#SayVagina: Legislating Women’s Bodies, 1932

Tags

Abortion, birth control methods, documents, Politics

Our Facebook feed this week has been overflowing with jokes and outrage about the Michigan State Congress where Rep. Lisa Brown was banned from speaking on the floor after saying “vagina” in a debate over an abortion bill. Brown’s sound response: “It’s an anatomically correct term for woman’s anatomy. It actually exists in Michigan statutes in three different places. This bill was about abortion. That doesn’t happen without a vagina.” Unsurprisingly, male lawmakers’ discomfort about speaking openly about the very bodies they are attempting to regulate is not new. In 1932, Margaret Sanger went to Washington to lobby against a provision in the Comstock Law that categorized birth control information as obscene and punished those who distributed it, including health care professionals (seriously). Below are two passages from her papers that illustrate some of the all-to-familiar attitudes she encountered there.

Sanger lobbying Congress, 1932

American Woman’s Association Award Speech, April 20, 1932:
“We found that the great difficulty was misunderstanding. We further found that the great majority of these men were both badly informed and misinformed. Of course, we found that the younger men, some of the newer ones, knew something of the pros and cons of birth control. One could easily know that by the size of their own families. But when it came to asking for a law to allow others to have the same privileges that they had, the subject became a serious one that had to have their due consideration.”

Letter to Mary Hope Macaulay, May 21, 1932:
“But Mary dear their arguments grow weaker, they put up a very poor case this time never have we so thoroughly aroused the people as this year. Thousands wrote to Congressmen and oh Mary such letters!! Many of them classics. Just to arouse people to ask, to demand this right makes me feel the victory is near. And oh Mary you would love to see the look on the men’s faces… when I replied to pertinent questions & talked about “douches” — Their faces were scarlet! Poor darlings they wanted to escape but they had to sit & listen to what women endure. I read letter from Mothers & their old tired eyes were moist & I knew they understood & were moved.”

“Dear Madam, I Abhor You”: Hating on Margaret Sanger, Then and Now

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birth control, documents, letters, margaret sanger, Michael Steele, reproductive rights

Margaret Sanger has always been a controversial figure. Her radical feminism, associations with eugenicists, and passionate support of birth control riled many both in her lifetime and today. Currently women’s rights are under attack from segments of the American right who are attempting to discredit Margaret Sanger in order to attack the reproductive freedoms she helped establish. The most common approach is to recycle well-worn myths about Sanger, like Michael Steele’s recent claims that Sanger advocated black genocide, or supported the Nazis. (You can find the Sanger Papers’ analysis to these faulty claims here and here). Many haters also insist incorrectly that Sanger was an advocate of abortion. Here are some particularly juicy tweets we encountered while trying to encourage a more historically sound interpretation of Sanger’s legacy:

Bzzz, sorry @SangerPapers, Planned Parenthood was setup by an elitist bitch as a eugenics operation to murder Black & Jew babies@trutherbot

— Broken Sidewalk Farm (@BrknSdwlkFrm) June 8, 2012

Margaret Sanger’s eugenics beliefs intertwined her with Nazis who were influenced by her. She is truly Hitler’s Valkyrie

— ANNA RAND (@OBAMA_CZAR) June 6, 2012

Much of this vitriol stems from hatred and misunderstanding of Planned Parenthood’s abortion services. As the founder of Planned Parenthood, Sanger is an easy target for these partisans because she is no longer able to speak for herself. Yet Planned Parenthood did not offer abortions until Roe v. Wade in 1973, seven years after Sanger’s death. Although Sanger founded the organization, she had little to do with the practices that they so vehemently contest. They are manipulating the legacy of Sanger to fight contemporary battles and disregarding context and historical accuracy in the process. They need to reimagine Sanger as a racist abortion advocate in order to have her fit into today’s ideological schisms, schisms that hardly existed in her era.

