MARGARET SANGER | Part 3: Eugenics & Sterilization
Friday, April 16, 2021
In this conclusion to my series of articles on Margaret Sanger, I am going to be sharing the history of her eugenic views. As the last two installments have shown, Sanger was not racist and was against abortion and contraceptives that take place after fertilization. When people rightfully criticize her views on eugenics, the misconceptions about her other views often take the spotlight. For example, the mostly untrue statement, “Sanger supported eugenics, killing black babies through abortion.” Let’s take a look at what eugenics actually meant to her and a little about the movement her time.
A surprising friend of Sanger and fellow advocate of eugenics was Helen Keller. Although she is regarded positively and used in pro-life arguments, Keller supported child euthanasia. She used language such as “weeding of the human garden”. “It is the possibilities of happiness, intelligence and power that give life its sanctity, and they are absent in the case of a poor, misshapen, paralyzed, unthinking creature.”1 She wasn’t alone in her views, In 1937 a US poll found that 45% of Americans supported euthanasia for “defective infants”. 2
One of her mentors, Alexander Graham Bell, who was also an advocate for the deaf was heavily involved in American eugenics. He helped organize the First International Conference on Eugenics in 1912 and was an honorary president of the next in 1921. Although he was against forced sterilization and believed that legislation wasn’t the proper way to enforce his views, he did not approve of deaf people marrying or socializing with each other. It is hard to imagine now, but he thought that his views would help deaf-mute people. 3
Theodore Roosevelt was also a eugenist, who fought against birth control. He believed that women who did not have children were traitors and failures. However, towards other classes of civilization, he had different views. “I wish very much that the wrong people could be prevented entirely from breeding; and when the evil nature of these people is sufficiently flagrant, this should be done. Criminals should be sterilized and feeble-minded persons forbidden to leave offspring behind them.”4
George Bernard Shaw, Nellie McClung and other members of the Famous Five, Winston Churchill and many other historical figures were eugenicists. Yet each of them is praised and regarded as good people. The history of eugenics is deep and very interesting (and disappointing) to study.
Sanger believed in eugenics, but there was a difference between her and other members of the group. While most thought that the “fit” population should have lots of children, Sanger thought that everyone should have fewer children, partly because of her of her concern for women’s health and also because of her views on over-population. This lead to some controversy against her within the movement.
She called the arguments of these “race suicide” alarmists, “sheer foolishness”. 5 She said that it was just as wrong for a rich, well-educated woman to have many children, one after the other, as it is for a poor person. Her concern was again with the health of the mother and child, as well as believing that unwilling mothers who had big families were “slaves” and their lives no longer independent.
However, Sanger did go further when talking about the “unfit”. “By all means there should be no children when either mother or father suffers from such diseases as tuberculosis, gonorrhea, syphilis, cancer, epilepsy, insanity, drunkenness and mental disorders. In the case of the mother, heart disease, kidney trouble and pelvic deformities are also a serious bar to childbearing.”6 She continued by explaining why she believed this. She spoke about miscarriages, dangerous pregnancies to both the unborn and mother. She discussed the passing down of diseases and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She also wrote about crime, “insanity”, prostitution and child labour being caused by families that are larger than they can afford or genetically unhealthy.
She used the term 'human weeds', not only to describe those she considered unfit, but any baby that was not intentionally conceived. This term was very common among the eugenics movement in her day, as mentioned before it was used by Helen Keller. It seems to have been coined by botanists involved, such as Luther Burbank. Sanger also used the metaphor of breeding racehorses to talk about human populations, another very common comparison of the day, also used by Theodore Roosevelt who bred horses.
There is no doubt prejudice against those with diseases and disabilities woven throughout her writings and outlook. The idea of Fit vs. Unfit, a eugenic idea. She views them as deserving of fewer rights and a drag upon society and government. She never condones killing them or ending their lives after conception. Her outlook was certainly ableist. The way of thinking was a very slippery slope that led to the atrocities committed against groups of people in the United States and Nazi Germany, and can also be linked with euthanasia and abortion today.
STERILIZATION
In the United States, sterilization laws were put in place between 1907-1963 in over 30 states, and over 64,000 people were forcibly sterilized. Later on, Nazis would cite these programs during the Nuremberg trials as a defence of their behaviour.
