Interview with Los Angeles Times

Date

1933-01-17

Source

"Woman Crusader Visits Southland. Birth Control Progress Told," Los Angeles (CA) Times, Jan. 17, 1933, p. A3

Description

Sanger's actual speech was not found.

Contributor

Los Angeles Times

Identifier

Text

Birth Control Progress Told

Margaret Sanger Reports on Educational Strides

Civilization's Fate Believed to Hinge on Movement

World Declared Watching California Movement

In spite of the storm of opposition which has raged around the subject of birth control, remarkable progress is being made in the matter of education, according to Mrs. Margaret Sanger, outstaanding champion of the movement in this country, who is a guest at the Ambassador.

“Prejudices are being broken down rapidly,” she said, “and while public opposition has died down to a large extent, unfortunately there still is much organized opposition. Education concerning the necessity for birth control is the basis of our whole problem and then we must have recognition of the movement by governments in order that birth control information will come under the jurisdiction and direction of qualified persons.

Poor women, for instance, must have places where they can go to receive scientific instruction."

Importance Cited

“It is important that this movement should make progress, for I believe that civilization soon will be swamped if the birth-control movement fails. It is a fact that there is a larger percentage of incompetents being born now because there is a larger number of them reproducing.”

In this connection Mrs. Sanger said many of the countries of Europe are looking toward California with great interest to see what will be the results and effects of the State’s sterilization law, which is quite generally regarded, she asserts, as one of the greatest forward strides in legislation in the direction of humanitarianism.

Student Attitude

Mrs. Sanger said it has been her experience when attending conferences of college students on the subject of birth control that mixed groups approach the subject from a purely scientific angle, with an utter lack of self-consciousness.

At the present time Mrs. Sanger's chief concern is the pssage of the Senate bill designed to amend the Comstock law which first came into existence about sixty yeas ago. Through the proposed amendment the United States mail or common carriers would be available for members of the medical profession to distribute information.

Purpose of Visit

Mrs. Sanger's purpose in Los Angeles to to appear at the hearing on the estate of the late Mrs. Viola Kauffman, who, following her death last March, was to have left considerable money and securities hidden away, although she had been considered a pauper. In her will a bequest was left for Mrs. Sanger's cause.

Following bher expeirences as a trained nurse in New York, Mrs. Sanger first bgan her crusade for the birth-control movement i 1916. In 1923 she established a clinic in New York, in which, since that time, 32,000 women have received instruction, she said. A large percentage of this number, she explained, have been young women in their twentie, who already are the others of four or five children."