Margaret Sanger: Dumb People Shouldn’t be Parents
“propaganda that Margaret Sanger was only interested in birth control so that she could limit the black race….” Faye Wattleton, former President of Planned Parenthood
Even in the midst of controversy about what Margaret Sanger believed about eugenics and race, Planned Parenthood continues to support Sanger with no qualifiers. They even mention the “propaganda that Margaret Sanger was only interested in birth control so that she could limit the black race….” Yet they fail to answer these accusations, to evaluate their merits and shortcomings.
In the following six posts, I will evaluate the merit of Planned Parenthood’s insistence that charges of racism and ableism against Margaret Sanger is pro-life propaganda by examining Sanger’s writings. If you have questions, or want to get more context, Sanger’s The Pivot of Civilization is easily accessible on Project Gutenberg. I encourage you to check it out!
Margaret Higgins Sanger had ten siblings; Margaret’s mother died from her eighteen pregnancies.[1] This experience would set the tone for Margaret’s future career. Her work as a social worker and a nurse coupled with her mother’s experiences with pregnancies convinced her of the importance of birth control, and she became a loud, outspoken birth control advocate.[2] Her pamphlets, such as “Family Limitation,” “What Every Girl Should Know,” and “What Every Mother Should Know,” informed women of birth control information and sometimes landed her in jail for violating birth control information distribution laws such as the Comstock laws. She gave speeches, put together conferences, created clinics, and founded organizations in her efforts to change the way that society viewed birth control. In her efforts, she was a “successful revolutionary.”[3]
Eugenicists refer to people who do not deserve to have children or, worse, do not deserve to live as “unfit.” Margaret Sanger had her own definition “unfit,” which encompassed a wide number and a wide variety of people. Sanger kept records of “the nationality, heredity, religion, occupation, and trade union affiliation of patients at the clinic”; it is possible that she considered all of these factors to be important in determining whether an individual was fit or not.[4] Sanger’s definition for “unfit” included racial, physical, and socioeconomic qualifications, but she focused primarily on the mentally unfit.[5] “We want, most of all, genius,” she said.[6]
Unintelligent
Throughout her book, The Pivot of Civilization, Margaret Sanger wrote that the “feeble-minded” should not have children or should be sterilized. She elaborated on the term feeble-minded on page 250, encompassing several kinds of mental problems in her definition. “Mental defect and feeble-mindedness,” she wrote, “are conceived essentially as retardation, arrest of development, differing in degree so that the victim is either an imbecile, feeble-minded or a moron, according to the relative point at which the mental development ceases.”[7] Almost anyone with a low level of intelligence or a mental handicap would fall under Sanger’s broad definition.
Sanger also understood her definition of feeble-minded, and consequently unfit, to be broadly constructed. Sanger wrote that about 10% of the U.S. population fell under her definition of “unfit.” She had a firm faith in science, and believed that it could determine who was mentally fit and who was not.[8] She cited the Mental Survey of the State of Oregon, which put 10% of Oregon’s population in the category of “feeble-minded.”[9] Sanger believed that this 10% standard not only applied to Oregon, but to the entire nation.[10] Her belief was founded on a compositional fallacy. But for Sanger, “men, women, and children who never should have been born” comprised 10% of the United States population.[11]
Race
As a eugenicist, Sanger even made eugenic distinctions based on race, though she often tried to avoid the issue.[12] She wrote of “racial mistakes.”[13] She expressed concern at the high birth rate of foreigners, just as she expressed concern at the high birth rate of the unfit and feeble-minded.[14] “Do these [foreign] elements give promise of a better stock?” she asked rhetorically.[15] She referred to Caucasian Americans as “pure white native stock.”[16] In the next sentence, she made the assumption that African Americans were at least partially responsible for the high rate of illiteracy in the South.[17] In a letter to Albert Lasker, she wrote, “I think it is magnificent that we are in on the ground floor, helping Negroes to control their birth rate.”
