Margaret Sanger gave this address as part of a Wesleyan University undergraduate conference on marriage, held in Middletown, CT. Other speakers included Erdman Harris, Father John M. Cooper, Dr.William B. Terhune, Rev. Roy B. Chamberlain, and Dr. Clarence G. Campbell. A complete version of Sanger's address has not been located, but additional quotes reported in "Mrs. Sanger Says State Law 'Stupid'," Hartford Courant (CT), Dec. 10, 1932, p. 2, have been added at the bottom of Sanger's draft notes. For report of a similar speech, also not found, see "Speech to the Hartford Branch of the Connecticut Birth Control League," Dec. 10, 1932.
Wesleyan Dec 12/32
Victor Hugo–- "No force in the world so great as that of an idea whose hour has struck."
I believe that the hour for birth control has struck, because there is no subject that has so large a practical significance which at the same time cuts so deeply into the foundations of social evolution as birth control.
There is probably no other subject of equal importance, left so long in equal obscurity & yet none which can show so unequalled a rise on our national horizon as this question has done within the past few years.
G B Shaw says its the most revolutionary idea of the present century. H G. Wells says its the most momentous fact of modern life.
The most intelligent English opinion of Church & the professions have claimed itto be of immediate importance in solving the Social & Economic problems of the world.
Birth Control is the signal of a new social & moral awakening. It is not only a health & economic expedient. Its a great Social principle, interlocked with thefuture development of women & the spiritual progress of the race.
Birth Control is the conscious control of the birth rate, by means that prevent the conception of life. The emphasis is placed on prevention & not on interference or destruction of life.
The emphasis is placed on control & not on limitation.
It is also placed on conscious control instead of the reckless abandon to the moment with children the result. (haphazard, accidental conceptions) A generation ago it cost $10 to bring a baby into the world–-today because we have limited the output & placed a higher value on child life, we have increased its value & prepared the way for its higher development.
Birth Control will prevent children from being born to become buffers between two discordant parents, or become victims of marriage, of immature persons who make chattels of them for their own personal satisfaction or exploit them as wage earners to support an increasingly large family.
There are seven obvious reasons to practice birth control
1st When ever either man or woman has a transmissible disease. Insanity, feeblemindedness, epilepsy etc.
2nd. When the woman has any disease in which pregnancy complicates the cure such a stuberculosis, heart or kidney diseases.
3rd- When parents tho apparently normal have already produced subnormal or defective children, deaf mutes, cleft palates, mental defectives.
4 To allow two or three years between births in order to space the children to give the mother a chance to recuperate & prepare for the next child.
5th. Birth control should be practiced until often the adolescent period is passed–-even tho’ early marriage is advised or counselled.
6th BC should be practiced for economic reasons-–parents should not have more children than they can decently provide for.
7th. BC should be practiced for two or three years after marriage in order to make a better adjustment & to strengthen & cement the marriage bond, through understanding & knowledge of each other & through the development of mutual interests play & cultural interests.
There are Three ways to control the birth rate or the size of the family.
1 Continence
2 Sterilization
3 Chemical or mechanical means of preventing conception.
None of these should be advised by laymen–-not even the clergy.-–all methods to be safe, reliable & harmless must be individually considered by qualified persons with knowledge of psychology anatomy & physiology.
The Medical Profession
Conn. State law Sec 6246 makes it a crime for any one to use any drug chemical or mechanical for the purpose of preventing conception.
Fed law Sec 211. Prevents Physicians or anyone from using the US mails or Common carriers to in purchasing books, literature, supplies Conn State law is unique in its that it stands alone in the 48 States as an example of bad law which can not be enforced–-& insults the intelligence of its citizens by classing this law as “offences against Humanity and Morality.”
Additional quotes taken from "Mrs. Sanger Says State's Law 'Stupid':"
"It is high time to take the question of birth control out of the gutter where Congress placed it 60 years ago, and to put it on a scientific plane where it belongs. . . ."
Defining birth control, a term she declared to have been her privilege to coin, as "the conscious control of the birth rate by means that prevent the conception of human life," Mrs. Sanger vehemently denied that advocates of the movement desire to interfere with life, or to destroy it. "Where there is no life there can be no destruction or interference. . . Those who claim that birth control interferes with potential life forget that all who remain single are, in a sense, interfering with potential life. . . . "
Mrs. Sanger expressed amazement over the fact that Connecticut, "with more colleges and universities than any other state," and therefore the most intelligent, should have the "stupidist" laws concerning the dissemination of birth control information. "How can a law that says it is a crime for anyone to use contraceptive devices be enforced?" she asked. Mrs. Sanger said that while New York State Law is almost as "stupid," many states do allow the proper spread of birth control information and she deplored the law making it illegal to use the mails to notify people as to where they may secure the necessary information. She cited cases to show that New York's law, which allows information to be given to women to who childbirth would mean death, operates unjustly in many instances when no definite proof can be given of actual danger. She listed seven reasons for birth control, which included the elimination of insanity, the proper spacing of children, the protection of health in adolescent marriages, the protection of women when they have such ailments as consumption, the development of companionship in marriage and economic factors.
"No person," Mrs. Sanger declared, "has a right to bring children into the world when he cannot provide for them." She concluded with a brief discussion of the three ways of limiting the size of families, continence, sterilization, and contraception.
While the Federal Government will give you a truck load of information on how to raise pigs and chickens, they will give you give years in Atlanta and a fine of $5,000 if you even tell anybody, through the mail, about birth control clinics operating legally in Virginia, Mrs. Margaret Sanger, founder of the modern birth control movement, told a large audience here last night in protesting against what she said was discrimination against mothers and children.
Because more than 1,600 Richmanders came early to the Egyptian Building of the Medical College, for the lecture, the meeting had to be moved to the old First Baptist Church at Broad and Twelfth Street.
Mrs. Sanger set forth many arguments why birth control information should be made readily accessible, but gave no information on how to accomplish such control. Dr. Fred Wampler of the Medical College of Virginia presided and presented the speaker.
Summarizing the case, Mrs. Sanger gave seven reasons why birth controlshould be practiced. They were: 1. By parents who have transmittable disease. 2. In cases of women who have tuberculosis, heart disease or some temporary ailment. 3. Where parents, though normal themselves apparently, already have brought into abnormal and defective children. 4. Adolescents. Early marriage, she said, was desirable, but the young should not become parents. The girls should be 22 year sold, the boys 23 for complete development. 5. For the purpose of spacing children so there will be two or three years between births. 6. The economic side of the question; the father’s earning power. It is unfair, she argued, for parents to have children they can do nothing for or for older children to have to stunt their youth working to feed their brothers and sisters, “their parents’ children.” 7. What she said was the necessity for young people after marriage to postpone at least two years after marriage the having of any children because they need the time for mental and spiritual adjustment. Premature parents, she said, found it harder in modern times to get along. Therefore contraceptive information should be available to young married people because individuals should be able to say what size their families should be.
Birth control, Mrs. Sanger said, can be accomplished in three ways, one, continence or celibacy, the method approved by the Catholic Church. This method, however, should not be forced on most people as religious dogma, particularly, she said, because psychiatrists have found continence was not good for most people. The second method was through sterilization by radium or x-ray, a method approved by Virginia and thirteen other States for epileptics and other persons who would transmit their physical and mental handicaps to children.
The third was by chemical or mechanical contraceptives, the description of which now is classed by Federal law as “obscenity.”
She stressed the advantages of small families–-the longer school terms possible; better nourishment, and lessovercrowding, low wages and unemployables. Birth control information, she found was generally denied the poor even when accessible to more prosperous people.
“No matter what laws we may make or what we may do, there will always be some kind of child labor in large families,” she said, telling of 3-year-olds seen in Colorado and California beet fields.
Only Chile has a worse maternal mortality rate than this country, although in 1929 we spent nine billions on maternal and child health. About 22,000 mothers a year die of preventable causes usually resulting from pregnancy and more than 200,000 infants die as a result of poverty and neglect.
