Talk:Margaret Sanger

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[edit] comments

...

  1. c. to keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feebleminded, idiots, morons, insane, syphilitic, epileptic, criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred by the immigration laws of 1924.
  1. d. to apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.
  1. e. To insure the country against future burdens of maintenance for numerous offspring as may be born of feebleminded parents by pensioning all persons with trnsmissible disease who voluntarily consent to sterilization.
  1. f. To give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization.
  1. g. to apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives.

...

We shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that Sanger held these beliefs her entire life, but she did at one point, at least.

It was hardly abnormal at that time. If she carries the blame, then so do all public figures who advocated such policies. And that would be a very long list.


Yes, I think we should do that - and praise the brave people who resisted that particular spirit of the times. But it's not irrelevant to Margaret Sanger's other political views.

"It is alleged that she believed in "free love", an idea which is compatible with some of the contemporary theories of eugenics."

This is a silly sentence without some more documentation, and a silly one nonetheless. What is meant by free love? and what has that to do with eugenics? If by free love we mean permissible attitudes to change of sexual partners, I don't believe we have to allege that. If it's something more, well, say it! Vintermann 13:21, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

It's also possible that she simply advocated free love with birth control.
Yes, that's exactly what she did, as far as I can tell. Although this might be offensive to people who support birth control but oppose promiscuous sex, it's not right to soften it with an "allegedly"

[edit] Category

May I remove this from the category "Articles without sources"? I think that due to these discussions, there has been alot of fruitful change to the article and it seems to me to be sourced better than many wiki articles. I don't want to remove it from that category unless I asked you all first...Jporcaro 01:34, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for checking, Jporcaro... I'm in agreement, please remove the category template. MFNickster 02:08, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually, this article hasn't been explicitely placed in the "Articles without sources" category. It is there as a result of the {{fact}} tags in the article (at least some of which I added). Once those tags are removed (hopefully because someone provided a source for the tagged section), and the {{unreferenced}} tag is removed from this talk page (which we could probably do now), the article should automatically disappear from the "Articles without sources" category. --JerryOrr 12:38, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please sign your posts

Otherwise it's hard to tell who said what, and when. Denni☯ 22:50, 2005 Feb 5 (UTC)

They took out War Against the Weak when Sanger is one of the biggest figures in the book. This really makes me lose respect for Wikipedia. —This unsigned comment is by Frankp36 (talk • contribs) .

I didn't take it out - I moved it, because as a citation. it doesn't support the statement you added. If you add a quote from the book which supports your interpretation, then you should certainly cite the book. MFNickster 16:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

You're a liar. It's hard to do citations correctly with the weird format. Instead of correcting it you just delete it because you don't want it there. Anyway, what I wrote is so obvious anyone with an ounce of common sense can see it. The reason it means something to me is things haven't changed much and you're proof of this. Today's feminists aren't much different than Sanger and you're still Nazis. —This unsigned comment is by Frankp36 (talk • contribs) .

I moved it to the "External links" section, in case you didn't see that. If you're through being abusive, we can collaborate on the article. Otherwise I will just ignore you and your blatant POV-pushing. You're on a dangerous path toward getting blocked for violating WP policy. MFNickster 00:29, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Frankp36, please refrain from personal attacks. Let's just calm down. As I stated earlier, I'm interested in improving this article and making it more WP:NPOV. But we need to work together on this; bickering and throwing insults is not productive. Let's discuss any further changes on this page, instead of removing the work of other contributors and adding more uncited POV content. --JerryOrr 01:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Both of you are completely biased and repeated have removed factual information about Sanger if it portrays her in a negative manner. You have repeatedly added POV comments that don't even fit in the sections, like info on women's rights in the eugenics section.

If you're talking about the sentence "We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother," the purpose of that is to clarify that Sanger considered the mother's choice to be more important than the desires of eugenists, which is to say that she opposed policies which interfered with women's reproductive rights. MFNickster 07:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I have no interest in collaborating with you and find it interesting you use that word. I believe you are bigoted people and am not going to be censored into not saying that. Also, the "reference" you "cite" comes from Planned Parenthood, an organization Sanger founded. What sort of objectivity is that? --FrankP36

What have I lied about? Where have I showed bias? I am only interested in maintaining the factual accuracy of this article, and I am not afraid to include information that shows Sanger in a bad light, as long as it is correct. MFNickster 05:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I've attempted to tone down the pro-Sanger POV and add some cited criticism of Sanger to the Eugenics and Euthanasia section. Please do not revert or blank these changes; I'm sure more work can be done, but I think this is a first step in neutralizing this article.

