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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.
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"Code to Improve Babies is Urged by Mrs. Sanger"
Churchmen Hear Birth Control Advocate
Birth control for human babies is at least as important as pig control for farmers, said Mrs. Margaret Sanger, birth control'spioneer advocate, last night.
Mrs. Sanger enumerated the various codes developed under the recovery act in an address before the convention of the world fellowship of faiths at the Morrison hotel. She proposed "a code for babies," contending that each child brough into the world should be assured the certainty of a happy home, a sound body and mind, and proper care. Until this code is written, Mrs. Sanger warded, "real national recovery can never be realized."
Keeping Alive the Delinquent.
"Futile extravagance," Mrs. Sanger exclaimed as she referred to charity doles of various sorts. She argued that "this effort to keep alive the delinquent, the defective, the dangerous classes," is not good sense. They should not have been brought into the world at all, Mrs.Sanger declared.
"Christianity was founded on the suppression of the sex instinct," Mrs. Sanger continued. "Previous forms of religious worship, fromprehistoric times, were founded upon the unfathomable, inevitable mystery of sex. People were and still are as ignorant and confused about sex as they are about God. As long as religious teaching confuses sex with shame and sin, mankindcannot rise to its highest possibilities."
Two States for Women.
"Our ecclesiastical fathewrs decreed that there were only two states of respectable womanhood open to women--virginity or motherhood. Sex in any of its manifestations was akin ti sin, and for the women only the bearing of a child sanctioned its expression."
Mrs. Sanger flung the challenge of cowardice before the leadersip of the various women's organizations of the country for notjoining the movement looking toward sex hygiene and sex reform.