Margaret Sanger and Eugenics Publishing Company
My Mom just gave me an original 1920 edition of the book, Woman and the New Race, by Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Mom found it in a box of books owned by my deceased great-uncle.
It was in this book Sanger wrote, “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it,” which has come to be one of the banes of pro-abort existence, forcing them to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to say now really, Sanger did not support eugenics.
At any rate, I was looking on ebay to see if the book was worth anything and discovered that while this first edition was published by Truth Publishing Company, the 1923 edition was published by Eugenics Publishing Company.
Oh, dear.
BTW, this photo of Sanger and her sons is included next to the title page. Don’t they all look happy?
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I wasn’t aware there even was a Eugenics Publishing Company. My goodness, I wonder what else they pushed through?
Wow…It looks like they also published such fine works as:
The Tyranny of God (1921)
The Bible Unmasked (1926)
The Bible and the Public Schools (1931)
Should Children Receive Religious Instruction? (1933)
An Atheist Manifesto (1954)
It seems that Joseph Lewis founded the house as well as the “Freethinkers of America” an athiest group.
I think I’ll take our founder/leaders over the rampant pedophilia among religious leaders. It’s no wonder they opose abortion.
Yes, pedophiliacs oppose abortion because it covers up the evidence of their crime, you’re absolutely right, Cameron.
Sanger; fond of eugenics (as was Adolf Hilter), idolized by radical feminists.
def: eugenics
the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).
Lauren,
are you pregnant? I took a peek at your blog.
Congratulations!
Haha, yes Jasper. Thank you :)
Oh Jasper, you are absolutely right. Radical feminists = Hitler.
Indeed.
Here’s one for irony: Try to obtain a copy of Sanger’s autobiography. When she opened her first birth control clinic she posted a sign on the door that said abortion kills a baby. I can’t remember exact wording, it’s been 4 years since I’ve read it, but here’s the founder of Planned Parenthood declaring the truth, yet PP will not.
Lauren!!!
Congrats!!!
Carder –
In her autobiography she states:
“To each group we explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way
oh –
AND she said in a 1916 edition of Family Limitations that contraception would be the “cure” for abortion.
PP has forgotten their own beginnings.
Jasper, at least put her into historical context. Eugenics was a part of everyday life at that point. Perfect baby contests being crowd drawing events. Most Americans thought Hitler had the right idea for awhile, and wanted neutrality until the Japanese attacked pearl harbor. the average american didnt want to touch worl war 2 with a mile long pole until that attack. They prefferred their nation that pushed forced sterilization, eugenics, and the aforementioned perfect baby contests.
She was NOWHERE near alone. Most of the U.S. was on her side.
If you’re going to call her a eugenics supporter, at least mention that essentially the whole COUNTRY supported eugenics at the time.
and ive said before, Sanger didnt really support abortion, for her it was a last resort, as it is for most (there are exceptions, apparently Heather lives in a town full of ’em for some reason) women
Congrats, Lauren. :D
Thinking about names, yet? :)
Dan:She was NOWHERE near alone. Most of the U.S. was on her side.
If you’re going to call her a eugenics supporter, at least mention that essentially the whole COUNTRY supported eugenics at the time.
No Dan, she was initially was fiercly opposed. Then with clever lawyers and liberals courts pushed her agenda through.
Eugenics wasnt opposed, birth control was, big difference between the two.
Ive got plenty of documents here from my AP US History class that say otherwise. as I said, eugenics was heavily favored before and during WW2 and tapered off after that point. Sanger was nowhere near alone, the whole country LOVED the idea. blatant racism lasted through the 60s, and still survives in some areas today.
Ok Dan, I agree it had to do with racism and some people were for it. But that didn’t make it right.
Boy, I don’t know who’s teaching your history class (a liberal I suppose). (the whole country was for her?)
The catholic church was totally against her.
I never said it did, but there is a historical context being completely ignored. she was a leader of a controversial movement who happened to agree with eugenics like a majority of the country at the time. to attack her for simply being a mostly average person for the time period is ridiculous.
(bear with me, this is going to be a bad analogy, but its the only thing i could think of off the top of my head that most liberals and conservatives agree on) just like what we view as right today as a majority of the country believes that marriage as a federal contract should eist. Maybe years from now marriage as a contract will be done away with and a different system will be used, and we’ll all be seen as bad people for trying to, oh, I dont know, restrict options, or are fools for thinking some one could only love one person, or for thinking that marriage was even a good idea in the first place because of what can happen if people arent as compatable as they think they are.
and then years later an old president is ridiculed for supporting the institution of marriage. Does that make sense in the context of the time the president lived in? not really
Its all dependent on historical context, it cant simply be ignored.
jasper, i believe i said most or a majority, if i said all that was my mistake.
Who loves abortion? Answer: Pedophiles, perpetrators, cowardly men, and irresponsible women!
heather, unless i missed something that has nothing to do with Sanger or her book.
Not to mention all the stuff you said could pretty much all be taken out in an argument.
First: pedophiles, dont know how that works, most of the victims are prepubescent and unable to get pregnant
cowardly men: no, not really. I think the cowards are the one who take off after getting a gril pregnant, then again, the definition of cowardice can be fairly subjective.
irresponsible women: that has been addressed so many times that i just dont have it in me anymore
I felt like saying it.
Dan, I clicked on your name one evening, and it took me to a pro choice site. I found it very odd that you ask for donations!!
well heather im pro choice, so it makes sense.
and the donations go to the person who assisted in setting up the website and paid for the domain name.
everything else goes to planned parenthood.
Alyssa-
Well if we have a girl we’ll probably name her Vera. Boy names are up for grabs!
As for Margaret Sanger’s racism: It doesn’t excuse rasim by saying “well everyone else is too!”.
Dan –
“Eugenics was a part of everyday life at that point.”
“Most of the U.S. was on her side”
“at least mention that essentially the whole COUNTRY supported eugenics at the time.”
“Eugenics wasnt opposed”
“eugenics was heavily favored before and during WW2 and tapered off after that point. Sanger was nowhere near alone, the whole country LOVED the idea.”
“she was a leader of a controversial movement who happened to agree with eugenics like a majority of the country at the time. ”
I think I need to see some sort of evidence of this. I have done research on the feminst movement and she was the only nationally recognized feminist that I can think of that was “really” into eugenics. She even wrote in Woman Citizen, Vol. 8, February 23, 1924, pages 17-18 a list of 9 points as to who should have kids and who shouldn’t and why.
What I have read is that there was a ‘movement’ that agreed that the poor shouldn’t keep having so many kids. And that this was the extent of the “whole” nation agreeing with eugentics. I haven’t read anything about the ‘entire’ nation agreeing with Sanger and wanting to eliminate “defective and handicapped babies unable to find a useful or happy place in life.” She referred to a child as a “little waif” and that the working class should only be allowed to have 2 children, any more than that these working class couldn’t “live in decent fashion”.
The entire nation believed this? I have a hard time believing that.
valerie, i dont have time to quote the selections i want to from my main source, luckily i found it online “>http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2003/1/2003_1_34.shtml”> here
feel free to peruse (sp?) at your leisure
wow, i musta typed my html tags wrong
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2003/1/2003_1_34.shtml
So, a lot of people, lets say a majority, believed in eugenics. That makes it okay, or even a justification: that she was just one of many. By this logic, Jim Crow was acceptable because the majority favored it, Nazi Germany’s genocide plan was okay because the majority favored it, slavery was okay because the world majority favored it. . . The number of people who are in agreement doesn’t give something moral legitimacy. The fact that something in and of its self is moral gives it moral legitimacy. Killing innocent life, preborn or postborn, for conveneince or to improve society is morally wrong. Period.
no, i never said that. i simply said you cant bash her alone for that because of the historical times. Thats like bashing on the whole us gov because its founders were slave owners.
That’s my point!!!! Even though the founding fathers had unique and grand ideas about individual freedom, they still have a huge blemish because that didn’t realize those rights extended to everyone, and worse they held some humans as subhuman. Their context doesn’t excuse thier behavior.
Never said it excused it, but if you put them in context they were amazing people for their times. revolutionary in fact! (sorry, history lover, couldnt resist the pun)
pointing at her ideas on eugenics is to try and put her in a bad light, when in reality a majority of america could be put in a bad light, including, as you read, the supreme court.
context doesnt excuse it, but it certainly explains it and makes it more understandable.
oh, and by the way, there was an attempt to put something about slavery being “forced” on the colonies in the Dec. of Ind., but they had to take it out so that Rutledge would sign, just an interesting fun fact
Dan –
first – I did know all that. I forgot it. Thanks for reminding me.
second – that doesn’t prove the “whole country supported it” or that most of the US was on the side of eugenics.
Look at what is happening today. We essentially have abortion that is legal, by the courts, just as forced sterilization was legal by the courts. But the VAST majority of Americans, including many on this blog, believe that abortion after 12 weeks is wrong. Yet, someone can get an abortion at any time of pregnancy and it is protected by the courts. Tiller aborted a baby at 34 weeks. So, the courts are supporting one aspect of abortion that the VAST majority of americans do not agree with. However, if you read newspapers events and read popular culture you would never know that the majority of american do not believe abortion should be performed after 12 weeks.
Hopefully that makes sense.
Also, Sanger went above and beyond the “feebleminded” forced sterilization or interracial couples being banned. She made a list of people who can and can’t have kids. Some based on intelligence but other based on the age of when you got married. How long it had been since the wife had worked. How long after marriage you needed to wait before having kids. She went above and beyond what was considered “accepted” by society.
Here is the list from Woman Citizen, Vol. 8,
February 23, 1924
First — Children should not be born when either parent has an inheritable disease, such as insanity, feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, or syphilis.
Second — When the mother is suffering from tuberculosis, kidney disease, heart disease, or pelvic deformity.
Third — When either parent has gonorrhea. This disease in the mother is the cause of 90 percent of blindness in newborn babies.
Fourth — When children already born are not normal, even though both parents are in good physical and mental condition.
Fifth — Not until the woman is twenty-three years old and the man twenty-five.
Sixth — Not until the previous baby is at least three years old. This gives a year to recover from the physical ordeal of the birth of the baby, a year to rest, be normal and enjoy her motherhood, and another year to prepare for the coming of the next…..
Seventh — Children should not be born to parents whose economic circumstances do not guarantee enough to provide the children with the necessities of life….
Eighth — A woman should not bear children when exhausted from labor. This especially applies to women who marry after spending several years in industrial or commercial life. Conception should not take place until she is in good health and has overcome her fatigue.
Ninth — Not for two years after marriage should a couple undertake the great responsibility of becoming parents.
What is the most amusing aspect of this list is the very lack of ‘choice’ that would be given to a couple. A perfectly normal, nothing society at the time would deam wrong, couple. This is where she went above the ‘eugenics’ horrors.
Now, I do have to say that reading the article does prove the “history repeats itself” idea. Look at what is happening today. It is not forced, but it is highly suggested that someone consider abortion if their child (or previous living child) has Down’s syndrom, spinabifida, or any other number of problems that are not fatal but can be detected during pregnancy. It was suggested to me many, many, many times that I should consider aborting my 5th pregnancy (now my daughter). With having a preemie and 3 miscarriages and the doctors saying there could be a genetic problem going on; even nurse advised me to do this. My daughter is as healthy as they come and has an attitude that is bigger than my house!
Anyway – I don’t see anywhere in that article where it says “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” Notice the lack of “feebleminded family member” etc… This is a different type of eugenics. This is babaric.
