Margaret Sanger: an autobiography.Sanger, Margaret
History
Margaret Sanger: an autobiography.
Sanger, Margaret
Birth control -- United States -- Biography; Sanger, Margaret, 1879-1966
I was hounding everybody to learn the whereabouts of the contraceptive
formula for which I was searching, and was finally given the name of a
gynecologist who should know, if anybody did, where it could be found. I
made an appointment, and he greeted me in the most cordial way. When I
questioned him about the reported sterility of German women, he agreed
with the argument that, the situation being what it was in the country,
the population should be checked for the next five years. “Here is a
friend indeed,” I said to myself.
I then gently brought up the subject of abortion. “Doesn’t this seem a
ridiculous substitute for contraceptives?”
The doctor rose, his chest sticking out; he buttoned his coat, bowed
formally, and inquired, “Where did you say you came from?”
“New York City.”
“Are you sure you are not from France or Belgium?”
“Certainly not.”
“Nobody who has the welfare of Germany at heart could talk to me as you
have this morning. Only enemies could come here to give such information
to our women.”
I wished he would sit down; he made me nervous. But I went on. “Why is
it such an act of enmity to advocate contraceptives rather than
abortions? Abortions, as you know yourself, may be quite dangerous,
whereas reliable contraceptives are harmless. Why do you oppose them?”
To my horror he replied, “We will never give over the control of our
numbers to the women themselves. What, let them control the future of
the human race? With abortions it is in our hands; we make the
decisions, and they must come to us.”
That was not the tone of this doctor alone but also that of most of his
confrères.
Thinking that Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld might know about the formula,
Havelock had given me a letter to him, and I presented it at the
Institute of Sex Psychology, where abnormalities were being studied and
treated. This most extraordinary mansion, bestowed by a prince of
Bavaria who had himself been cured of inversion by Dr. Hirschfeld, was
furnished sumptuously. On the walls of the stairway were pictures of
homosexuals—men decked out as women in huge hats, earrings, and feminine
make-up; also women in men’s clothing and toppers. Further up the steps
were photographs of the same individuals after they had been brought
back to normality, some of them through adaptation of the Voronoff
experiments in the transplantation of sex glands. It was not a place I
particularly liked, although I was interested to see how a problem which
had cropped up everywhere in the post-War confusion was being attacked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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