And for the record, I am NOT bigoted; I find Margaret Sanger's views on eugenics (and the whole eugenics movement itself) absolutely deplorable, and I am actually considering getting a copy of Black's book The War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. The work of the American eugenics movement was a major influence in the growth of Nazism and the Holocaust, and I think that it needs to be brought to light. But I will not support turning this page into a Sanger slam-fest. She a major factor in women's rights and the birth control movement, and whether or not you feel those are admirable accomplishments, the are very important to our culture, and should be noted accordingly. --JerryOrr 14:12, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

You haven't read this book but you keep deleating the reference. Who made you in charge of this page? You people are like Holocaust denyers. You've been controling this page for a long time and have repeatedly changed corrections others have made. You have repeatedly inserted POV and info not related. Like what does MLK have to do with Sanger? It's not acceptable to list a bunch of quotes from Planned Parenthood, an organization she founded, about how much she like Black people. If you want to use Martin Luther King's name it should be something he said.
--Frankp36
When you provide direct quotes and proper citations for your additions, then you will be in a position to criticize others for not doing it. MFNickster 05:56, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Also, keep in mind that we're not necessarily denying the truth of your additions by reverting them - they may be correct; the point is that you have to back them up, particularly on an article subject as given to misinformation as this one. MFNickster 01:51, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Frankp36, have you even been following the changes that have been made? I've read excerpts from the book, and I've added some of the very criticism of Sanger you are making... specifically citing Black's book! If you aren't even going to pay attention to the work that is being done, and continually hurl unfounded insults at myself and other good-faith contributors, then I'm through talking to you. I will simply revert any more POV content you add, and the contributors willing to work together will have to continue to improve this article without you. --JerryOrr 19:39, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the article is now sufficiently neutral, so I'm going to remove the notice at the top of the page. KrJnX

I disagree. There's still:
  • An unsubstantiated claim that she attended a KKK rally. This seems very unlikely considering her outreach to blacks in Harlem.
  • A lot of baised language such as "forced to flee due to public outrage", "singled out the Christian Church", "avowed socialist", etc.
  • Planned Parenthood is described as an "abortion provider", when this was certainly not the case at the time
  • There's tangential mention of "forced sterilization". I know of no evidence that Sanger supported this.
  • Several quotes taken out of context to make her sound racist, without any other side presented.
-- Queerudite 14:38, 23 Jan 2005

[edit] comments on deletions etc

Who is this MFNickster? They go through and cut out anything they don't like when it is clearly referenced.

She did support euthanasia and this is in the book War Against the Weak, and you can find it by entering euthanasia and Sanger in google. —This unsigned comment is by Frankp36 (talk • contribs) .

Hi, I am just another editor, but I have had some of my additions deleted and replaced with blatant POV in the past, so I have gotten into the habit of guarding this article against such things. As Jerry pointed out, we now have to make sure that no uncited additions are made to the article because of the tendency for people to use rhetoric is so high. It's not that I dont like your additions, it's that they don't lend any support - I googled for Sanger on the site you mentioned and unless you can provide a quote to the contrary, it only implicates Sanger by association, i.e. she worked with some people who supported euthanasia. This article is about Sanger herself, not the eugenics movement, so her actual views and words need to the the focus. MFNickster 14:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I have added some much-needed biographical information to this article as well as other material, and created three main sections: Life, Philosphy, and Legacy. Also, I removed these two paragraphs:

Her views in these areas were by no means unique. Socialism was in her lifetime one of the most influential political ideologies. It formed an ideological basis for the establishment of welfare states in Britain and in Scandinavian countries, particularly in Sweden, with many positive effects on public health. However, the policies that socialism inspired in Sweden also included forcible sterilization of individuals deemed unworthy of reproduction due to mental illness or an expected inability to raise children properly. Considered enlightened then, today such measures would be deemed egregious violations of human rights. Indeed, forced sterilization was heartily endorsed by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in his 8-1 majority opinion in Buck v. Bell in 1927. In addition, Prescott Bush, the patriarch of the Bush family, was a well-known supporter of the eugenics movement and an open supporter of Planned Parenthood.
Ethical debates over reproduction and public policy continue today: some disagree over the merits of particular ethical or political theories, others over divergent measurements of the impact of health policy. The American "culture war" over sex education versus abstinence is an example.

Although I think this is useful information, and I hope that it is included somewhere in Wikipedia, I do not believe it belongs in an article on Sanger.

I also removed this:

[...] and for appearing at a Ku Klux Klan rally [...]

