Margaret Sanger Box Set

Woman and the New Race & The Morality of Birth Control

By: Margaret Sanger

Narrated by: Museum Audiobooks cast

Margaret Higgins Sanger (1879-1966) was a nurse, birth control activist, and writer. In Woman and the New Race (1920) Sanger advocates contraception to prevent overpopulation and promotes the practice of eugenics in order to limit population growth among "defectives", as she refers to certain people groups. Sanger delivered the speech, "The Morality of Birth Control" on November 18, 1921, at the first American Birth Control Conference in New York City. She addresses the moral arguments against birth control, calling for the church and the state to trust women’s decisions about whether or not they wished to become pregnant. She also discusses other methods of birth control, including population control and management.

Public Domain (P)2020 Museum Audiobooks

Controversy about Sangers theory

Margaret Sanger makes some very valid points about an individual’s rights to control their number of offspring and why this is important for an individual and society at large. The controversy comes in when she discusses who she feels should procreate. She has some very abilist, racist, and classist views on procreation. So aspects of her theory need to be seriously scrutinized.

A horrible set of books!

Although her stated goal is a better life for women and a better world, we see great evil in her writing. It’s not that all her ideas are wrong. It’s rather more like some good ideas and concepts mixed with poison. Government control, Marxism, eugenics, fascist all have their roots here. On the surface the all claim to improve everyone’s life, but they do it by eliminating life they see as unworthy.