Rhetorical Strategies Used in The Morality of Birth Control Speech by Margaret Sanger

Margaret Sanger, a New York and an active feminist, led the fight for contraceptives, which are methods or devices to prevent pregnancy. Sanger, whose mother at a young age because she had birthed eleven children, helped shape her into a very individualistic and assertive woman. She was a part of the Socialist party, while studying to be a nurse, and starting a family of her own. In 1912, she began to work in the slums with the poor immigrant women who lived there. Her experience in the slums with these women, helped shaped her strong opinion on why women should be in control of childbearing. This was not the only thing that shaped it, but helped further her outlook after she was a witness to her own mother’s death. Her final call to action though was the ghastly stories of self-induced abortions and the tales of more than horrific pregnancies.

Margret Sanger emphasized to America on the need for birth control and how it could help America. Having birth control would save many of woman from unorthodox methods of abortions. Having birth control would save people from the burden of bringing a child into a life that they couldn’t afford to raise. Although her thought challenged many views of American standard Margaret Sanger helped change and save many

Margaret Sanger’s obsession with population control by the use of birth control can be linked back to her own home and family. Sanger was one of the eleven children in her home that grew up in poverty. Sanger often associated wealth with families containing fewer children and poverty and aggression with larger families. Sanger was exposed to the difficulties of pregnancy early on in life, as she was aware of her mother’s seven miscarriages. After seeing her family and mother struggle with un-wanted pregnancies and miscarriages Sanger began to believe that these issues may have caused the death of her mother. In the 1910’s-1920’s Sanger prepared to fight to have the Comstock Law amended or abolished,

Growing up as a young woman today in a world where sex sells, would be unimaginable without the creation and use of birth control. Birth control not only gives women rights as to whether or not they want to bear children but it also helps women with menstrual cycles. Women at one point had no contraception or information on birth control. Imagine the world today without knowledge on contraception. Imagine how middle to lower class citizens would survive. Most of the children would be lucky to be fed yet alone college educated. This is all because one woman, Margaret Sanger, devoted her life to this cause. This research paper will address who Margaret Sanger was, why birth control meant so much to her and how she devoted her life to its cause and creation.

Women all around the world have been battling with being equal in society. From the start their rights in the workplace were thought unfit. Then establishing rights over their choices and bodies were taken into account. Not having children in society during that time was considered unheard of or wrong. The thought of stopping pregnancy, which everyone considered a customary act, should never happen. Birth control is a choice that women should not have to part from just because somebody deems it necessary. Women have the right to choose their own path in regards to marriage, children, and birth control. They need a voice when everyone is trying to silence them and Margaret Sanger was that voice.

Throughout the course of this dissertation it has been incredibly fascinating to evaluate how the notion of birth control has evolved throughout the history of feminism; sparked by the scientific ingenuity of Margaret Sanger. Through the analysis of the wave’s metaphor it is remarkable how the distribution of contraception pamphlets in 1920 can provide a strong undercurrent able to peak in the midst of the sexual revolution in the 1960’s. Sanger reinvented the act of sex from a means of reproduction to a pleasurable burden free experience where women are able for the first time to be sexually liberated from their own bodies. It is this re-invention of a public belief on a private matter which is so applicable to the re-peaking of the contraceptive

Margaret Sanger is a birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger gave a famous speech on March 30th, 1925 titled “The Children’s Era” which is part of the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference. It took place at a public meeting in Scottish Rite Hall in New York. She believes that the twentieth century should be the era of the child where the current generation should welcome children into a healthy and happy world. She believes that parents should be educated through a series of tests to help them understand and realise what it is like to be a parent and what all it takes. I believe this is a good speech because Sanger convy’s her readers by the use of repetition, the use of an analogy, her use of facts, and credibility to other sources.

The purpose of Margaret Sanger speech is to inform the people about the policy of birth control. She wants the public to know that birth control is moral and to know the risk of pregnancy. Sanger also wanted to let the women know that all women have the same control over their lives. On page 38 it states that, “The reckless abandonment of the impulse of the moment and the careless regard for the consequence is not morality. The selfish gratification of temporary desire at the expense of suffering to lives that will come may seem very beautiful to some, but it is not our conception of civilization, or is it our concept of morality.”

