Margaret Sanger is generally known as a radical who began her fight to legalize birth control in 1914, she adopted a more conservative and professional approach in April 1929 with the establishment of the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control (NCFL). This study examines how the NCFL used communication objectives, strategies, and tactics to implement a widespread public relations campaign in order to make birth control legal as well as socially acceptable. Specifically, it focuses on how the NCFL used both internal and external media to articulate its identity to its various publics, including its ideological argument for legislative change, connected members of Congress to their constituents, and used the media to "go public" during a time of political and economic distress.
"The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race
(Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923)
On blacks, immigrants and indigents:
"...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born." Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people
On sterilization & racial purification:
Sanger believed that, for the purpose of racial "purification," couples should be rewarded who chose sterilization. Birth Control in America, The Career of Margaret Sanger, by David Kennedy, p. 117, quoting a 1923 Sanger speech.
On the right of married couples to bear children:
Couples should be required to submit applications to have a child, she wrote in her "Plan for Peace." Birth Control Review, April 1932
On the purpose of birth control:
The purpose in promoting birth control was "to create a race of thoroughbreds," she wrote in the Birth Control Review, Nov. 1921 (p. 2)
On the rights of the handicapped and mentally ill, and racial minorities:
"More children from the fit, less from the unfit -- that is the chief aim of birth control." Birth Control Review, May 1919, p. 12
On religious convictions regarding sex outside of marriage:
"This book aims to answer the needs expressed in thousands on thousands of letters to me in the solution of marriage problems... Knowledge of sex truths frankly and plainly presented cannot possibly injure healthy, normal, young minds. Concealment, suppression, futile attempts to veil the unveilable - these work injury, as they seldom succeed and only render those who indulge in them ridiculous. For myself, I have full confidence in the cleanliness, the open-mindedness, the promise of the younger generation." Margaret Sanger, Happiness in Marriage (Bretano's, New York, 1927)
On the extermination of blacks:
"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," she said, "if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, by Linda Gordon
On respecting the rights of the mentally ill:
In her "Plan for Peace," Sanger outlined her strategy for eradication of those she deemed "feebleminded." Among the steps included in her evil scheme were immigration restrictions; compulsory sterilization; segregation to a lifetime of farm work; etc. Birth Control Review, April 1932, p. 107
On adultery:
A woman's physical satisfaction was more important than any marriage vow, Sanger believed. Birth Control in America, p. 11
On marital sex:
"The marriage bed is the most degenerating influence in the social order," Sanger said. (p. 23) [Quite the opposite of God's view on the matter: "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." (Hebrews 13:4)
On abortion:
"Criminal' abortions arise from a perverted sex relationship under the stress of economic necessity, and their greatest frequency is among married women." The Woman Rebel - No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.
On the YMCA and YWCA:
"...brothels of the Spirit and morgues of Freedom!"), The Woman Rebel - No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.
On the Catholic Church's view of contraception:
"...enforce SUBJUGATION by TURNING WOMAN INTO A MERE INCUBATOR." The Woman Rebel - No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.
On motherhood:
"I cannot refrain from saying that women must come to recognize there is some function of womanhood other than being a child-bearing machine." What Every Girl Should Know, by Margaret Sanger (Max Maisel, Publisher, 1915) [Jesus said: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep... for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed (happy) are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the breasts which never gave suck." (Luke 23:24)]
http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm
