Margaret Sanger Early Feminist: Birth Control Creator

Margaret Sanger's pathway to becoming an agent of change was through her protests, writings and the way she spoke out. Sanger has left with us a legacy of being able to take a law and change it if we feel like it is unjust. She also left us with the legacy of all the things she did for women like give us the basic rights to do what we want with our bodies. The purpose of this paper is to show people a woman who is not known enough for her work and also how she impacted society back then and how she also impacted our future forever. Through this paper, I will show the ways that her work has shaped our society today and why it is important. Margaret Sanger was an important figure in fighting for what she believed in when she was told not to and she even got in trouble for it fighting for what she thought was right. She was an important figure in fighting for women's rights and also fighting for women to chose whether they wanted to have a baby or not through birth control.

Margaret Sanger was born in Corning, New York on September 14, 1879. She was an early feminist and a women's rights activist. She was also the women who coined the idea of Birth Control. The thing that I think motivated her the most was what happen with her mother. Her mother gave birth to 11 kids and had many miscarriages due to not having the right medicine to prevent Sanger's mother from not having kids, and as a result to that was dying at an early age. As the narrator of BIOGRAPHY ON MARGARET SANGER states she was one of 11 children born into a Roman Catholic working-class Irish-American family. Her mother, Anne, had several miscarriages, and Margaret believed that all of these pregnancies took a toll on her mother's health and contributed to her early death (Margaret Sanger Biography 2018). In the video Margaret Sanger- Feminist mini bio the narrator said "" Margaret was born into a big Catholic family with 11 other siblings"" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ndQXLx3pdA). Margret was passionate about women having equal rights. Sanger was also passionate about women having the right to be able to do what they want with their body even if that means not having a child. This was important to Sanger after she became a nurse in New York and she saw all the young women that underwent back alley abortions and that may have even done it themselves just because there wasn't something to keep them from getting pregnant and there was no one to help them. The narrator in BIOGRAPHY ON MARGARET SANGER states Through her work, Sanger treated a number of women who had undergone back-alley abortions or tried to self-terminate their pregnancies. I think that Sanger's first major encounter or a turning point with this was again when she became a nurse and she saw all the girls undergoing back alley abortions or self-terminating the pregnancy. I also think a major turning point for Margret was when she became a nurse because she saw a lot of things and a lot of cases where girls came in and didn't want the babies. The narrator of MARGARET SANGER BIO says After a brief teaching career, she practiced nursing on the lower east side of New York City, where she witnessed the relationship between poverty, uncontrollable fertility, high rate of infants and maternal mortality and deaths from illegal abortions. These observations made Sanger a feminist who believed in every women's rights to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and she devoted herself to removing the legal barriers to publicizing the facts about contraception (N/A 2018) the narrator of MARGARET SANGER BIO says in 1912 Sanger gave up nursing to devote herself to the cause of birth control and sex education (N/A 2018). And this quote just goes to show that the things that she says were so strong that they made her quit her job as a nurse to teach the importance of trying to be safe when having sex.

Margaret had some obstacles in life she had a lot of struggles. I think the major struggle that she was was the Comstock law. The Comstock law was the law where you could not even talk about any contraceptives. Another struggle that I think Sanger had was she had this idea to create this pill to help some women from not becoming pregnant and a lot of people were against it especially men. Another struggle that she had was that she was a woman, an as a woman you could not do anything without consulting with you husband and back then women don't really have any rights. When Sanger ran into these struggle with the law and other things she always said: the best way to change the law is to break the law (Sanger N/A). with this, she also wrote about these things even when she was not supposed to. Sanger also leads protests to try to help the cause. In the video Margaret Sanger- Feminist mini bio the narrator said: Sanger started the women's rebel movement (N/A 2016).

Margaret Sanger's pathway for becoming an agent for change went in a lot of directions I think. I think that the first path she took for becoming an agent for change was challenging the law that all women need the right to do what they want with their body. She challenged them in the ways of protesting and talking about it even when she wasn't supposed to because she could go to prison Sanger also thought about it in ways that others didn't she thought of plans and ways to help the poor girls that underwent back alley abortions or did a self-termination. I think that another pathway anger took was the one challenging the law and making an illegal pill that could help women not have kids if they didn't want to. I also think that the main way was creating a clinic where she could safely help women abort the children if they didn't want to help them anymore. This clinic later turned into plan parenthood. In the article plan parenthood it says planned parenthood, in full planned parenthood Federation of America, Inc, American organization that, since its founding in 1942 by Margaret Sanger ( N/A 2016). In the video, Margaret Sanger- Feminist mini bio the narrator says in 1960 the pill was created and in 1965 Sanger went to the supreme court to get it legalized (N/A 2016). What Margaret Sanger did is still affecting us today because she got the laws changed not can we only talk about contraceptives we also have the pill birth control. Sanger also helped us in creating a clinic that clinic is still up to this day and it is open to anyone the clinic is called planned parenthood.

With doing this project on Sanger I have learned a lot. I have learned how things in the past can affect us so much and how you can change a law with one idea and with a reason why it is wrong. I have also learned how hard it is to change a law. Sanger has taught me how important it is to stand up for what we believe in even if others think it is wrong because it could affect later generations. In my point of view, I think Margaret Sanger was one of the most important women in history she set the pathway for women to have safe sex and not have to worry about getting pregnant if they weren't ready. Sanger also helped women get the right to do what they want with their body.

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