Margaret Sanger: an autobiography.Sanger, Margaret
History
Margaret Sanger: an autobiography.
Sanger, Margaret
Birth control -- United States -- Biography; Sanger, Margaret, 1879-1966
Fania began taking names, addresses, object in coming to the clinic,
histories—married or single, any miscarriages or abortions, how many
children, where born, what ages. Remembering how the Netherlands clinics
in recording nothing had made it almost hopeless to measure what they
had accomplished from the human point of view, I had resolved that our
files should be as complete as it was possible to make them. Fania had a
copy of _What Every Girl Should Know_ on her desk, and, if she had a
free moment, read from it. When asked, she told where it could be
bought, and later kept a few copies for the convenience of those who
wanted them.
Children were left with her and mothers ushered in to Ethel or me in the
rear room, from seven to ten at once. To each group we explained simply
what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way—no matter how
early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the
better way, the safer way—it took a little time, a little trouble, but
was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun.
Some women were alone, some were in pairs, some with their neighbors,
some with their married daughters. Some did not dare talk this over with
their husbands, and some had been urged on by them. At seven in the
evening they were still coming, and men also, occasionally bringing
their timid, embarrassed wives, or once in a while by themselves to say
they would stay home to take care of the children if their wives could
come. A hundred women and forty men passed through the doors, but we
could not begin to finish the line; the rest were told to return
“tomorrow.”
In the course of the next few days women appeared clutching minute
scraps of paper, seldom more than an inch wide, which had crept into
print. The Yiddish and Italian papers had picked up the story from the
handbills which bore the clinic address, and the husbands had read them
on their way from work and clipped them out for their wives. Women who
had seen the brief, inconspicuous newspaper accounts came even from
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the far end of Long Island.
Newly married couples with little but love, faith, and hope to save them
from charity, told of the tiny flats they had chosen, and of their
determination to make a go of it together if only the children were not
born too soon. A gaunt skeleton suddenly stood up one morning and made
an impassioned speech. “They offer us charity when we have more babies
than we can feed, and when we get sick with more babies for trying not
to have them they just give us more charity talks!”
Women who were themselves already past childbearing age came just to
urge us to preserve others from the sorrows of ruined health, overworked
husbands, and broods of defective and wayward children growing up in the
streets, filling dispensaries and hospitals, filing through the juvenile
courts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account