Many local and state authorities opposed the clinic and limited their ability to share information regarding birth control. The clinic was not allowed to give out any information regarding the prevention of pregnancy and the use of contraceptives. Physicians were only allowed to give advice on the prevention of viral diseases. Sanger refused to remain silent and continued to pass out “handbills” advertising her clinic and sharing her knowledge by starting, “Mothers! Can you afford to have a large family? Do you want any more children? If not, why do you have them? Do not kill, do not take life, but prevent.” Her argument consisted of the notion of prevention over abortion by the use of contraceptives, although the prevention of pregnancy and birth control were illegal at the time. Margaret Sanger voice was a vital component to the revolution of the birth control movement by being the first women to publicly address the importance of contraceptives to women

Birth control has always been somewhat of a taboo subject. Even though it has come a long way from when it was first introduced many are still against the idea of it. Margaret Sanger devoted her life to legalize birth control and to make it universally available for all women today. I chose her for my paper because I strongly believe that birth control should be available to all women and that women should have the right to be able to control if they will produce children or not. Sangers fight for birth control started when she was 19 and didn’t end till she was 81. She devoted her life to seeing it legalized and was extremely passionate about women being able to have it available to them in order for them to have a safer and healthier life.

First to promote the Birth Control movement was radical political activist, Margaret Sanger. At nineteen years old, Margaret watched her mother of only fifty years old die from tuberculosis. Out of anger she immediately blamed her father for putting the strain of eleven childbirths and seven miscarriages on her mother (PBS). This would begin her career for helping women. Sanger

Through all the trials she experienced as a nurse, she wanted to take a stand and help women to give them a right to choose if they want a child or not. In order for her to get her idea across and help women, she needed to educate people. She believed that she had to get her point across on how birth control can impact lives and make it better because it will help bring the birth rate down and give women more freedom. Her journey to educate people involved a variety of strategies. She was writing books and newspaper, gave speeches, and traveled everywhere to make it popular and get people’s

Throughout history, women have been fighting for their rights. They fought for their right to speak publicly, their right to work, and their right to vote. Today, women have the rights to control their lives as they wish. However, as close as the early 1900’s, women still did not have the basic right to control their fertility. Working as a nurse, Margaret Sanger believed that women should maintain the right to protect themselves against unwanted pregnancies. Margaret Sanger is The Woman Rebel who, despite overwhelming opposition, pioneered the way for modern family planning and, more importantly, the female sexual revolution.

The birth control movement wasn’t always successful. While Sanger was doing her best to change the future for women, many people did not believe in her. Sanger had opened the very first birth control in the United States in 1916. Sanger and her sister were later arrested and sent to jail for 30 days for breaking the Comstock law. The Comstock law prohibited any knowledge of birth control to be spread, it was illegal but Sanger did everything in her power to teach women how to protect themselves. Sanger published an article called “The Woman Rebel” which promoted birth control by giving information about it and teaching them what they can do to prevent pregnancies.

Margaret Sanger was the individual who focused on making birth control legal, who dedicated her life to making birth control legal and went to prison for 30 days by opening the first family planning clinic in 1916. Birth control plays a major role in today’s society in preventing unwanted pregnancies that may arise from many instances. People should have the ability to choose whether or not one is ready to bring another life into the world and if they are able to support a child. Although Margaret Sanger started an up rise and risked her life to better others, we are still far from perfect. Our society has made drastic changes in bettering the choice of a womens reproductive choices and rights, but we are still seeing cases where individuals are denied a choice based on race, religion, and other factors. In the article Denied Treatment by Molly Ginty, the story of an individual who was going through a miscarriage was denied the medial care to complete the miscarriage due to the violation of the religion of the hospital, “but the nearest hospital had recently merged with a catholic hospital-and because my doctor could still detect a fetal heartbeat, he wasn’t allowed to give me a uterine evacuation that would help me complete my miscarriage” (Ginty, 2011), Margaret Sanger would be upset with cases like this because this individual was denied an abortion due to the religious beliefs of the hospital, even though the individual was already experiencing a miscarriage. In our