Poor
Orthodox eugenicists viewed the poor as inherently lacking in intelligence or character.[18] As an orthodox eugenicist, Margaret Sanger did, too. In her promotion of eugenics, she was willing to discriminate not simply by mental capacity, but by socioeconomic class. She equated the unskilled laborers with the unintelligent, which she had already labelled unfit.[19] In so doing, she added unskilled laborers to her classification of those individuals who should not have children.
Sick
Sanger’s understanding of the unfit included physical disease. In an interview with Mike Wallace, Margaret Sanger said that she believed that disease was a good reason for a couple to choose not to have children.[20] Her definition encompassed venereal, mental, and physical disease. “We must free our bodies from disease and predisposition to disease,” she wrote. “We must perfect these bodies and make them fine instruments of the mind and the spirit.”[21]
Ellen Chesler challenged many of these understandings in her book about Sanger, Woman of Valor. Chesler tried to argue that, because Sanger dismissed the idea of a cradle competition between the fit and the unfit, Sanger was not racist.[22] This argument is invalid for two reasons: the cradle competition was a competition between classes, not races; and Sanger fought against the cradle competition because she felt that preventing the unfit from having more children—through birth control, sterilization, and child labor laws—was more important than encouraging the wealthy to have more children. “The lack of balance between the birth-rate of the ‘unfit’ and ‘fit’...can never be rectified by a cradle competition between the two classes,” she wrote.[23] For Sanger, the issue of a cradle competition was not one of race, but of practicality. Sanger did not believe that encouraging the wealthy and intelligent to have more children than the poor and unintelligent was the most effective means of improving society. She instead advocated for the “elimination of the feeble-minded,” which she evidently felt was more practical and important than the proliferation of the upper classes.[24]
Chesler wrote that Margaret Sanger did not consider poverty in a eugenic light, and instead saw poverty as who had access to resources and who did not. Chesler wrote, “She framed poverty as a matter of differential access to resources, including birth control, not as the immutable consequence of low inherent ability or intelligence or character, which is the view that orthodox eugenics embraced.”[25] However, Sanger herself made a tight connection between the unintelligent and the poor. “Those of the lowest grade in intelligence are born of unskilled laborers,” she wrote.[26] Thus by suggesting that the poor are inherently unintelligent, Sanger admitted her orthodox eugenics. She did not simply adopt the modern trend; she wholeheartedly embraced eugenics.
Planned Parenthood now serves the very people Margaret Sanger considered to be “unfit,” limiting the number of children they have just as Margaret Sanger hoped to limit their families. They limit the families of the poor, the very families Sanger considered unintelligent. In their recent video, The History of 100 Years of Women’s Health Care At Planned Parenthood, the narrator says, “The organization remained committed to serving low income immigrant women.” It goes on: “Today, approximately 1 in 5 women in the U.S. visit Planned Parenthood, and ¾ of those women are low income.” The History of 100 Years of Women’s Health Care At Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood says that Margaret Sanger was not a racist because she opened up centers in African American communities. However, if she was seeking to limit the African American race, that is exactly what she would do. And that’s what Planned Parenthood does today: “79 percent of Planned Parenthood’s surgical abortion facilities are located within a two-mile radius, or walking distance of, a black or Hispanic neighborhood”[27] Margaret Sanger had a “Negro Project”; Planned Parenthood has “Planned Parenthood Black Community” (@PPBlackComm).
Margaret Sanger: "Unintelligent" People are a Drain on Society
Margaret Sanger’s writings are evidence of her clear support of the eugenic movement. “Our great problem is...to remodel the race so that it may equal the progress we now see making in the externals of life,” she wrote.[1] In a discussion of three of the most popular theories for improving society at the time, philanthropy, Marxian Socialism, and eugenics, Sanger concluded that eugenics would prove the most effective.[2] She defined eugenics as “the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either mentally or physically.”[3] By promoting eugenics, she sought to improve future generations by promoting birth control, encouraging government involvement in promoting eugenics, and even advocating for compulsory sterilization of unfit individuals. “The Next Step—Race Betterment,” she would say in her speeches and promotions.[4]
As
a eugenicist, Margaret Sanger incorporated eugenic jargon into her
writings and speeches. She used words such as “fit,” “unfit,”
“breeding,” and “feeble-minded” to discuss eugenics and eugenic ideals.
Sanger’s
complaint against the unfit was as broad as her definition for unfit.
She believed that the unfit harmed society in a myriad of ways. “All our
problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class,” she
wrote.[5] She
elaborated: “We do not object to feeble-mindedness simply because it
leads to immorality and criminality; nor can we approve of it when it
expresses itself in docility, submissiveness and obedience. We object
because both are burdens and dangers to the community.”[6] Thus
submissiveness and docility in unintelligent individuals were as
offensive to Sanger as criminality and immorality. According to Sanger,
the unintelligent harmed society simply by existing.
One
of Sanger’s eugenic complaints against the unfit was that they were a
financial drain on society. She raised concerns about tax dollars spent
on the mentally and physically unwell. In one article of The Birth Control Review were
the following words: “Every year millions of dollars are collected in
taxes and spent on the maintenance of the defective, the feeble-minded,
the insane, and the criminals.”[7] Sanger
praised the work of the Oregon State legislature when she quoted the
U.S. Surgeon General H. Cumming: “The work in Oregon constitutes the
first state-wide survey which even begins to disclose the enormous drain
on the state, caused by mental defects.”[8] By
stirring up concerns about taxpayer dollars, she hoped to encourage
eugenicists to do something about the issue of the mentally unwell.
Had
Sanger simply opposed the government support of unfit individuals, her
argument may simply have been a political one. However, she opposed the
private financial support of the “feeble-minded” as well. In her article
“Is Race Suicide Probable?” Sanger wrote of taxpayer dollars and
charity money that went towards the mentally sick. “We are spending,
billions, literally billions, keeping alive thousands who never, in all
human compassion, should have been brought into this world.”[9] To
her, this money was not money designated by the government and private
individuals to help others, but rather it was “overhead” expenses.[10] Thus, her argument was a eugenic argument, and not simply a discussion of where taxpayer dollars should go.
Sanger
believed that the mentally unwell were not only a financial drain on
the government and private charities, but also a threat to the
effectiveness of the American public school system. Sanger foresaw an
unintelligent, dull future for America, if it would not accept and
implement the principles of eugenics. She felt that school teachers and
schools were forced to make school easier for the unintelligent,
consequently holding back those individuals who had greater intellectual
capacity and could tackle more rigorous coursework. “The presence in
the public schools of the mentally defective children of men and women
who should never have been parents...is one of the chief reasons for
lower educational standards.”[11] These
lower educational standards prevented taxpayers from getting their
money’s worth out of the American public school system.[12] What
was more important to Sanger was that lower educational standards held
back the more intelligent students, and prevented the American
population from rushing on towards a brighter, more intelligent future. Margaret Sanger: Sex Among the “Defective and Diseased” is “Irresponsible Swarming and Spawning.”
This
is the third post in a six-post discussion of Margaret Sanger. In each
post, we will be examining common statements made in defense of her
legacy and determine if these correspond with her writings. Read the
previous post here.
_________________________
“Margaret
Sanger had an imagination that women truly could be liberated from
sexual oppression and enforced reproduction. She had a notion that in so
doing women could achieve the power of their humanity,” Faye Wattleton, former President of Planned Parenthood
As
a true eugenicist, Sanger believed that some lives were worth
sacrificing. She believed that, if the physically deformed were allowed
to reproduce, they would bring down the human race and prevent it from
achieving its potential. “Every single case of inherited defect, every
malformed child, every congenitally tainted human being brought into
this world is of infinite importance to that poor individual,” she
wrote, implying that she understood that birth defects made life
difficult and that she had compassion on those who suffered from them.