Presented out of context it is essentially meaningless. If someone wants to investigate why she was there, what she said, etc, that would be a different matter.

One thing I think the article is still lacking is her views on abortion. -- Viajero 13:36, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, what _were_ her views on abortion? It seems rather odd that it should not be mentioned - whatever it was, it's highly relevant to today. Unfortunately I can't find any information on this. Vintermann 12:53, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
What Every Girl Should Know contains a short section on abortion, though it it as much or more about unintentional miscarriage than intentional abortion. (1923 ed. pp 45-46. ) Sanger describes it as very harmful. -Willmcw 02:53, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
Woman and the New Race includes the following text at the beginning of chapter 2: "Usually this desire [for family limitation] has been laid to economic pressure... It has asserted itself among the rich and among the poor, among the intelligent and the unintelligent. It has been manifested in such horrors as infanticide, child abandonment and abortion."
Further along, we read: "It is apparent that nothing short of contraceptives can put an end to the horrors of abortion and infanticide."
Then in Chapter 10: "While there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization."
I think it's pretty evident that she was not an abortion advocate, but as I pointed out before, her opinions evolved throughout the course of her career and her life. So bear in mind that any given quote may not be definitive.
MFNickster 05:23, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Viajero, can you provide sources for the quotes you added to the "Philosophy" section? I am having trouble locating them outside of pro-life web sites. I also think the claim that she was a "fervent" believer in eugenics is heavily biased; the actual sources I've located show her as a marginal supporter of eugenics at best, and I think it's mostly the anti-Sanger contingent that is trying to paint her as more "fervent" than she actually was. Let's try to make the article a bit more factual and NPOV. I will let you know what else I come up with. Thanks!

  • MFNickster 23:23, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The material for that section was based largely on her own words, the sources for which, as I indicated in the text, were What Every Girl Should Know, and the article cited [1]. The copy of the former that I consulted is a facimile edition listed under "ebooks". If you read her she wrote herself about eugenics, you will see that "fervent" is not too strong a word. No doubt the article can be improved, but I strongly disagree that in its current state it is biased and/or non-factual. -- Viajero 23:46, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Aside from the technical issues ("Margaret Higgins Sanger was an avowed racists..."), and the lack of cites in the section on "Psychology of sexuality", this article still seems to be very biased. "Margaret Sanger was instrumental in opening the way to universal access to birth control, and planned parenthood in every minority neighborhood." Huh? Cites, please, that "planned parenthood (sic)" is in "every minority neighborhood? This article needs to be seriously re-worked.nmw 20:28, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] spelling

i fixed some speling erors in the quotes. this would indicate that it wasn't copied and pasted, though, so there might be other transcription errors... - Omegatron 05:36, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Relevant inclusion

"Viajero (Talk | contribs)...stuff on Nazis not dirtectly relevant"

This was stated by Viajero upon deleting the following:

"A USA Today article [[2] (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-09-14-book-usat_x.htm)] explains that Adolf Hitler greatly admired the eugenic philosophy and that Nazi scientists collaborated at length with American eugenicists."

but saying nothing about:

"In addition, Prescott Bush, the patriarch of the Bush family, was a well-known supporter of the eugenics movement and an open supporter of Planned Parenthood."

Oh heavens. Are you concerned about relevance or holding Sanger in a light you prefer? Let's be honest and either include relevent relationships (one of which is substantiated) or make a case to include neither. plain_regular_ham 13:46, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Many people in the fifty years prior to 1939 advocated for eugenics. This is not the place to list them. Certainly not people in other countries who came to political office later than Sanger's endorsement. It may be appropriate to mention that such views were common. Regarding Hitler, he was a vegetarian, but I don't think it's relevant to add that fact to the biographies of every vegetarian. -Willmcw 22:30, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
I am perfectly willing to accept the exclusion as long as it is, as now, across the board. Removing Hitler while leaving Holmes or Prescott Bush was unacceptable. This most recent draft can stand as far as I am concerned. plain_regular_ham 23:21, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Quotes section

I tried to separate the attributions from the quotes, but the formatting needs work, it's very awkward. I can't seem to find a description of the Wiki standard for this.

I also deleted the "Reprinted in Woman and the New Race" attributions for two quotes:

  • "The marriage bed is the most degenerative influence in the social order..."
  • "[Our objective is] unlimited sexual gratification without the burden of unwanted children..."

Because those quotes don't appear in Woman and the New Race. I have a suspicion that they don't appear in The Woman Rebel either, but I have to locate a copy to verify this and to examine the context.