1-4 and i think 7 are all included in that passage i gave you, so she wasnt all that extreme, most hated her for her views on birth control, which was still illegal in most places, they didnt really care about those portions of her views, as im guessing she rarely vocalized them. Most of her views were simply the typical mainstream eugenics, most likely to gain some support, and her obvious push for legal contraception.
and valerie, do you have a source for that quote? Ive seen it thrown around a few times and i want to know where it came from
“Look at what is happening today. We essentially have abortion that is legal, by the courts, just as forced sterilization was legal by the courts. But the VAST majority of Americans, including many on this blog, believe that abortion after 12 weeks is wrong.”
yet many of them will also say it is not up to them what other people choose.
“Yet, someone can get an abortion at any time of pregnancy and it is protected by the courts.”
well thatd be the premise of Roe V wade ;) (sorry, thought id try to lighten it up, dunno if it worked or not though)
“Tiller aborted a baby at 34 weeks.”
one man, one abortion.
“So, the courts are supporting one aspect of abortion that the VAST majority of americans do not agree with.”
that depends on how far in detail and what the circumstances are. many would rather have the lanes at least partway open rather than risk women dying/seriously injured from birth defects/personal and mental health issues
“However, if you read newspapers events and read popular culture you would never know that the majority of american do not believe abortion should be performed after 12 weeks.”
once again, you cant do general views on abortion, many people believe in a bunch of various specifics and exceptions. youd be surprised.
*that whole bit about details is just from my personal experience with the issue*
Dan –
“and valerie, do you have a source for that quote? Ive seen it thrown around a few times and i want to know where it came from”
umm.. I gave the source of my information twice, but I guess the 3rd time is a charm: Woman Citizen, Vol. 8, February 23, 1924, pages 17-18
DAN! HELLO!
I was using the abortion thing as an example and comparing that to how people ACTUALLY viewed eugentics back then. It wasn’t heavily supported. Just because the courts went bonkers isn’t proof that this is what EVERYONE wanted. As the same with abortion. The courts have gone bonkers (ya know I had to do it, right?) and not everyone agrees with the court. That is all I was trying to say.
GEESH!
oh wait… or should I say PHOOEY!
naaa.. I think I think GEESH better.
I’ve never seen a picture of M. Sanger before. What a miserable looking sap.
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)
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)
http://www.bartleby.com/1013/5.html
Many, perhaps, will think it idle to go farther in demonstrating the immorality of large families, but since there is still an abundance of proof at hand, it may be offered for the sake of those who find difficulty in adjusting old-fashioned ideas to the facts. The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it. The same factors which create the terrible infant mortality rate, and which swell the death rate of children between the ages of one and five, operate even more extensively to lower the health rate of the surviving members. Moreover, the overcrowded homes of large families reared in poverty further contribute to this condition. Lack of medical attention is still another factor, so that the child who must struggle for health in competition with other members of a closely packed family has still great difficulties to meet after its poor constitution and malnutrition have been accounted for.
Here’s a bunch more for you, Heather:
Click here
Oh Bethany, I’d venture to say that she was never allowed to smile, or she simply didn’t know how. Every picture looks the same! Those poor children of hers.
PS Thanks for the pics of the miserable looking sap.
I know..they do look pretty miserable, don’t they?
Just imagine her kids trampled feelings of self worth….
UUGGHH,They had to feel worthless.
From your link, MK (a somewhat shocking read):
“There are in America hundreds of thousands of women, in good health when they married, who have within a few years become physical wrecks, incapable of mothering their children, incapable of enjoying life.”
Trying to find something not utterly offensive in the piece, that at least reminded me of Bill Cosby’s notes on the effect children can have on parents.
But Sanger’s use of “incapable” is strident nonsense.
Geez she must’ve been a witch.
Eugenics was the popular mindset then.
You probably would have been a eugenicist too. Get over it.
Ilana –
What Sanger was involved in and promoted was more than what was acceptable back then.
Please see my above posts. She wanted all reproductive “rights” to be approved by her and her federation (now PP). She didn’t think anyone could decide for themselves when or why to have children.
That is WAAAAAYYYYY more than the eugenics thought process of that time!
I think I’ll take our founder/leaders over the rampant pedophilia among religious leaders. It’s no wonder they opose [sic] abortion.
You misspelled “homosexual ephebophilia”, Cameron.