But hatred towards Sanger is nothing new. In her lifetime, she received quite a bit of hate mail, some of which has been preserved in the archive. In the mid-twentieth century, the most outspoken critics of Sanger were Catholics who objected to her public criticism of the Pope and support of family planning. Others were worried about the future of population growth -particularly of white Americans and Europeans- and worried that family planning would weaken these groups. Here is a favorite that we found in the Margaret Sanger Papers:

“Dear Madam: You have been a shameless “murderess on parade” for a long while. However, you never looked more hellishly ludicrous than at present when the government is about to launch a campaign to encourage as many births as possible as has been done for sometime in Europe. Perhaps this will see and end to your shameless debasing of Parenthood. You, if you ever had any real Christian upbringing, must have developed a cast iron conscience to be able to carry on your soul the innumerable times you are guilty of having the Commandment–Thou shalt not kill–broken by poor innocent people who listened to your advice. The average schoolboy or girl knows more about contraceptives than you do and that is well-known; which makes your birth-controllers hopelessly out-dated. If you were a sincere person you would devote your time to something clean worthwhile.” (Aug. 28, 1941, Brooklyn, N.Y. [LCM 50:135].)

If you want to read more on the hate mail that Sanger received in her lifetime, visit our article “Dear Madam, I Abhor You” at the Sanger Papers Newsletter!

Sanger’s Boardwalk Empire Cameo

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birth control, condoms, contraception, documents, family limitations, lysol, margret sanger, pregnancy, reproductive health, reproductive rights

One of Margaret Sanger’s earlier publications, a copy of Family Limitation, recently made an appearance on the new HBO show, Boardwalk Empire. When a character on the show, who also happens to be named Margaret, is worried about being pregnant, she pulls out the Sanger pamphlet.  The Margaret Sanger Papers Project Microfilm has a run of the oft-revised  pamphlet, and the project has an original of the 1920 10th Edition run of this pamphlet and thought it might be fun to reproduce some of it here for interested readers.

“Every mother feels the wrong that the state imposes upon her when it deprives her of information to prevent the bringing into the world of children she cannot feed or clothe or care for.” (Page 1)

“I feel there is sufficient information given here which, if followed, will prevent a woman from becoming pregnant unless she desires to do so.” (Page 1)

Some of the subject headers may seem a bit unnecessary in these times, but back then pamphlets like this were invaluable. For instance, “DOUCHE A CLEANSER – NOT A PREVENTATIVE” (Page 7) seems like a fairly obvious statement to make now, but back then many women douched with Lysol, who’s advertisements were coded to sneakily imply that a Lysol douche was a valid method of contraception.

For example, one advertisement shows a relaxed and happy looking mother surrounded by her two children. At one point the copy printed along with the advertisement says, “this effective antiseptic is three times stronger than powerful carbolic acid.” This is a hidden message meant to imply contraceptive use, since  carbolic acid was commonly known to kill sperm at the time when this pamphlet was published.

This fact is even mentioned in the pamphlet, on page 16, where Sanger writes, “the male sperm is destroyed by the weakest solution of carbolic acid.” This statement is made in reference to a tip included in the pamphlet that advises women to use a contraceptive sponge or “cotton plug” soaked in carbolic acid and glycerin to prevent pregnancy.

Earlier in the pamphlet Sanger dismisses douching with carbolic acid as a wise contraceptive option because, “When one understands how conception takes place, it can be seen at once that it is quite possible for a woman to be in a state of pregnancy before she leaves the bed, or before she can reach a douche.” (Page 7)

Although the practical information in the pamphlet may be somewhat outdated in our modern times (for instance, we no longer use carbolic acid as a method of birth control at all), many sentiments expressed within are timeless. For instance:

“Don’t wait to see if you no not menstruate (monthly sickness) but make it your duty to see that you do.” (Page 5)

“Women must learn to know their own bodies and watch and know definitely how regular or irregular they are.” (Page 5)

“No one can doubt that there are times where an abortion is justifiable but they will become unnecessary when care is taken to prevent contraception. This is the only cure for abortions.” (Page 5)

“There is current among people an idea that conception can take place only at certain times of the month. […] Do not depend upon this belief, for there is no scientific foundation for it.” (Page 6)

“A mutual and satisfied sexual act is of great benefit to the average woman, the magnetism of it is health giving. When it is not desired on the part of the woman and she has no response, it should not take place.” (Page 7)

We will leave you with some scans from the document.

Further Reading:

1917 6th Edition of Family Limitation by Margaret Sanger.
Jersey Shore, The Early Years by Alessandra Stanley from the New York Times, September 16th 2010.