I must say that I have reservations about including a "quotes" section at all, because Sanger is so often quoted out of context for propaganda purposes. The alternatives seem to be adding context (which fattens up the section), balancing the quotations with some positively-slanted ones, or removing the section. I'm leaning toward just removing the section, what do you guys think? MFNickster 28 June 2005 18:27 (UTC)

One more thought: I have seen many many sites using the quote "the most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." Every single instance seems intended to give the impression that Sanger was advocating infanticide - which, if you have read the whole passage or know anything at all about her, is very far from the truth. I think it would be worth commenting on this issue outsite of the Quotes section, anyone agree? MFNickster 03:46, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Not being an expert of history or Sanger, but simply as a lay-reader of the article, I think it would be best to meld the quotes section into another section concerned with how her words are taken out of context. PeterKLevy 19:06, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I would strongly oppose removing the quotes section. Some of the quotes may be taken out of context, and if that is the case, I see no problem with explaining this in the article. If a quote is so out of context as to be worthless, then I agree that it should be removed entirely. However, many of the quotes do in fact give an accurate portrayal of her views on eugenics. No matter how admirable her work for women's birth control was, it does not erase the fact that she was a strong supporter of eugenics at a time when it was being performed on the largest and most horrific scale the world has ever seen. I think that this article, as a whole, does a very good job of highlighting the good things Margaret Sanger did for society while acknowledging her offensive stances on eugenics.
Too often, I feel modern society tries to glaze over the flaws of those figures in history which have done great work. This is a mistake, for we must see our historical "heroes" for what they truly were; flawed human beings who were nevertheless able to do great things for society. -JerryOrr 17:49, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Sanger's quotes on eugenics range from the early 1920s to 1932. The heyday of eugenics stretched from about 1900 to the late 1920s. While politically incorrect today, and viewed as a pseudoscience, the word "horrific" does not apply to that period. Subsequently, when Hitler's Germany adopted eugenics, the field changed. However we shouldn't confuse the earlier eugenics, the popular progressive idea, with the later eugenics, the discredited Nazi-program. As for the quotes, we should summarize them and move them to Wikiquotes. Wikipedia is not a collection of quotes. -Willmcw 21:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

'popular progressive idea'-pejorative language much? Although it is interesting to see a leftist (almost) admit that Hitler was essentially a progressive. I think perhaps a section on how Sanger's organisation has long been the primary factor keeping down birth rates among African Americans would be relvant.

How is that more relevant than PP being the 'primary factor' in keeping down birth rates in general? MFNickster 01:06, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
The quotes should be in Wikiquote. I'll move them there. --Thebends 23:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree. -Will Beback 23:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
That you, -Will Beback, for providing an edit summary. When Thebends simply removed an entire section with no edit summary, I assumed vandalism. I still happen to think the section is relevant, but the discussion here seems to have gone otherwise. Thus, I'll leave it alone... -JerryOrr 16:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry about forgetting to do an edit summary; I'm fairly new here and had never done such a major edit. I'll be sure to utilize that from now on. As for the quotes section being moved to Wikiquote, it was definitely a necessary move that is happening in many other articles as well. Also, if you didn't already see it, there is a direct link to Margaret Sanger in Wikiquote at the bottom of the page. The irony is that this link existed even while the quotes section was still around! --Thebends 23:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline

In reading over the page, I've noticed the timeline is incorrect. For example, Sanger fled to Europe when she was arrested for her activities with The Woman Rebel, not after she was arrested for opening the clinic.

"What Every Girl Should Know" was originally published in column between 1912 and 1913, not in 1916.

This timeline is incorrect on so many levels. Do not refer to it.

I agree, I fixed up a bit of the chronology around 1916. Originally I was just going to insert an exact date and location of the birth control clinic in Brooklyn but the timeline surrounding it was all jumbled. As an FYI, I used an American Heritage[2] article and her bio on Oxford's American National Biography. Ando228 15:21, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Guidance