A particular case involved Mrs. Cassidente of Denver, whose five children were “neglected and malnourished” and whose home was “filthy.” 7 In court, social workers tried to have her children removed from her custody. The judge gave her the option of removal or sterilization. Her husband agreed with sterilization but she did not. She was forcibly sterilized. Sanger commented on this, “In the case of Mrs. Cassidente, of Denver, one must remember that such cases are to be looked upon as one views a war measure in a great and trying emergency.” 8
Sanger seems to go back and forth on whether or not sterilization should be enforced. Sometimes she writes that no one should be forced, other times she changes her mind. In ‘The Pivot of Civilization’ she says, “Every feeble-minded girl or woman of the hereditary type, especially of the moron class, should be segregated during the reproductive period. Otherwise, she is almost certain to bear imbecile children, who in turn are just as certain to breed other defectives. The male defectives are no less dangerous... when we realize that each feeble-minded person is a potential source of an endless progeny of defect, we prefer the policy of immediate sterilization, of making sure that parenthood is absolutely prohibited to the feeble-minded.” 9
This is reflective of the laws of her time when people in mental institutions were forcibly sterilized. However, in an article she wrote on sterilization in 1951, she says “The program in this country at least, does not involve compulsory features. No one here proposes that some official be endowed with the authority to order anyone to be sterilized.” 10 Rather, she wanted education and voluntary procedures.
Honestly, it is very confusing reading her views on sterilization. She admits that there are many concerns about how to implement a program. “In passing, we should here recognize the difficulties presented by the idea of "fit" and "unfit." Who is to decide this question? The grosser, the more obvious, the undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind. But among the writings of the representative Eugenists one cannot ignore the distinct middle-class bias that prevails.” 11
“As for the sterilization of habitual criminals, not merely must we know more of heredity and genetics in general, but also acquire more certainty of the justice of our laws and the honesty of their administration before we can make rulings of fitness or unfitness merely upon the basis of a respect for law.” 12
My conclusion from reading Sanger’s writings is that she supported voluntary sterilization, except in cases which she concluded were “grosser, more obvious, undeniably feeble-minded...” and must be forced. She recognized the prejudices and dangers in implementing programs of sterilization and urged caution, but also saw population control as an essential issue. While she believed it was ideal that people would voluntarily use birth control & sterilization, she thought in some cases it must be forced as if they were in ‘war’.
I found Sanger’s speech ‘The Children’s Article’ to be eye-opening into her outlook. It includes the weed analogy, touches on overpopulation, sterilization, eugenics and her ideas for who should and shouldn’t have children. It includes the following popular quote by her, “I would like to suggest Civil Service examinations for parenthood! Prospective parents after such an examination would be given a parenthood license, proving that they are physically and mentally fit to be the fathers and mothers of the next generation.” Sanger goes on to say that the examinations should be done by ‘unborn’ children, and an organization for the prevention of cruelty to unborn children should be formed. I am including a link to this in the bibliography! 13
As I’ve studied Margaret Sanger’s writings over the past year, I’ve learned a lot about her. There is a lot of misinformation on the internet, spread many times unintentionally. If I wrote an article about how Sanger was racist, making up quotes and taking them out of context, very few would take the time to fact-check it. It would probably be accepted as truth, as I would have accepted it a year ago because of my preconceived ideas.
History is incredibly complicated. Many of those who we hail as heroes had racist and bigoted views. Many of those we curse as villains shared their wrong views with those we admire. Sanger does not seem like a hero or a villain to me. Her views were shaped by her childhood and experiences as a nurse, and she seemed like a very skeptical and pessimistic woman.
Sanger held views I disagree with, and it is valid to criticize her for what she said. She held outdated and wrong ideas. We can talk about her legacy – Planned Parenthood, how the organization has changed since her death, and which of her ideas it held on to. Sanger wrote enough to disprove or disagree with, there’s is no need or justification for untrue claims about her being racist, a Nazi, or an abortionist. It is never right to put words in someone’s mouth that they never said, in order to paint them in a bad light. We must be honest about history, both the good and bad aspects.
1. Helen Keller: ‘Physicians Juries for Defective Babies’
2. The Fortune Quarterly Survey: IX. Fortune, July 1937, pp. 96, 106.
3. ‘Why Helen Keller Believed In Eradicating People With Disabilities', by Katie Schuermann
Bell, Alexander Graham – Eugenics Archive
http://eugenicsarchive.ca/discover/connections/512eed4734c5399e2c000001
4. ‘When America Believed in Eugenics’, by Victoria Brignell
https://www.newstatesman.com/society/2010/12/disabled-america-immigration
5. ‘Woman and the New Race’, Chapter V
6. ‘Woman and the New Race’, Chapter VII
7. San Fransisco Call, Volume 110, Number 123, 28th November 1921
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SFC19211128.2.248&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1
8. Stop Perpetuating The Unfit By A National Policy on Limitation of Families, Margaret Sanger
https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=306688.xml
9. ‘The Pivot of Civilization’, Chapter IV
10. ‘Sterilization: A modern Medical Program for Health & Human Welfare’, Margaret Sanger
https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=239501.xml
11. ‘The Pivot of Civilization’, Chapter IV
12. ‘The Pivot of Civilization’, Chapter IX
13. ‘The Children’s Era’, Margaret Sanger
https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=303355.xml
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