She quoted studies by the Children's Bureau in Washington which found fathers' wages and spacing between children potent factors in the matter of survival of childrn. The second born has a better chnce than the fifth in a family and 60 percent of twelth children everywhere are doomed at birth.
The Hoover child health conference reported ten million handicapped, six million at least partly due to undernourishment.
"They will not attack the problem at the root,” she said. "Children should have passports to give every child a sound body and mind. Our immigration laws forbid idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, psychopathic and insane or diseased persons, prostitutes and so on. Why should the same types come in through the birthrate?"
Discussing the larger view of population control she quoted John Maynard Keynes, the English economist, the the effect that there can be no peace without such control and explained her belief that Japan's warlike gestures and conquest of Manchuria are die to the fact that she has 85,000,000 population in a territory smaller than California. Italy she found faced with somewhat the same problem.
No final version of this speech has been found, but it was similar to Sanger's Dec. 9, 1932 speech to the Wesleyan University undergraduate conference on marriage.
Dec. 9, 1932
Maintaining that this country shouldbe at least as careful of the type of citizens born here as it is of the type of citizens admitted, Mrs. Margaret Sanger of New York presented the case for birth control at a lecture held under the auspices of the Hartford Branch of the Connecticut Birth Control League in the parish house of St. John’s Church, Saturday afternoon.
The lecture was attended by nearly 500 persons, many of whom signed cards pledging support of action to liberalize the state and Federal laws on dissemination of birth control information.
Mrs. Sanger repeated her assertion that Connecticut laws on the dissemination of birth control information are "unique," pointing out that there are only two other states in the county where even physicians are forbidden to give even oral information to patients on the subject. The state law which prohibits the use of contraceptives is unenforceable, she declared, unless the State proposes to station a policeman in every home.
In opening her lecture Mrs. Sanger pointed out that the old methods of keeping the population relatively stable such as pestilence, famine, floods,etc., have been largely overcome by science. It is obvious, she said, that there are only two methods to control the population, increase deaths or decrease births and the former is much too cruel. In times past persons have resorted to infanticide as a method of controlling the number of children, but this is to be deplored, as is abortion, which followed infanticide as a method of controlling the size of the family, she said.
Once contraception is generally known there will be no necessity foreither of the previous two methods of control, she said. She pointed out that the so-called “social problem” group is in a large part composed of families where contraception is unknown, while in the other group both parents and children benefit through improved conditions. The question of birth control, she said, then affects every man and woman, and indirectly every child. “The immigration laws bar certain aliens who are feeble-minded, or who have certain diseases, from admission to this country,” she said. “Certainly if it is desirable to control the rate at which such persons are permitted to multiply once they are here.”
Birth control is desirable to prevent the transmission of disease, to insure the proper spacing between children so that both mother and child shall have the benefit of better physical condition, to prevent child bearing in adolescence, to permit families to have no more children than they can afford, and to permit a period of mutual adjustment after marriage, she said.
Margaret Sanger gave an address as part of a Wesleyan University undergraduate conference on marriage, held in Middletown,Connecticut. Other speakers included Erdman Harris, Father John M. Cooper, Dr.William B. Terhune, Rev. Roy B. Chamberlain and Dr. Clarence G. Campbell. A complete version of Sanger's talk has not been located, but additional quotes can befound in "Speech to the Hartford Branch of the Connecticut Birth Control League," Dec. 10, 1932.
Westleyan Dec 12/32
Victor Hugo–- No force in theworld so great as that of an idea whose hour has struck. I believe that thehour for birth control has struck, because there is no subject that has so large a practical significance which at the same time cuts so deeply into the foundations of social evolution as birth control.
There is probably no other subject of equal importance, left so long in equal obscurity & yet none which can show so unequalled a rise on our national horizonas this question has done within the past few years.
G B Shaw says it’s the most revolutionary idea of the present century H G. Wells says it’s the most momentous fact of modern life.
The most intelligent English opinion of Church & the professions have claimed itto be of immediate importance in solving the Social & Economic problems of the world.
Birth Control is the signal of a new social & moral awakening. It is not only a health & economic expedient it’s a great social principle, interlocked with the future development of women & the spiritual progress of the race. Birth Control is the conscious control of the birth rate, by means that prevent the conception of life. The emphasis is placed on prevention & not on interference or destruction of life.
The emphasis is placed on control & not on limitation.
It is also placed on conscious control instead of the reckless abandon to the momen twith children the result. (haphazard &, accidental conceptions).
A generation ago it cost $10 to bring a baby into the world–-today because we have limited the output & placed a higher value on child life, we have increased its value & prepared the way for its higher development.
Birth Control will prevent children from being born to become buffers between two discordant parents, or become victims of marriage, of immature persons who make chattels of them for their own personal satisfaction or exploit them as wage earners to support an increasingly large family.
There are seven obvious reasons to practice birth control
1st When ever either man or woman has a transmissible disease. Insanity, feeblemindedness, epilepsy etc.
2nd. When the woman has any disease in which pregnancy complicates the cure such as tuberculosis, heart or kidney diseases.
3rd. When parents tho apparently normal have already produced subnormal or defective children, deaf mutes, cleft palates, mental defectives.
4 To allow two or three years between births in order to space the children to givethe mother a chance to recuperate & prepare for the next child.
5th. Birth control should be practiced until often the adolescent period is passed– even tho’ early marriage is advised or counselled.
6th BC should be practiced for economic reasons–-parents should not have more children than they can decently provide for.
7th. BC should be practiced for two or three years after marriage in order to make a better adjustment & to strengthen & cement the marriage bond, through understanding & knowledge of each other & through the development of mutual interests play & cultural interests.
There are Three ways to control the birth rate or the size of the family.
1 Continence
2 Sterilization
3 Chemical or mechanical means of preventing conception.
None of these should be advised by laymen–-not even the clergy.-- All methods to be safe, reliable & harmless must be individually considered by qualified persons with knowledge of psychology anatomy & physiology.
The Medical Profession
Conn. State lawSec 6246 makes it a crime for any one to use any drug chemical or mechanism for the purpose of preventing conception.
Fed law Sec 211 prevents Physicians or anyone from using the US mails or common carriers to in purchasing books, literature, supplies.
Conn State law is unique in its that it stands alone in the 48 States as an example of bad law which can not be enforced–- & insults the intelligence of its citizens by classing this law as "offences against Humanity and Morality.”
The following is an excerpt from the hearings. Only Margaret Sanger's testimonyand her answers to committee questions have been included.
Mrs. Sanger. Mr.
The law today is directed entirely to the
Please do not misunderstand us as to our position on the present obscenity law; we want those provisions as to obscenity to remain, and we only have an interest in the present law to the extent that it deals with the prevention of conception.
We believe that this whole subject does not belong in the obscenity clause. It was put there nearly 60 years ago when there was no knowledge of this question, or of its effects or results on the community or on the population, and we are simply taking that out of the law, but not by repeal, but by amendment, and placing it in the hands of persons who are responsible and qualified to disseminate it.
We believe, that this question of receiving contraceptive information should be the woman’s right, that it should be the mother who should have the right to receive information, but we believe in limiting who should get it. That is the difference.
We believe that the doctors who have a knowledge and understanding of anatomy and physiology should be the ones to dispense, to give out that information, but today there is no exemption in that law for anyone, for it says that no one shall give such information. It does not exempt scientific books or medical books, and while there are scientific and medical books sent though the
The law also says that anyone who tells anyone else where such information bay be obtained is also guilty under the law. Now, this condition means that there are 47 States in which a physician may give information as he sees fit, with the exception of the
That is the situation that we are trying to change; and, furthermore, while the mothers in the States have a legal right to obtain information from their physicians if they know where to go for it, they cannot know of it because there is no way of letting them know about this, and yet they may really be next door to a birth-control clinic, what good does it do to those particular women? They will write to me, or their nurses will, or someone, asking where it can be obtained, and we subject ourselves to the law by merely sending the woman the address of a qualified physician or legal clinic, a physician or a clinic that has been qualified in her own State to give her that information.
It seems, and it undoubtedly is, an absurd situation, and we are trying to change the law so that persons, especially those persons who have the right to have such information, may be able to obtain it properly.
There are in the country today, 26,170,756 married women between 15 and 49 years, of the child-bearing age. Now, it seems to me, and I honestly believe, that every adult, normal woman not only wishes to have children, but has a responsibility toward those children, toward bringing them up. Those women that want to have children, often want to have a few children and want to do well by them, and in the last few years I have received over a million letters, since I have been in this work, and nearly every one of those letters the mother says: “Yes, I love children, but I want to give them a better chance than I have had.”
For example, here are just two of the letters, to give you an idea why we feel as we do about this--and I consider that these women are really the forgotten women of this Nation. No one knows much about them. They are ignored. They are not given the consideration that they should have. They may have their children’s teeth taken care of in clinics, or their childrens’ adenoids removed in hospitals, and the children may have free lunches at the schools-–all of these considerations are given to them, but when it comes to this particular question, when a woman say “Doctor, what can I do so that I won’t have any more? I have enough. My husband is out of work, and he is sick, and the last child that I have had is not very well; give me a chance,” there is this peculiar atmosphere created about this, as if it is something horrible that she is asking for, and her request is refused.
Here is one letter:
"I just passed my twenty-first birthday on August 10. I am already the mother of 5 children, the oldest 6 years of age and the baby 3 months. My husband has been out of work for over a year and a half now. We would have starved long ago but for the relatives, who among them gave us $5 a week. It is awfully hard to live like this, and my husband was so blue when he found out I was that way again that he wanted to go to another place."
"My children are well, but I am awfully weak, only weighing 90 pounds. I do all of my work, and if I could get some consideration and not get any more babies, I would be happy and so would my husband."
"Won’t you do all that you can and give me the advice that I need?"
That is the type of letter that I have received nearly a million of--in fact, over a million, because I stopped counting them when we got to a million.
Another letter states, and I would like to analyze this with you:
"I am only 34 years of age, and I have given birth to 12 children, only 3 of these being alive. They died so quickly after they were born that it seems that they did not have much strength to live on. My husband is a good, hard-working man, but the most he made is $1.50. We are poor people, and the coffins of the last three have not been paid for yet. It is hard to see them go like that, but if I did not have any more for a while, I could keep the three that I have got."
That woman is 34 years old. She has not finished with child-bearing yet. She has perhaps 12 years still to be anxious about more children that she cannot take care of.
Now, 12 times that woman has gone down into the shadow of death, to bring forth three living children for the State. When you analyze this, as to what it means, it means that that woman was in pregnancy 9 times for those dead children, and it means 8 consistent years, night and day, in this state of pregnancy for 9 dead children.
It is barbaric. It is not civilized for this woman to ask advice and not be able to get it. It is absolutely unfair that she cannot be told what she wants to know.
If this woman asks me what to do for her pigs to make them fatter, or if she asks me what to do with her cows so as to get more milk, or if she should ask advice about her chickens, so that she could get more eggs, we could sent to the
My position is that I would not want to send through the mails any device, or any information for that woman, but what we do want to do is to tell her where she can go so that she can get proper information in her own community. We do not want to use the mails to give that information; we want the physicians to have a right to give the information and to get the materials from the manufacturers, and they, in turn, can give information wherever they see fit under their own State law.
We have found that all women differ in the advice given. We have a
As I said, we know that women differ in their physical needs, and that there is no particular means or method that will suit everyone. Women who have had a large number of children, and had good care, are in a different physiological and gynecological condition than women who have had no care, and so it is important for these women, if we are going to protect them, not to act in a hit-or-miss fashion on this. If a woman’s life is in jeopardy, we should give her the best scientific information for her protection.
So, for those reasons, we make this information individual, just as individual as having eyeglasses fitted to the individual’s eyes.
So we want this in the hands of the medical profession, where it properly belongs, and I ask you to consider this bill favorably for the sake of these millions of child-bearing women, women who have to consider themselves for the future and who have to consider their children for the future. [Applause.]
Mrs.
The next speaker is Dr.
Mrs. Hepburn. Mr. Chairman nd members of the committee, Mrs. Sanger will make our concluding statment.
Mrs. Sanger. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee, it must be rather confusing to you to hear so many statements, misstatements, overlapping of evidence, as has been given to you in the past 2 days.
We have had the introduction of the amendment, but I want to tell you that in approving this bill about a year ago, I believed that those who opposed it, especially the Catholic organizations, should be interviewed, and that it would be a good thing to submit this bill to them and to see just where we could get together on the bill.
This bill was drafted, gentlemen, with the advice of the physician recommended by the
There was a question asked about the condition in
Then the
Now, there is one other point that seems to me very interesting, and that is that it may seem there has been a great deal of warfare practiced between the people who oppose the bill and we who propose it, and that the people who have come here to oppose this bill are at the north pole, and we are at the south pole; but I beg to inform you that is not true.
There is a book that has recently been published by the
Mr.
Mrs. Sanger. A year ago.
Mr. Healey. Who was that; do you recall his name?
Mrs. Sanger. Colonel
Mr.
Mrs. Sanger. We went to him on that recommendation.
Mr. Healey. What did you do?
Mrs. Sanger. We went to see him and found him very sensible.
The Chairman. You may proceed.
Mrs. Sanger. The particular thing in this bill that seems to be objected by Father
I don’t quite understand what he means, but if Father Coughlin or those opposing this measure want to take that phrase out, “or by his direction or prescription,” I can’t quite understand why, but if they want to take that out, it can be done, but at the same time they are talking about the control of these contraceptives that are flooding the country today. I believe the only way that contraceptives can be controlled is when this dissemination of information and appliances is put in the hands of the medical profession where they rightfully belong.
Mrs.
We have had numerous offers during these many years, and at no time has any of us been associated in any way with any manufacturer of any kind whatever. This is not a commercial concern, we are not interested in that part of it, we are only interested in trying to see, so far as our research is concerned, what can be done, and what can be found to be effective and helpful to the vast millions of women who are seeking advice on how to limit their families and limit them safely.
Here is a copy from a clipping from a paper called the Western Catholic, dated February 17, 1933, published in
We have received many inquiries about the remarkable by Dr.
So the racket is not all on one side. If we are going to have a racket, let us look at it squarely and take our share of the responsibility.
To me it is a very dangerous thing to put out a book like that, when the physicians and the scientists of the country do not by any means agree that there is a safe period for all women, as Dr.
Now it comes down to a safe device or a safe period, and that is just about where both sides are now. I can read to you out of this book, “
That is right from this book. There are many of these questions that should be answered, and they have been answered here in this study of the Rhythm.
Father Coughlin in his statement yesterday gave us to understand he is Irish, and I am Irish myself for many generations back, and I know how charming such a personality can be, and how facetious it can be, too, when it is coupled with a medieval mind. I think Father Coughlin should study up a little bit on
Father Coughlin also said it is our duty to increase and multiply, and he quoted the Bible, and he said that today, “we, believing as Catholics that marriage was invented by
It was brought up about
About the time of the World War Holland had a perfectly open law. I myself learned the technique of contraception at
In our clinic, where many Catholic women come, we have all due respect for them, and all due respect for everyone who has an opinion, whether religious or moral. We know that this bill is not mandatory, it is not asking those opposed to do anything different than they do today. It is permissive legislation we are asking for.
There are twenty or twenty-one million Catholics in the country, and there are about a hundred million other people who are not Catholics. It seems to me there is no reason why any one group should impose their will upon the rest of the country, whether it is their moral or religious or their political ideas.
I think you should know, as we have found, that women who come to our clinics average just about equal. We have had 35,000 women in one clinic in New York City, and there are over 150 clinics throughout the country; and every one of them reports the same thing, that there are about one third Catholic, one third Protestant, and one third Jews, so that they run about even.
I have myself had the most pathetic cases of Catholic women torn by their loyalty to the church and their desires to control the size of the family. They have exactly the same problems every other woman has, except it is a greater hardship on them not to be able to have religious sanction of the thing they feel they should do.
To give you briefly a picture of the thing, we find there are two groups of people, on one side you see the people who practice birth control, and control the size of the family, and then the other group who have not done that, not because they do not want to, but because they cannot get the information, and have to resort to operations. Look down among our own friends and see what you find, you find in one group under average conditions today, if they control the size of the family, you will see the highest percentage of health among the women and the lowest percentage of mortality. There may be only two or three children brought into the world, but more is done for those children. They live longer, they go to schools, and they go through college; then their mothers are able to participate in public life and help bring along the general progress of our civilization, and do not neglect their children either.
I find that those engaged in our welfare and social activities and most of our culture activities come out of that group. It is they who are paying the highest taxes, and paying in philanthropies for the other group.
My experience as a nurse in New York brought me into this. I was a member of a large family, 11 children, and my
In my practice as a trained nurse I found women were trying to find some methods by which they could limit as well as control the size of the family; where should they go? They asked each other. It was a sort of common gossip about this or that. They go to the hospitals, dispensaries, and public agencies, and always they are refused when it comes to asking for this particular kind of information.
One women would ask me what to do; and they say, “You give it to the rich; they get the information; why must we bear the burden? You see what I have got, how many children I have got; my husband is a good man, we are trying to do the best we can for the children; won’t you help me?”
I came to this movement after
We went on, went on our way, irrespective of what happened to her, and within 3 months I was called back to that case. The doctor was there ahead of me, and that woman had not been able to survive, she had gone through another operation and she had no resistance, that woman passed out leaving a frantic husband with two little children.
I went home that night, gentlemen, away back in 1912, and I decided then and there that life was not worth living in this country unless we could give back to society some of the benefit of our experience. Of course, we had no idea what we would get into with such a decision, but we then found the Federal law which had been on the statute book since 1873. We asked the physicians, and they shook their heads.
Mr.
Mrs. Sanger. Today she would get it if her doctor happened to know it.
Mr. Kurtz. Why didn’t she get it then?
Mrs. Sanger. Because in the first place I knew practically nothing about it. I was a mother myself, but I knew nothing about getting the information, and the doctor assumed there was a law against it.
Mr. Kurtz. The New York statute did not prevent him from giving it.
Mrs. Sanger. Quite right, but they didn’t know it. The New York State statute was never construed, and in fact, some of us went to jail to get a decision on it. It is only under that decision we are operating today in New York, in all the clinics.
This law as we find it, affects the United States mail and common carriers. Someone asked about a physician prescribing by mail. No physician would prescribe by mail, but a physician needs to get proper information of newer means and methods, he needs to exchange with other physicians, clinics, laboratories, and so forth, through the United States mails. As it is now, as one of our physicians testified yesterday, the medical publishers do not want to jeopardize their liberty under such conditions of law. This book here, Rhythm, is going through the mails, not by right, but by privilege, and it gives illegal information just as any other book I might write on preventing conception.
Mr. Healey. Can you differentiate somewhat between that? One is an interference with life itself, isn’t it?
Mrs. Sanger. I beg your pardon, not any more than information in this book is.
Mr. Healey. The method you advocate is an interference with life?
Mrs. Sanger. It prevents conception, it is not an interference with life.
Mr. Healey. It does interfere with it.
Mrs. Sanger. So does anyone remaining single; so does continence.
Mr. Healey. You are not opposed to continence?
Mrs. Sanger. No; I am not.
Mr. Healey. That does not in any way oppose the policy you advocate here.
Mrs. Sanger. No; I am not opposed to that, and I am not opposed to this book, if we can find a safe method. We are coming down now, not to a question of principle, but a question of methods. We have no objection whatever to this. We say there are three methods of preventing conception, continence, sterilization, mechanical method, or chemical means of contraception. One group believes in mechanical or chemical and the other group believes in continence, and this book, I feel it will do harm to send it though the mails until there is a study made of it. Possibly, if it were found there was a safe period, it would have to be the physician who advices the patient as to her safe period.
Mr.
Mrs. Sanger. It gives a calendar which shows the date exactly of the variations of the menstrual cycle. Here is one of the little ones with those dates and the concept calendar.
Mr. Celler. Is the language all through the book indicative of absolute assurance to the reader, or are there no qualifications whatsoever in the book?
Mrs. Sanger. No more than we give with our contraceptive. It depends on the individual, I would say, and the doctor to advise her, but if I picked up that book and read it and believed as a Catholic, and saw an ecclesiastical approval, I would follow it to the letter.
Mr. Celler. Insofar as the ecclesiastical feature is concerned, I don’t know whether the people who read it pay any attention to the ecclesiastics in the book; that has nothing to do with the scientific fact.
Mrs. Sanger. No; I am not intimating that.
Mr. Celler. What I am trying to get from you is whether or not the author of that book has made the absolute declaration that there is a period in which there can be no conception.
Mrs. Sanger. Yes.
Mr Celler. Without any qualification?
Mrs. Sanger. Without qualifications, it gives the definite statement. They tell you exactly when your period of sterility starts and when to depend on the period of fertility.
Mr. Healey. There is not anything in the book, no method prescribed, that would interfere with the natural laws.
Mrs. Sanger. Do you want to argue that?
Mr. Healey. I say there is not anything. There is no artificial mens prescribed, and no use of medicines or drugs or any thing that would inrerfere with natural laws.
Mrs. Sanger. If we are going to argue natural law, it is something different. I will say if there is a period of sexual sterility and a day when nature makes a woman sterile, it is most likely that is the time she would repulse the idea of relationship, and so far as any natural law is concerned, I think that is the period to stay away.
Mr. Celler. That is your viewpoint, or medical opinion.
Mrs. Sanger. It is my opinion.
Mr. Celler. You have no medical opinion to back it?
Mrs Sanger. Yes; I have some of the world authorities that claim that is true.
Mr. Celler. That say that period of sterility would be the time when there would be a repulse on the part of the woman?
Mrs. Sanger. Yes; when nature sort of closes the door toward this attraction.
The Chairman. I want to get clear the thing under consideration and discussion. It is you contention that the difference between your position and the position of the opponents is to be found only in the method to be used?
Mrs. Sanger. Yes; we both have the same principle.
The Chairman. In your case, the purpose would be to have the relationship without the possibility of conception. Is that your contention?
Mrs. Sanger. Yes, that is my contention. We are both together on the principles, and we separate the question of methods.
Mr. Celler. Don’t you separate right here, in the case of that book, there is nothing done to interfere with the natural results of sexual functions, but you advocate the introduction of foreign substances by your chemicals or instruments seeking to prevent the natural result of the sexual function?
Mrs. Sanger. Not of the sexual function, but of reproduction.
Mr. Celler. Isn’t that where you and the author of this book, whoever he is, differ?
Mrs. Sanger. There is nothing in the book which gives contraceptive information as to chemicals or devices and they object very strongly to them, but they agree to our contention that children should be spaced and women should not have a large number of children. We say there is not a safe period, and if there was, we would gladly accept it and say blessings on you for advocating it. But we claim that in the meantime we should have the right to use our knowledge as we see it, just the same as in eyeglasses or other things individually advised.
Mr. Celler. Don't you recognize thee is a vast difference between the propagation of the race and the fact that you may have poor eyesight or poor hearing?
Mrs. Sanger. There is quite a difference, but I am talking about the question of the mechanical means toward the preventing of conception.
Mr. Celler. But you must agree you are interfering with a function of the human body.
Mrs. Sanger. You are not interfering with a function, any more than you are by remaining single, if you wish to go into detail.
Mr. Celler. You don’t interfere there, you refrain.
Mrs. Sanger. In this you don’t refrain.
Mr. Celler. In that book there it is said there is no outside interference with the natural result that would come. This physician says there is a period when there is no possibility of conception, but there is no outside interference.
Mrs. Sanger. As far as conception is concerned, in the method we advocate, by the use of the contraceptive, the ovum is not fertilized, it passes out of the body just the same as if she had never used one. We do not believe in interfering after conception has taken place. We do not believe in destroying after conception, but preventing conception. There is where we differ, and that is what I want to make clear. We maintain that prevention is the important thing and not interference afterwards.
We want this bill passed because we know operations are going on at a tremendous rate, and we are trying our best with all the human decency we can command to take care of that problem and to help abolish it.
We know there are very few married women in the United States, that haven’t a conscience toward their children, they are seeking the best way out to protect themselves.
Physicians have gone on record to get the
Mr. Healey. You do contend that because of the physiological differences in women, each woman presents almost a new case?
Mrs. Sanger. That is right.
Mr. Celler. And any information along this line to be imparted should be imparted by a physician or someone in a position to impart knowledge?
Mrs. Sanger. That is right.
Mr. Healey. You say the reason the poorer classes are not getting that is because they can’t afford to get that information from physicians; is that why they are not getting it?
Mrs. Sanger. Yes; partly.
Mr. Healey. If we passed this bill, do you think there will be any reason why they can afford after the passage of this bill to get it any more than they can now?
Mrs. Sanger. Yes.
Mr. Healey. What is the reason?
Mrs. Sanger. In New York City, for instance, or most of the cities, if the woman can go to the private family physician and pay his charges, there is no hesitancy then on the part of the doctor if he has been instructed in methods, but if she goes to the hospital he will not break the law. There are 7,177 hospitals in the United States. In addition, the hospitals have to pay for those articles at their own cost, and they will not do it. I know a woman who was dismissed from a hospital for giving a contraceptive device to a woman who was in there are who had six children already, and was not in a physical condition to have more.
Mr. Healey. As a practical matter, women will not go to a physician if we pass this bill any more than they go now, and won’t this information pass on from person to person, and therefore the information will be abused and will not be used in a manner beneficial to that particular reason?
Mrs. Sanger. It cannot be done that way any more than you can get proper eyeglasses at a 10-cent store.
That is the main thing, when they go to qualified persons at established places where competent instruction is given, they simply cannot pass it on. A woman would be a fool to use it when advised for someone else. She might as well not have anything at all as to try to use something given to someone else.
I am of the opinion that the medical profession will have to do away with all of this scattered broadcasting of chemicals and materials, and have it tied up in a way it will be distributed at the proper place where the women can seek advice, and I believe that is the only possible safeguarding of the whole question we are talking about.
Now, here is a little book that is an introduction to the Rhythm, and gives the contents of the book, and I would like you to see just what is in it.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I believe we are all very much in the same boat and this whole thing is getting beyond us, and I believe it is time for
Mr. Healey. You don’t mean to leave the impression with this committee that the opposition to the passage of this law is confined to Catholics?
Mrs. Sanger. I think the organized opposition is.
Mr. Healey. In view of all the people who testified here from the other religions?
Mrs. Sanger. Yes, there were mostly individuals.
Mr. Healey. There are millions of people throughout the country opposed to birth control, of all religious denominations.
Mrs. Sanger. I doubt it, but if you are going to put in individual letters, I could have brought in trunks of individual letters, if I had an idea you wanted them.
Mr. Healey. There are millions of non-Catholics throughout the country who are opposed to this, and you know that, as a matter of fact.
Mrs. Sanger. No; I don’t--not millions.
Mr. Healey. You ought to know there is considerable opposition to it from every state.
Mrs. Sanger. There is no organized opposition except from the
Mr. Healey. Have you tried to get resolutions from other churches sponsoring your view?
Mrs. Sanger. We have, yes.
Mr. Healey. Have you such resolutions of endorsement?
Mrs. Sanger. They have gone in the record; I think they were put in yesterday. The endorsements of some medical organizations and some religious organizations are in the record.
Mr. Healey. I mean the national bodies representing the churches throughout the country.
Mrs. Sanger. Yes; there are individual churches just like those read here today, individual Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists--there are lots of them.
Mr. Chairman. Are you through, Mrs. Sanger?
Mrs. Sanger. Yes; and if there are any questions I would be glad to answer them.
Margaret Sanger gave an address as part of a Wesleyan University undergraduate conference on marriage. No final version of this speech has been found; for notes on a similar speech, see Wesleyan University Speech Notes and Excerpts, Dec. 9,1932.
Middletown,9 Dec.
Pointing to the increased pressure of population upon food supply in the modern age, and toincreased births and a decreased mortality rate due to the advance of medical science, Mrs. Margaret Sanger,chairman of the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, told the Wesleyan College Body Parley on Marriage this afternoon that "it is high time to take the question ofbirth control out of the gutter where Congress placed it 60 years ago, and to put it on a scientific plane where it belongs." More than 600 persons jammed in FayerweatherGymnasium to hear the noted author of "My Fight for Birth Control, Women in the New Race" and "Happiness in Marriage.
Applying to her subject a line from Victor Hugo which says that "There is no force in the world like that of an idea whose hour has struck," and quoting George Bernard Shaw's statement the birth control isthe most revolutionary force of our age, Mrs. Sanger declared the movement for birth control to be "the signal of a newsocial and moral awakening."
Defining birth control, a term she declared to have been her privilege to coin, as "the conscious control of the birth rate by means that prevent the conception of human life." Mrs. Sanger vehemently denied that advocates of the movement desires to inerfere with life, or to destoy it. "Where there is no life, there can be no destruction or interference,"she stated. "Those who claim that birth control interferes with potential life forget that all who remain single are, in a sense, interfering with potential life."
The speaker pointed out that there has always been control of life by nature's violent instruments of death, disease, and famine, and claimed the superiority of her plan in exercising control from the very beginning.
Mrs. Sanger expressed amazement over the fact that Connecticut, with more colleges and and universities than any other state"can and therefore the most intelligent" should have the "stupidest" laws governing the dissemination of birth control information. "How can a law which says its is a crime to use contraceptive devices be enforced?" she asked. Mrs. Sanger saidthat while New York's law is almost as "stupid," many states do allow the proper spread of birth control information, and she deplored the law making it illegal to use the mails to notify people where they may secure the necessary information. she cited cases to show that New York's law, which allows information to be given to women to whom childbirth would mean death, operates unjustly in many instances when no definate proof can be given of actual danger. she listed seven reasons for birth control, which included the elimination of insanity, the proper spacing of children, the protection of health in adolescent marriages, the protection of women when they have such ailments as consumption, the development of companionship in marriage and economic factors.
"No person," Mrs. Sanger declared, "has a right to bring children into the world when he cannot provide for them." She concluded with a brief discussion of the three ways of limiting the size of families, continence, sterilization, and contraception.
Mrs. Sanger was the sixth in a series of seven addresses given before record crowds attending attending the Wesleyan Parley during the past two days. Mrs. Gladys H. Groves and Erdeman Harris opened the Parley in Rich Hall last evening, their subjectsbeing "The Feminine Side of It," and "The Masculine Side of It." Father John M. Cooper of Catholic University opened today's program at 9:30 this morning, speaking on "The Church and Modern Marriage Problems." Father Cooper, declaring that welfare or well-being is by no means identical with happiness or pleasure, urged his belief that "Physical sex activities are fraught with the most far-reaching possibilities of good or harm to human welfare, depending ordinarily of in the main on whether they are carried out within or outside of marital union."
[Rest of article has been omitted.]
Margaret Sanger gave this address as part of a Wesleyan University undergraduate conference on marriage, held in Middletown, Connecticut. Other speakers included Erdman Harris, Father John M. Cooper, Dr. William B. Terhune, Rev. Roy B. Chamberlain, and Dr. Clarence G. Campbell. A complete version of Sanger's address has not been located, but additional quotes reported in "Mrs. Sanger Says State Law 'Stupid'," Hartford Courant, Dec. 10, 1932, p. 2, have been added at the bottom of Sanger's draft notes. For report of a similar speech, also not found, see "Speech to the Hartford Branch of the Connecticut Birth Control League," Dec. 10, 1932.
Westleyan Dec 12/32
Victor Hugo–- No force in the world so great as that of an idea whose hour has struck.
I believe that the hour for birth control has struck, because there is no subject that has so large a practical significance which at the same time cuts so deeply into the foundations of social evolution as birth control.
There is probably no other subject of equal importance, left so long in equal obscurity & yet none which can show so unequalled a rise on our national horizon as this question has done within the past few years.
G B Shaw says its the most revolutionary idea of the present century. HG. Wells says its the most momentous fact of modern life.
The most intelligent English opinion of Church & the professions have claimed it to be of immediate importance in solving the Social & Economic problems of the world.
Birth Control is the signal of a new social & moral awakening. It is not only a health & economic expedient. Its a great Social principle, interlocked with the future development of women & the spiritual progress of the race.
Birth Control is the conscious control of the birth rate, by means that prevent the conception of life. The emphasis is placed on prevention & not on interference or destruction of life.
The emphasis is placed on control & not on limitation.
It is also placed on conscious control instead of the reckless abandon to the moment with children the result. (haphazard, accidental conceptions) A generation ago it cost $10 to bring a baby into the world–-today because we have limited the output & placed a higher value on child life, we have increased its value & prepared the way for its higher development.
Birth Control will prevent children from being born to become buffers between two discordant parents, or become victims of marriage, of immature persons who make chattels of them for their own personal satisfaction or exploit them as wage earners to support an increasingly large family.
There are seven obvious reasons to practice birth control
1st When ever either man or woman has a transmissible disease. Insanity, feeblemindedness, epilepsy etc.
2nd. When the woman has any disease in which pregnancy complicates the cure such as tuberculosis, heart or kidney diseases.
3rd- When parents tho apparently normal have already produced subnormal or defective children, deaf mutes, cleft palates, mental defectives.
4 To allow two or three years between births in order to space the children to give the mother a chance to recuperate & prepare for the next child.
5th. Birth control should be practiced until often the adolescent period is passed– even tho’ early marriage is advised or counselled.
6th BC should be practiced for economic reasons– parents should not have more children than they can decently provide for.
7th. BC should be practiced for two or three years after marriage in order to make a better adjustment & to strengthen & cement the marriage bond, through understanding & knowledge of each other & through the development of mutual interests play & cultural interests.
There are Three ways to control the birth rate or the size of the family.
1 Continence
2 Sterilization
3 Chemical or mechanical means of preventing conception.
None of these should be advised by laymen– not even the clergy.– all methods to be safe, reliable & harmless must be individually considered by qualified persons with knowledge of psychology anatomy & physiology.
The Medical Profession
Conn. State law Sec 6246 makes it a crime for any one to use any drug chemical or mechanical for the purpose of preventing conception.
Fed law Sec 211. Prevents Physicians or anyone from using the US mails or Common carriers to in purchasing books, literature, supplies Conn State law is unique in its that it stands alone in the 48 States as an example of bad law which can not be enforced– & insults the intelligence of its citizens by classing this law as “offences against Humanity and Morality.”
Additional quotes taken from "Mrs. Sanger Says State's Law 'Stupid':
"It is high time to take the question of birth control out of the gutter where Congress placed it 60 years ago, and to put it on a scientific plane where it belongs. . ."
Defining birth control, a term she declared to have been her privilege to coin, as "the conscious control of the birth rate by means that prevent the conception of human life," Mrs. Sanger vehemently denied that advocates of the movement desire to interfere with life, or to destroy it. "Where there is no life there can be no destruction or interference. . . Those who claim that birth control interferes with potential life forget that all who remain single are, in a sense, interfering with potential life... "
Mrs. Sanger expressed amazement over the fact that Connecticut, "with more colleges and universities than any other state," and therefore the most intelligent, should have the "stupidist" laws concerning the dissemination of birth control information. "How can a law that says it is a crime for anyone to use contraceptive devices be enforced? she asked. Mrs. Sanger said that while New York State Law is almost as "stupid," many states do allow the proper spread of birth control information and she deplored the law making it illegal to use the mails to notify people as to where they may secure the necessary information. She cited cases to show that New York's law, which allows information to be given to women to who childbirth would mean death, operates unjustly in many instances when no definite proof can be given of actual danger. She listed seven reasons for birth control, which included the elimination of insanity, the proper spacing of children, the protection of health in adolescent marriages, the protection of women when they have such ailments as consumption, the development of companionship in marriage and economic factors.
"No person," Mrs. Sanger declared, "has a right to bring children into the world when he cannot provide for them." She concluded with a brief discussion of the three ways of limiting the size of families, continence, sterilization, and contraception.
S4436 was a bill to "amend Section 305(A) of the Tariff Act of 1930, and Sections 211, 245, and 312 of the Criminal Code as Amended." This excerpt from the complete hearings includes only Margaret Sanger's testimony and questions put to her. For testimony of May 19 and 20, 1932, see Testimony before the United States Senate on Senate Bill 4436.
Senator Austin: Mrs. Sanger, the committee wanted to resume these hearings in order to get more definite information bearing upon the precise question of what the immediate necessity is for the passage of this act, and there were certain ideas the committee wanted to develop. Perhaps you have others also, but if you do not mind, I would like to ask you a few questions which would indicate our objectives and the kind of evidence we would like to get. In the first place, I would like to ask you about the practical side of this thing. What knowledge is there that would be available that is not now available, regarding the use of contraceptives, if this act were passed?
Mrs. Sanger: As to the practical side, perhaps, it may be of interest to the committee to know that until 1915 the information they had in this country at that time applied only to the use by the male. Practically nothing was known on the whole general subject of contraceptives. I say it with a certain amount of pride, personally, that when I began to study this question as a trained nurse, and realized that the people we were trying to help most were the ones where the husbands were not so concerned about helping the women. I, therefore, started to make a general survey of the whole subject. I went to Europe and studied in 1915 and 1916, and in Holland I found that it was almost an old subject. They had proper information. They had different devices entirely, not depending upon the use by the male, but by the woman herself, placing the responsibility of the birth of a child mainly upon the woman’s shoulders, and Doctor Mensinga and another doctor invented a kind of pessary, which was harmless. This pessary was fitted to each individual. They made plaster of Paris casts of the different women until they got a certain number of pessaries of different sizes.
Senator Austin: How many?
Mrs. Sanger: They have different kinds. When I was there I saw at least 15 different kinds, with at least 20 different sizes in Holland. They had been giving contraceptive advice; instructions in such a normal, natural way; it was part of their whole general economic living.
Senator Austin: May I interrupt you and ask if those pessaries were used with gelatin?
Mrs. Sanger: Not at that time.
Senator Austin: Was their use accompanied by a douche?
Mrs. Sanger: Douches, in most of those countries are rather difficult. They do teach them a cleansing process of a douche, a spray douche, but it was not necessary. They teach them cleansing with toilet paper, or cotton, or some means of cleansing, but the pessary was washed in soap and water. They use soap and water a great deal. It was very primitive, and they had to teach the women to use the things in the home because of the expense.
In France, douching is more prevalent and more applied there than in Holland, but speaking of Holland, they have for 40 years used these contraceptive appliances which are removed so that the woman’s organs are kept healthy and in a normal condition. I found there that the infant mortality rate had gone down in proportion, that the birth rate had gone down, but the survival was very much higher than in any country in Europe. The infant mortality rate was the lowest at that time, in the cities where they had clinics, The Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam--those cities had the lowest rate in the world. I was interested to discover how their practice of contraception would affect the morality of the people, and I went to the central bureau of statistics at The Hague, and told them what I wanted. I was practically challenged to find a native woman living in prostitution--a native woman. They said, “We have prostitutes in Holland, but you will not find a Dutch woman living in prostitution.” I said, “Why, is there any difference in human nature?” and they said, “Our family life is different.” “We begin earlier and encourage early marriage among our younger people, and in that way when the girl and boy in our districts, in the butter and cheese districts, or in other districts are encouraged to marry early, they both work for one or two years after the marriage,” and the question of having a baby was considered very practical, for instance, in the light of or on the basis of purchasing a piano, or any other expense.
Senator Austin: You do not mind if I interrupt you?
Mrs. Sanger: No.