I think the Eugenics section (and much of the rest of the article)is almost in the form of a debate and seems schizophrenic at times. For instance, in the paragraph that discusses her word choice in saying: "moron", "imbecile", and "feeble-minded", the paragraph seems sloppy in some way that I cannot quite put my finger on. I am new to Wiki and this has been my first experience with a controversial topic (and basically my first experience). What are the guidelines for such an intense topic as this? I personally take a very strong pro-life stance, yet would still like this article to be more NPOV. I am very familiar with the many associations between Margaret Sanger and the KKK, but even I can see the bias in the sources for most of the information like that. I guess my purpose in saying this is to ask how I can contribute while maintaining professionalism and following wiki guidelines? --Bkcraft 07:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Bkcraft! You put your finger on it. One of the problems with Wikipedia (and particularly with controversial articles on it) is that people tend to write as they would for an essay or editorial instead of for an encyclopedia. I added the paragraph with the loaded terms you mentioned, and I am still not completely satisfied with it because it seems defensive rather than merely informative; in fact, I was defending her in this case because anti-Sanger sites tend to quote her out of context without explaining those terms which seem rather inflammatory now. At the time, though, everyone used them. The trick is finding a way to clarify facts like this in a NPOV way, without making it part of an agenda.
As for the KKK, from what I've read, there is only one association with Sanger which was a rally she attended after being invited by the wives of some KKK members. From my recollection, she said a few words about family planning and then got the hell out of there, but I need to find the sources again to review it. That incident was definitely blown out of proportion and made into a "guilt by association" type of thing.
If you can iron out some of the wrinkles in the article, just go ahead and edit it. Ideally we should save argument and commentary for this discussion page and keep it out of the article. Likewise, try to add only factual information to the article and be sure to cite the sources. Welcome! - MFNickster 17:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trim 'Eugenics' section

I removed the following paragraph (which was added by User:70.136.198.121):

Eugenics is nowadays synonymous with racism, however before Nazism this was not the case. Eugenics, which means "well bred", is the science of promoting desirable traits in an organism and discouraging undesirable traits. Margaret's eugenics beliefs targeted three groups: the diseased, the mentally feeble, and the impoverished. The belief at the time was that these groups had a significant genetic component in their being. She was not a racist. Nor was she calling for mandatory sterilization. She worked with disadvantaged groups, such as "colored people", so she separated their poverty from those who were poor for other reasons -those we would call "the homeless" today.

Because it is largely commentary, has some parts which are redundant to other parts of the article, and some that directly contradict other parts (e.g. the call for mandatory sterilization). I would be okay with a modified version that irons out the discrepancies and fits the context of the section, but I don't think it would add much more than a simple link to the Eugenics article. What say ye? - MFNickster 18:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

According to "The Book of Distinguished American Women" (By Vincent Wilson, Jr. Printed 1992), Margaret Sanger "coined the term birth control" and was arrested eight times. H.G. Wells also hailed her as "the greatest woman in the world". Apparently her husband, William, also persuaded her to elope. I didn't know if these facts would help in any way.

Of course, the book also doesn't mention any of her racist or socialist views (whether they were temporary or not). Despite these flaws, Sanger remains a very large part of the feminist movement. User:209.204.87.129 18:44, 22 January 2006

[edit] Katherine Houghton Hepburn's help

User:MChiBro brought up an interesting point by adding "with help from Katharine Houghton, [Sanger] was the founder of the American Birth Control League" to the introduction. From the sources I have (Gray's biography of Sanger and Chesler's Woman of Valor), it appears that Houghton was a heavy supporter of the Birth Control movement in Connecticut, and ran a NBCL office there, but that she had little to do with the founding of ABCL in 1922. I don't believe she was on the Board of Directors or held an office in the organization. If she did help, does anyone know if her contributions were any more or less important than the others who assisted Sanger in the effort? And does it merit a mention in an article on Sanger herself, or only in the ABCL article? It might be enough to simply credit Sanger as a "co-founder" of the organization in that case. Thoughts? MFNickster 05:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unreferenced

This article is woefully under-cited. Specifically, the sections Life and Legacy have virtually no citation. Considering how controversial this article has been at times, I would think some primary sources would be beneficial. --JerryOrr 13:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Now that edit by MFNickster is exactly what we should be striving for. Excellent job! --JerryOrr 21:02, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sanger critics

Jerry, do you have a source that says that anti-family planning groups "often" misquote Sanger? If not, that needs to go. · Katefan0(scribble)/poll 12:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, sorry, I misread the diff. I see that you in fact were removing that suggestion! · Katefan0(scribble)/poll 12:51, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
No problem. As you can see from my above post, I'm not happy with the lack of sources in this article. I haven't had the time yet to start looking for them, but in the mean time I at least intend to prevent any uncited additions the article! --JerryOrr 13:06, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Isn't the source of the misquotes this web page [3]? It lists 8 alleged quotes and discredits them. --User talk:underalms 20:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
A link at the bottom of the article does not constitute properly citing your sources. A footnote or Harvard-style reference would be appropriate in this case (and in many other sections of this article). --JerryOrr 20:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
How about Flynn, Daniel J., Intellectual Morons : How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas. (2004) ISBN: 1400053552 --User:underalms 19:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
That looks to be a pretty lop-sided source, but if it contains relevant passages, bring them to the table. MFNickster 20:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Violation of NPOV?

