose to do with my own body - is still under attack.
On this topic, I also want to recommend a website to anyone who has teenagers (or, for that matter, anyone who has sex or sexual organs): Scarleteen is geared towards teens and young adults, but lemme tell you something - I learned things I didn't know. And I am a well-read lady. Craziness. The site also goes into gender issues and some incredibly informative consent education that would have been SO nice to have access to back in my day. Check out the site. Seriously.
From http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/p_sanger.html:
Margaret Sanger devoted her life to legalizing birth control and making it universally available for women. Born in 1879, Sanger came of age during the heyday of the Comstock Act, a federal statute that criminalized contraceptives. Margaret Sanger believed that the only way to change the law was to break it. Starting in the 1910s, Sanger actively challenged federal and state Comstock laws to bring birth control information and contraceptive devices to women. Her fervent ambition was to find the perfect contraceptive to relieve women from the horrible strain of repeated, unwanted pregnancies.
From http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847bx.htm:
In 1952, she founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation and served as its first president until 1959. Sanger died in Tucson, Arizona, aged 87 years, a few months after the 1965 Supreme Court decision, Griswold vs. Connecticut, that made birth control legal for married couples, the culmination of events Sanger had started 50 years earlier.
Margaret was a nurse whose mother died after 18 pregnancies. She saw the damage back alley abortions caused to women's bodies and lives. She went to jail and received horrible criticism to blaze the trail for generations of women to enjoy reproductive freedom. It sickens me that reproductive freedom - what I choose to do with my own body - is still under attack.
On this topic, I also want to recommend a website to anyone who has teenagers (or, for that matter, anyone who has sex or sexual organs): Scarleteen is geared towards teens and young adults, but lemme tell you something - I learned things I didn't know. And I am a well-read lady. Craziness. The site also goes into gender issues and some incredibly informative consent education that would have been SO nice to have access to back in my day. Check out the site. Seriously.