But with the rest of the sentence, she sacrificed compassion on the
altar of the eugenic development of the human race: “but it is of
scarcely less importance to the rest of us and to all of our children
who must pay in one way or another for these biological and racial
mistakes.”[1] To her, a child struggling with a birth defect was not a child in need of aid, but a threat to get rid of.
Margaret
Sanger even placed a low dollar value on the value of a human life. She
calculated that, in New York, about thirty-four million dollars were
being channeled through the government and private charities to the poor and mentally challenged, about sixty-five thousand people.[2]
She lamented that so much money went to so few individuals. “Our eyes
should be opened to the terrific cost to the community of this dead
weight of human waste,” she wrote.[3] The cost per person, however, was only five hundred twenty-three dollars. To Sanger, human life was not even worth that much.
Sanger
also believed that some lives were not worth living. She wrote, “In
truth, unfortunate babies who depart during their first twelve months
are more fortunate in many respects than those who survive to undergo
punishment for their parents’ cruel ignorance and complacent fecundity.”[4]
To her, some individuals did not deserve to live. One Birth Control
Review article, edited by Sanger, was titled “Unprofitable Children: Are
These Bodies Fit Temples for Immortal Souls?”[5]
She even believed that some seemingly worthless lives should be ended,
and not merely prevented. In her article “Is Race Suicide Probable?” she
quoted Luther Burbank: “All over the country today we have enormous
insane asylums where we nourish the unfit and criminal instead of
exterminating them.”[6]
Instead of criticizing Burbank for his harsh views, she praised him.
“American civilization is deeply indebted [to Burbank],” she wrote.[7]
She
compared the physically unfit to low-life animals and suggested that
they were somehow in a different classification than other human beings.
In the middle of a discussion about hereditary and physical
qualifications for parenthood, Sanger wrote of individuals
“reproduc[ing] their kind.”[8] In a different section of The Pivot of Civilization, she again referred to the unfit “propagating their kind.”[9]
By using the word “kind,” Sanger suggested that some people were
somehow less human than other people. The use of the word implies
Genesis 1:25: “God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the
livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move
along the ground according to their kinds” (NIV). By using the word
“kind,” Sanger implied that the poor and unintelligent belonged to a
different classification or even a different species. To her, the unfit
were somehow less human. Those born to delinquent parents had “no chance
in the world to be a human being.” [10]
She
compared the lives of some people to those of animals typically
regarded as disgusting or unwanted. To her, different races were
synonymous with different “strains,” just as one might discover new
strains of bacteria.[11] To her, they were not fully human, but only “human material.”[12]
In one instance, she compared poor women to rats: “The women slink in and out of their homes like rats from holes,” she wrote.[13] She compared the sexual relations of poor people with the reproduction of snails, frogs, and other slimy creatures.[14] To her, sex among the “defective and diseased” was no more than “reckless and irresponsible swarming and spawning.”[15] If people were lowly animals, eugenics was “the rational breeding of human beings,” as Sanger quoted Galton.[16]
In her writings, she continued to use the word “breeding” to refer to
the reproduction of human beings which she felt were somehow less human
or less than human.[17]
Margaret Sanger did not view all human life as sacred, but instead
viewed some lives as valuable and others as worthless as that of a squid
or mollusk. Margaret Sanger: Birth Control a Eugenic Solution
Posted by
Alana Varley on Jan 2, 2018 6:21:00 AM
This
is the fourth post in a six-post discussion of Margaret Sanger. In each
post, we will be examining common statements made in defense of her
legacy and determine if these correspond with her writings. Read last
week's post here.