The eugenics section is all wrong. She did not only support "good" eugenics. This is blatent POV. Read her own quotes. She plainly stated what she believed and this article basically says she didn't mean what she said and instead she meant what is politically correct in 2006. The part about a woman's right to chose doesn't belong in that section. It doesn't explain her position on eugenics at all. She did not only want to prevent people with Downs Syndrome from having children. People with Downs Syndrome probably can't have children! Downs Syndrome was not an issue. She went after the blind and deaf, after their relatives, and after minorites. And she didn't just find "support" among eugenics supporters. She was a leader. Plus she supported euthanasia, which is closely tied to eugenics. Even with the political correctness there's plenty of bigotry left over there just in the way the history of what happened to disabled people is denied so women's rights can prevail. Women's rights leaders are a bunch of bigots today and only get away with it cause they have power and use it.

Since User:Frankp36 brought up Edwin (not Eugene) Black's book, The War Against the Weak, I thought I'd contribute a direct quote from p. 127: "Sanger-hatred never receded. Decades after her death, discrediting Sanger was still a permanent fixture in a broad movement opposed to birth control and abortion. Their tactics frequently included the sloppy or deliberate misquoting, misattributing or misconstruing of single out-of-context sentences to falsely depict Sanger as a racist or anti-Semite. Sanger was no racist. Nor was she anti-Semitic." MFNickster 06:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I didn't read anything from her about the jews. But she makes distinctive statements on race. Shall we rather call her a racialist, then?! Here is another quote from her:
"Are we heading to biological destruction, toward the gradual but certain attack upon the stocks of intelligence and racial health by the sinister forces of the hordes of irresponsibility and imbecility? This is not such a remote danger as the optimistic Eugenist might suppose."—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.54.202.82 (talk • contribs) .
When dealing with turn-of-the-century sources one has to be very careful to determine when one says something about "racial health" whether they are talking about "the human race" generally or about specific "races" of people. The distinction between the two was not very sharp until the 1960s. In that quote it looks more like the former than the latter. --Fastfission 15:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
What do you believe she meant by 'stocks of intelligence' and 'racial health'? MFNickster 13:27, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

"Sanger clearly cannot be blamed directly for these deplorable occurrences"

No, not for nazism, but perhaps she must share the blame for the swedish and american forced-sterilization programs. Although she did not believe in inferior races, she did believe in segregation/sterilization of less wanted individuals, according to [4]. It's from a pro-choice site, but it's a complete article, and I haven't found any sites contesting its authenticity. (I have found sites correcting commonly attributed misquotations, but never this one) —This unsigned comment is by 71.107.249.66 (talk • contribs) .

You think this article violates WP:NPOV? Then fix it. But do NOT simply reword the section (and completely remove content) to swing it to the opposite POV. Let's see some citation:
  • People with Downs Syndrome probably can't have children! Where did you get that from? The article on Down syndrome says nothing of the sort.
They can. "Q: Can people with Down's syndrome have children? A: Infertility is not a problem associated with Down's syndrome. However, most people with Down syndrome do not go on to have children due to their learning difficulties." [5] MFNickster 18:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
  • You think she was a "leader" in eugenics? What pro-eugenics organization was she a part of? Did she speak at any conferences pushing eugenics?
  • Women's rights leaders are a bunch of bigots today and only get away with it cause they have power and use it. Statements like this make you sound like a dick, and thus reduce the effectiveness of any worthwhile points you might be making. I'd avoid them.
  • The "A Plan for Peace" link you provided is certainly interesting, and its content could be appropriately used and cited in this article.
I agree with you that certain sections of the article tend to read like an apologist's POV, but the goal should be to neutralize the article, not turn it into a Maragaret Sanger slam-fest. If you look through the history of the article, there have been many mini-edit wars over the article's POV. Instead of starting another one, let's work together to rectify the problem. As I've stated previously on this talk page, however, I will not tolerate any more uncited changes to this article. --JerryOrr 17:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I added the note on Down Syndrome as an example of a type of mental retardation, what Sanger and others referred to as the "feeble-minded." I don't really know if she believed Down Syndrome specifically was heritable, so in hindsight I should have checked that before adding it - it was just a handy example of a non-heritable trait that causes "feeble-mindedness", to use the parlance of the eugenists. MFNickster 00:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes/References format

Since we are making an effort to better cite this article, and the current method for creating footnotes can be difficult to maintain (all the subsequent numbers need to be manually changed when we add a new one in the middle), I'm considering reformatting the notation for this article according to WP:FN. Any objections? --JerryOrr 20:26, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

None from me. MFNickster 22:05, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I've converted the references in this article according to WP:FN. Please attempt to follow those guidelines for future citations.

Also, I added some cited content taken from the introduction to Edwin Black's The War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the book; my additions came from some online excerpts[6]. If anyone with a copy of the book would like to cite the actual pages, I would appreciate it! --JerryOrr 14:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ernst Rüdin

Jerry, I know you removed the uncited addition on Ernst Rüdin, but I nevertheless found myself wondering about his relevance. As far as I know, Sanger wasn't close to Rüdin (his article was published in Birth Control Review years after she resigned as editor). Maybe the anon was thinking of Lothrop Stoddard. Do you have any info on him in your sources? MFNickster 03:41, 15 April 2006 (UTC)


i know that there was a movie aobut her but i don't remember the name.

[edit] Letter to Clarence Gamble

Does anyone have a copy of the entire text of Sanger's Dec. 10 letter to Clarence Gamble re: the "Negro Project"? I can only find the excerpt recently added by User:134.121.126.133, which seems to be consistently quoted in isolation to give the impression that the project was in fact intended to "exterminate the negro population." As far as I know she never stated such a goal elsewhere (specifically referring to "negros"), and my impression is that she was trying to prevent a mistaken impression from taking hold. Obviously she was not successful if that's the case.

I find the cited reference (Blessed are the Barren, quoted at BlackGenocide.org) to be questionable at best, especially since it castigates Sanger for "character assassination, personal vilification and old-fashioned bigotry," and then goes on to recommend George Grant's book Killer Angel, which employs the very same tactics against Sanger. MFNickster 17:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

If you look at one of the sources cited in the Margaret Sanger article ( The Truth About Margaret Sanger, available here), you can see more of the letter. The article then goes on to explain that, like many Sanger quotes, it is taken out of context. It appears her intent was to prevent the false rumor (in her opinion, at least) that they were trying to "exterminate the negro population".
I thought of amending the new section to show that there is a counter-opinion to it, but I really think that it should just be removed. The context of the letter pretty much debunks the whole section, making it of little worth. --JerryOrr 19:44, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. It's also redundant, given the first paragraph of the section mentions the accusations of genocide. Also, I believe these accusations are not contemporary, they came long after the time of the letter. To my knowledge, Sanger was never formally accused of attempting genocide, even during her lifetime, or advocating forced sterilization of "negroes" who were healthy. I don't believe she ever described any ethnic race as 'unfit' as a whole. MFNickster 19:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the misleading section, per the consensus of this discussion. --JerryOrr 01:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revise new content

A new section was recently added that I believe had some serious problems. Aside from being a block of text just thrown into the article (it didn't flow with the rest of the content), it had parts which were redundant and/or POV. I felt it was easier to just remove it than try to fix it, but there was some good info in there (that actually had citations!) that I think we can re-incorporate into the article with a little work. Let's see what we can do! --JerryOrr 13:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

--BEGIN NEW CONTENT--

Eugenics is a theory of improving hereditary qualities by socially controlling human reproduction. Eugenicists, including the Nazis, were opposed to the use of contraception or abortion by healthy and "fit" women (Grossmann, 1995). In fact, Sanger's books were among the very first burned by the Nazis in their campaign against family planning ("Sanger on Exhibit," 1999/2000). (Sanger helped several Jewish women and men and others escape the Nazi regime in Germany ("Margaret Sanger and the 'Refugee Department'," 1993).)

Sanger, however, clearly identified with the broader issues of health and fitness that concerned the early 20th-century eugenics movement, which was enormously popular and well-respected during the 1920s and '30s — decades in which treatments for many hereditary and disabling conditions were unknown. But Sanger always believed that reproductive decisions should be made on an individual and not a social or cultural basis, and she consistently and firmly repudiated any racial application of eugenics principles. For example, Sanger vocally opposed the racial stereotyping that effected passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, on the grounds that intelligence and other inherited traits vary by individual and not by group (Chesler, 1992).

Though she tried for years, Sanger was unable to convince the leaders of the eugenics movement to accept her credo that "No woman can be free who does not own and control her body (Sanger, 1920)." Her on-going disagreement with the eugenicists of her day is clear from her remarks in The Birth Control Review of February 1919:

Eugenists imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her first duty to the state. We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother. . . .Only upon a free, self-determining motherhood can rest any unshakable structure of racial betterment (Sanger, 1919a).