Senator Austin: We have one hour to try and find out a great deal here. Of these various types of devices, are there any that are not available in this country at the present time?
Mrs. Sanger: Yes, indeed: some very important ones.
Senator Austin: What are they?
Mrs. Sanger: There is a pessary which is of a special form, a special shape which they have in Holland and other countries, which protects the woman. In Holland, Germany, and in England there are no types of women that can not be protected, but we have to depend on those bootlegged here.
Senator Austin: Are they all made of rubber?
Mrs. Sanger: Yes.
Senator Austin: And the ring principle with the diaphragm involved in all of them?
Mrs. Sanger: Yes; but all of them are different. Each woman has to be examined, and the kind that would fit one woman may not fit another.
I would like to emphasize the fact that there is no one thing that we are pushing. We have no interest whatsoever in any particular device.
Senator Austin: Is there any device excepting the pessary that they have in Europe which is not available here?
Mrs. Sanger: Different kinds of pessaries! They are investigating, I think, experimenting with some interesting things there. There are three experiments. One is a serum that they believe will immunize the female from conception for a certain period of time.
Senator Austin: Is that a sort of emulsion?
Mrs. Sanger: No; I believe it is an injection of a special serum, like an antitoxin. That is an experiment.
Senator Austin: Taken in the blood?
Mrs. Sanger: Yes; in the blood.
The next is the vitamin E, which they are experimenting with, which they claim has a definite effect on sterility or fertility of the male or female.
Senator Austin: Is that permanent?
Mrs. Sanger: No. They are experimenting, but they want them to be temporary. Where vitamin E is, there is a certain high fertility or low fertility in its absence, and then there is another extract made from the corpus lutem with which they are experimenting. All these new experiments are going on open and above board in Oxford, Cambridge, and in Europe. The plan will be of great importance and significance to the whole population.
Senator Austin: Are there any other mechanical devices which you have suggested which might be available if this law were changed, that are not now available?
Mrs. Sanger: Well, I should think mainly, as far as I know, they are the pessaries of different kinds and different types. Of course, jellies are also combined with the pessaries today, and chemicals are used. The intrauterine pessaries are advised by physicians, but that is in an experimental state. We leave it entirely to the physician to advise with the patient, and we do not desire to interfere with what he or she wishes, but simply to inform them, and they do the rest.
Senator Austin: About the gelatins, are there numerous, different types of gelatins available?
Mrs. Sanger: Yes.
Senator Austin: Are they available in this country now?
Mrs. Sanger: They came from Europe--the original formula came from Germany, and, of course was sent back for a time, and finally the formula was sold to a manufacturing chemist in this country. When it was sold, it was not sold for contraceptive purposes, but mainly for some ailment like leucorrhea. That is mainly how these jellies are able to be sold today, for prevention of disease, but the market is being flooded in a dangerous way, because there is no control over them.
Senator Austin: Are these gelatins available in tubes, with devices for employing them?
Mrs. Sanger: Yes. Most of them are.
Senator Austin: What about the medical lore on this subject? Do you know whether the state of medical science here in America is up to the standard of that science abroad on this subject?
Mrs. Sanger: Doctor Moses is here with us, and I would like for her to go into that.
[A brief conversation between Dr. Moses and Senator Austin about her qualifications, followed by Moses' explanation of how diaphragms are fitted, was omitted by the MSPP editors.]
Senator Austin: Is the reason why you do not get these things [medical supplies] by automobile or private carrier because of the cost?
Dr. Moses: I do not think we ever considered that.
Mrs. Sanger: The Cleveland clinic does that. They send a messenger to Chicago or New York.
[A brief exchange between Bessie Moses and Senator Austin about her experience with medical societies and the training of physicians in birth control was omitted by the MSPP editors.]
Senator Austin. Do you not think the physicians of this country have learned these things already, and realize that one woman will be spared by one thing, and another by another?
Doctor Moses. No; I do not think so. I think they are extremely weak on the subject, and they themselves will tell you that. I know prominent gynecologists at Johns Hopkins who know absolutely nothing about this whole field. The reason I know it is because they come and talk to me, want to know what the methods are, and learn about it.
There have been books published recently, and also "The Practice of Contraception: An International Symposium and Survey" proceedings of the conference on contraception which was published by Mrs. Sanger and Doctor Stone. They gave the good and bad types of various devices that may be used. It is against the law to mail those books in this country. I suppose they are sent by express.
Mrs. Sanger. Yes.
I have here letter trying to the the proceedings on contraception, which I will read.
I have many letters of that kind, like Wood & Co., even medical publications refusing to review one of these books because they said it was against the law and they did not want to be involved.
Senator Austin. That is right?
Doctor Moses. Yes.
Mrs. Sanger. Just before I came I looked in our book, and at our clinic in New York we have had 700 physicians come there to us to learn he technique of contraception.
[An exchange between Austin and Moses on contraceptive jellies has been omitted]
Senator Austin: What is the type of physician, what kind of men?
Mrs. Sanger: A great many southern men. They have come to New York to a conference or something, and physicians have sent them to us, a large number of gynecologists or obstetricians. They want to know just what to do, and the physicians send them down to our clinic, and the same in Washington. When they come here they are sent to the clinic at Baltimore to Doctor Moses.
[Another brief conversation between Bessie Moses and Senator Austin about the difficulty in obtaining contraceptive supplies due to legal bans was omitted by the MSPP editors.]
Senator Austin: Can you not obtain these supplies without breaking the law?
Mrs. Sanger: Not by common carrier, or express or mail.
Senator Austin: You have an option as to whether you can do it one way or another.
Mrs. Sanger: There is only one way. I suppose they get supplies from New York and Chicago. Unless you have a manufacturing center of these pessaries in every community, you have to violate the law. This section says express companies and common carriers, and not only that, but it is violating section 211 for us to tell another person where to go and give her the address where contraceptive information may be obtained. I have been written to by the Department of Justice where complaints have been made that I gave the address of this clinic at Baltimore to a person who was a decoy, and that was all, gave no information, said “go to the doctor there, and they will probably give you such advice.”
[A brief conversation between Bessie Moses and Senator Austin on the education of physicians on contraceptive methods was omitted.]
Mrs. Sanger: I was going to say, as far as the physicians are concerned in this country, we have had to help the poor people. Where a poor woman writes to us, and especially to me, and asks what she can do, I advise her to go to a physician in her community, a physician who has come in and taken a course in technique, and these physicians are glad to help. We often pay her fare to the doctor’s office, and the doctor will giver her advice free. We get in contact with social workers and tell them to tell her to go to the doctor. I have letters from physicians asking me if I can tell them about the law. They say they do not want to break the law; they want to do the right thing, but the doctors are confused as to the law.
Senator Austin: I want to ask a question, and you need not answer it if you do not want to. Have you had any evidence that the medical profession generally regards your activities as an intrusion into their particular sphere?
Mrs. Sanger: I think at first they did, as a layman. Just a trained nurse. I think that was very much resented by them, my intrusion, first, because I was a layman, and they had a guilty conscience themselves. They knew every word about the conditions were true, and I had found means of contraception that were safer than any, and there was resentment.
Senator Austin: If it were true the American Medical Society at its last meeting tabled this suggestion very abruptly and declined to act upon it one way or the other, what would your reaction be to that? What would you think that indicated?
Mrs. Sanger: To me it would indicate the natural trend of events of the history of the medical profession as an organization. All throughout their history they have declined to take up certain things, and gradually the public conscience pushes them into it and they have taken it. I was not surprised at all. The division of gynecologists and obstetricians did come out with a statement concerning our objects, and this whole group of the American Medical Association, most of whom are general practitioners--very few of them are gynecologists or obstetricians-- are not brought face to face with this issue. It looked controversial and something that thy were divided on. Certain elements get into the organization, and I was not at all surprised at that.
Senator Austin: I am glad to see you do not attribute any selfish or ulterior motive.
Mrs. Sanger: No. I do not consider it in that way.
