WSU professor discusses Margaret Sanger’s legacy

Dana Kudelka
WINONAN

  

 

 

 
 
Last Tuesday history professor Dr. Collette Hyman presented her research on one of the most controversial and premiere supporters of birth control: Margaret Sanger.
Hyman, who founded Winona State’s Women’s Studies program, gave the audience historical facts not personal opinions on Sanger during her presentation, titled, “Margaret Sanger and the Politics of Choice.”
As the sixth of eleven children born to a mother with tuberculosis, Sanger had to take on domestic duties at an early age while she watched her mother deal with her disease.
After learning about the health needs and concerns of the poor from nursing activist Lillian Wald, Sanger found her calling to make birth control accessible to all women.
According to Hyman, Sanger recognized the absence of effective health care and pre-natal care to pregnant women in poor urban areas.
A major issue for Sanger was preventing pregnancy in the first place, said Hyman.
But because of the Comstock Laws, which prevented the distribution of obscene or lewd material, getting information about pregnancy and health care out wasn’t easy for Sanger.
Hyman encouraged the audience to note the historical times in which Sanger lived.
Sanger discussed birth control with political activist Emma Goldman, and socialist presidential candidate from 1902-1920, Eugene Debs, said Hyman.
She was also tied with the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
But Sanger began losing support and had to rethink her strategy on making birth control accessible to all women, said Hyman.
“(Sanger) wanted to get methods of birth control into the hands of women who matted the most.”
In order to spread, Sanger th became involved with eugenics, which was historically b controversial because of its desire to strengthen the human race.
Sanger’s ideology of eugenics, according to Hyman, “caused distortion of her image today.”
While eugenics has been known as “heavily racist” and supporting the “white middle-class privilege,” Hyman noted that Sanger wanted to spread her message on preventing pregnancy and accessibility to birth control.