_________________________
“Through her persistence and grit and getting arrested again and again, she changed society’s view about birth control—made it, not just respectable, but a necessary part of the social and familial fabric of this country.” Alex Sanger, Grandson of Margaret Margaret Sanger offered up birth control as a means of advancing eugenics. “[E]ugenics without birth control seemed to me to be a house built upon the sands,” she wrote.[1] She adopted the flowery language of other eugenicists to describe how birth control would help the eugenic movement: “[Birth Control] awakens the vision of mankind moving and changing, of humanity growing and developing, coming to fruition, of a race creative, flowering into beautiful expression through talent and genius.”[2]
Thus she wove eugenic propaganda into her birth control propaganda in an attempt to encourage eugenicists to join her cause. In less flowery prose, Sanger described directly and succinctly the theoretical impact of birth control on the eugenics movement: “Birth control...is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, or preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.”[3] Her determination to combine the two movements was not only theoretical, but practical. In her efforts, she put together what she called a “scientific population conference,” or a conference on eugenics, in Geneva.[4]
Sanger’s
attempt to combine the birth control movement with the eugenics
movement achieved some small successes. When she began to promote
eugenics, “former critics came to accept birth control as a weapon in
the fight against the high birthrates of the ‘deficient.’”[5]
Some eugenicists believed, as Sanger did, that birth control could help
lower birthrates among the unfit. “Birth control can be and should be
made a potent adjunct to eugenics, however far from being so it may be
now,” wrote Samuel J. Holmes in his review of Sanger’s “The Pivot of
Civilization.”[6] Other eugenicists suggested that Sanger combine The Birth Control Review with a journal on eugenics.[7]
Even
outsiders saw eugenics and birth control as working towards similar
goals. The following appeared in the Coast Artillery Journal: “Mrs.
Sanger is wholly convinced as to the urgent need of Birth Control,
especially as to its greater promise than the program of the eugenists
for the improvement of the race.”[8]
The author suggested that birth control may prove even more effective
than eugenic theories in making the human race stronger and healthier.
Although
many eugenicists were convinced to support Sanger’s birth control
movement, ultimately, the combination of the eugenics movement and the
birth control movement was not successful.[9]
The combination of the two movements faced roadblocks: for example, Sir
Bernard Mallet disallowed the mention of birth control at the eugenic
conference Sanger herself had put together.[10] Sanger’s own understanding of the best eugenic practices alienated fellow eugenicists.
Sanger
wrote that “Any social progress...must purge itself of sentimentalism
and pass through the crucible of science. We are willing to submit Birth
Control to this test.”[11]
In the realm of sentimentalism, Margaret Sanger proved that she could
successfully weave eugenics and birth control together. Submitted to the
crucible of science, however, birth control failed the test. Many
scholars doubted that unfit mothers would adopt a eugenic worldview and
limit their families themselves through birth control.[12] They were right: the poor did not stop having children, even when given access to birth control and birth control information.[13] Thus, birth control did not successfully limit the reproduction of the "unfit" as Sanger hoped it would. Evidence that birth control was unsuccessful as a eugenic tool caused some eugenicists to abandon Sanger’s birth control movement, thus depriving Sanger of some of the followers she had fought for.[14] Sanger herself acknowledged her defeat: “For it is always the least desirable parents who are the last to curtail their fecundity,” she wrote.[15] In a more snarky passage, she wrote, “The very word ‘proletarian,’ as Hardy points out, means ‘producer of children.’”[16] It was the middle class, and not the lower class, that used birth control the most.
If you have questions, or want to get more context, Sanger’s The Pivot of Civilization is easily accessible on Project Gutenberg. Whether you agree with my analysis or not, I encourage you to check it out
[1]Margaret Sanger, Margaret Sanger (New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Inc), 374. Accessed January 26, 2017 from https://lifedynamics.com/library/#birth-control-review.
[2]Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, 184-185.
[3]Kennedy, 115.
[4]Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control, 285.
[5]Jean Baker, Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011), 222.
[6]Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, 170.
[7]Baker, 222.
[8]Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, 177.
[9]Kennedy, 75.
[10]Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control, 285.
[11]Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, 187.
[12]Chesler, 475.
[13]Kennedy, 124.
[14]Kennedy, 120.
[15]Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization, 174.
[16]Sanger, Woman and the New Race, 141.
et Sanger (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 112.
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