[A conversation between Moses and Austin on one thr the trustees of the American Medical Association was omitted by the editors. Also omitted was a short statement by Dr. Russell J. Clinchy, minister of the Mount Pleasant Congregational Church.]
Senator Austin. Do you think if this law were passed it would be any more legitimate for letting the girl getting this information than before.
Doctor Clinchy. That would depend entirely upon the doctor. This is entrely in the hands of doctors.
Senator Austin. You think it would be asier for her to get it?
Doctor Clinchy. Dependent upon her circumstances.
Senator Austin. But not any more lawful.
Mrs. Sanger. I should not think it would be so easy. In a case where young, unmarried people are living together, they are not using this sort of pessary. They can not use it without a medical examination; in other words, if this law had some provisions for the physician to legitimately give proper advice 20 or 25 years ago, I believe we would not have our young people bootlegging it over the counter and getting anything at all.
When our young men went to war there were two things that they were taught. The physicians taught our men two things, that they must not impregnate a girl in Europe and they must not run the risk of a venereal disease, and they were taught the use of condoms; that is mostly what these people are using. As soon as we can educate them not to take such risks and not to violate the sanctity and beauty of sex we will be accomplishing a great deal. Condoms are generally unsafe.
Senator Austin. They are unsafe?
Mrs. Sanger. They may be unsafe as they get them over the counter.
Senator Austin. They still may conceive?
Mrs. Sanger. Yes; there is no 100 per cent safety, but there is a possibility of 99 per cent safety when properly taken care of. I believe firmly that we are working in the right direction for clinics and physicians to instruct women and to have them go to qualified physicians to receive this information.
[A brief conversation between Bessie Moses and Senator Austin about giving giving contraceptive information to unmarried women was omitted.]
Mrs. Sanger. Today with the laws as stringent as they are, with no leeway, no exemption, we are having this terrific condition. We are trying to improve it.
You asked a question about the immediate necessity. I believe there never has been the time that it is so necessary as it is today. We have had a number come to us who were ready to commit suicide, husbands out of work two or three years, and these women having the double burden, not only the economic burden but the constant worry and fear of the possibility of another pregnancy, when they do not know what they are going to do. A woman came in a few days ago and said that her husband is home all the time, not working. What are we going to do--the anxiety and nervousness?
Senator Austin. You are imparting information to these people?
Mrs. Sanger. We can do it in New York for the prevention of disease.
While the Federal Government will give you a truck load of information on how to raise pigs and chickens, they will give you give years in Atlanta and a fine of $5,000 if you even tell anybody, through the mail, about birth control clinics operating legally in Virginia, Mrs. Margaret Sanger, founder of the modern birth control movement, told a large audience here last night in protesting against what she said was discrimination against mothers and children.
Because more than 1,600 Richmanders came early to the Egyptian Building of the Medical College, for the lecture, the meeting had to be moved to the old First Baptist Church at Broad and Twelfth Street.
Mrs. Sanger set forth many arguments why birth control information should be made readily accessible, but gave no information on how to accomplish such control. Dr. Fred Wampler of the Medical College of Virginia presided and presented the speaker.
Summarizing the case, Mrs. Sanger gave seven reasons why birth control should be practiced. They were: 1. By parents who have transmittable disease. 2. In cases of women who have tuberculosis, heart disease or some temporary ailment. 3. Where parents, though normal themselves apparently, already have brought into the world abnormal and defective children. 4. Adolescents. Early marriage, she said, was desirable, but the young should not become parents. The girls should be 22 years old, the boys 23 for complete development. 5. For the purpose of spacing children so there will be two or three years between births. 6. The economic side of the question; the father’s earning power. It is unfair, she argued, for parents to have children they can do nothing for or for older children to have to stunt their youth working to feed their brothers and sisters, “their parents’ children.” 7. What she said was the necessity for young people after marriage to postpone at least two years after marriage the having of any children because they need the time for mental and spiritual adjustment. Premature parents, she said, found it harder in modern times to get along. Therefore contraceptive information should be available to young married people because individuals should be able to say what size their families should be.
Birth control, Mrs. Sanger said, can be accomplished in three ways, one, continence or celibacy, the method approved by the Catholic Church. This method, however, should not be forced on most people as religious dogma, particularly, she said, because psychiatrists have found continence was not good for most people. The second method was through sterilization by radium or x-ray, a method approved by Virginia and thirteen other States for epileptics and other persons who would transmit their physical and mental handicaps to children.
The third was by chemical or mechanical contraceptives, the description of which now is classed by Federal law as “obscenity.”
She stressed the advantages of small families–-the longer school terms possible; better nourishment, and less overcrowding, low wages and unemployables. Birth control information, she found was generally denied the poor even when accessible to more prosperous people.
“No matter what laws we may make or what we may do, there will always be some kind of child labor in large families,” she said, telling of 3-year-olds seen in Colorado and California beet fields.
Only Chile has a worse maternal mortality rate than this country, although in 1929 we spent nine billions on maternal and child health. About 22,000 mothers a year die of preventable causes usually resulting from pregnancy and more than 200,000 infants die as a result of poverty and neglect.
She quoted studies by the Children's Bureau in Washington which found fathers' wages and spacing between children potent factors in the matter of survival of childrn. The second born has a better chnce than the fifth in a family and 60 percent of twelth children everywhere are doomed at birth.
The Hoover child health conference reported ten million handicapped, six million at least partly due to undernourishment.
"They will not attack the problem at the root,” she said. "Children should have passports to give every child a sound body and mind. Our immigration laws forbid idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, psychopathic and insane or diseased persons, prostitutes and so on. Why should the same types come in through the birthrate?"
Discussing the larger view of population control she quoted John Maynard Keynes, the English economist, the the effect that there can be no peace without such control and explained her belief that Japan's warlike gestures and conquest of Manchuria are die to the fact that she has 85,000,000 population in a territory smaller than California. Italy she found faced with somewhat the same problem.
This speech was similar to Sanger's Dec. 9, 1932 speech to the Wesleyan University undergraduate conference on marriage. No final version has been found. (See "Wesleyan University Speech Notes and Excerpts" {MSP #236563}; also see MSP #434001).
Speaking at St. John's Parish House, She Hits Conn. Laws on Dissemintion of Information
Dec. 9, 1932
Maintaining that this country should be at least as careful of the type of citizens born here as it is of the type of citizens admitted, Mrs. Margaret Sanger of New York presented the case for birth control at a lecture held under the auspices of the Hartford Branch of the Connecticut Birth Control League in the parish house of St. John’s Church, Saturday afternoon.
The lecture was attended by nearly 500 persons, many of whom signed cards pledging support of action to liberalize the state and Federal laws on dissemination of birth control information.
Mrs. Sanger repeated her assertion that Connecticut laws on the dissemination of birth control information are "unique," pointing out that there are only two other states in the county where even physicians are forbidden to give even oral information to patients on the subject. The state law which prohibits the use of contraceptives is unenforceable, she declared, unless the State proposes to station a policeman in every home.
In opening her lecture Mrs. Sanger pointed out that the old methods of keeping the population relatively stable such as pestilence, famine, floods, etc., have been largely overcome by science. It is obvious, she said, that there are only two methods to control the population, increase deaths or decrease births and the former is much too cruel. In times past persons have resorted to infanticide as a method of controlling the number of children, but this is to be deplored, as is abortion, which followed infanticide as a method of controlling the size of the family, she said.
Once contraception is generally known there will be no necessity for either of the previous two methods of control, she said. She pointed out that the so-called “social problem” group is in a large part composed of families where contraception is unknown, while in the other group both parents and children benefit through improved conditions. The question of birth control, she said, then affects every man and woman, and indirectly every child. “The immigration laws bar certain aliens who are feeble-minded, or who have certain diseases, from admission to this country,” she said. “Certainly if it is desirable to control the rate at which such persons are permitted to multiply once they are here.”
Birth control is desirable to prevent the transmission of disease, to insure the proper spacing between children so that both mother and child shall have the benefit of better physical condition, to prevent child bearing in adolescence, to permit families to have no more children than they can afford, and to permit a period of mutual adjustment after marriage, she said.