Although Sanger uniformly repudiated the racist exploitation of eugenics principles, she agreed with the "progressives" of her day who favored

* incentives for the voluntary hospitalization and/or sterilization of people with untreatable, disabling, hereditary conditions
* the adoption and enforcement of stringent regulations to prevent the immigration of the diseased and "feebleminded" into the U.S.
* placing so-called illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, and dope-fiends on farms and open spaces as long as necessary for the strengthening and development of moral conduct

Planned Parenthood Federation of America finds these views objectionable and outmoded. Nevertheless, anti-family planning activists continue to attack Sanger, who has been dead for nearly 40 years, because she is an easier target than the unassailable reputation of PPFA and the contemporary family planning movement. However, attempts to discredit the family planning movement because its early 20th-century founder was not a perfect model of early 21st-century values is like disavowing the Declaration of Independence because its author, Thomas Jefferson, bought and sold slaves.

--END NEW CONTENT--

That whole piece is copied verbatim from this article, which is reason enough to remove it. MFNickster 18:19, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wild statements

Did Sanger really say stuff like this?

  • "Birth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches. I look forward to seeing humanity free someday of the tyranny of Christianity no less than Capitalism."
  • history records that she wrote of the necessity of “the extermination of “human weeds”... the ‘cessation of charity.”... the segregation of ‘morons, misfits, and the maladjusted,’ and ... the sterilization of ‘genetically inferior races.’” [7]

Sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense to me, but what does the Population control article say?

And Red China admitted that Mao Tse-Tung murdered 20 million Chinese civilians (other sources say 60 million), so democide and mass murder are not without precedent.

Anyway, can someone give me a better source than radio liberty? --Uncle Ed 19:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

It's possible she said some of these things. She was definitely an agitator against religion, patriarchy and capitalism in her youth. I think the best approach is to trace the sources of the quotes and make sure they are accurate and in context. Sanger's opponents frequently vilify her by association with Nazis, KKK, communists, etc. and there are a lot of sources of disinformation about her. To my knowledge, however, she never advocated killing anyone, born or unborn. Forced sterilization is something she did encourage, though, at least at one time. I don't consider Grant's Killer Angel to be a reliable or objective source in any respect, and for radio liberty to call it an "excellent" book shows extreme bias and lack of judgment IMHO. MFNickster 18:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Last Para of Eugenics/Euthanasia

In Woman and the New Race, chapter V, (available at [Bartleby.com]) Sanger wrote that, "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." This would seem to contradict the article's statement that Sanger "did not support active euthanasia." For that matter, according to ALL she did in fact single out "Negroes" (as well as Southern Europeans and Hebrews, but I don't have a source for them) as being inferior races, saying on 10/19/1939 that, "the most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their rebellious members," which would also contradict our text. I didn't want to put these up myself, because it's a stable text and big changes to the core meaning of what a section says should be Talk-paged approved, and also because the second source, at least, could draw some (I think unjustified) NPOV fire, so it should be discussed here. Thoughts?

A note: Planned Parenthood muses about its founder's statements at: [8] --BCSWowbagger 00:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Those are good examples of why selective quotation is a poor research practice. Both of those quotes are taken out of context to give the impression that Sanger took positions that she did not in fact take, for propaganda purposes.
The first quote is in reference to infant mortality, not abortion or infanticide. If you read the actual passage in the book, it's clear that Sanger is saying that the practice of having large families in poverty kills children, and that the children who survive suffer more than the ones who die.
The second quote is essentially just a poor choice of words. Sanger probably should have said "we do not want the mistaken impression to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," which meaning is clear from ther context of the letter. If you read about the program itself, it is well in line with Sanger's intention to bring birth control to those most burdened by poverty, who had no access to it. Yes, she did look view this goal through a eugenic lens-- she believed that the high birth rates of the poor led to higher incidence of "dysgenic" progeny, but I have yet to find anything that indicates she believed these racial or ethnic groups as a whole were "inferior." MFNickster 06:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with your interpretation in both cases, and did read both complete passages, as well as Planned Parenthood's defense of them. (I chose to ignore more than one obvious case of actual selective quotation.) I will grant that the second quotation could be interpreted your way. It could also be interpreted mine. As for the first, it is clear to me that she is not making a mere observation. She is making a suggestion as to a course of action to take care of the problem. Does that read like a rhetorical statement to you?
Yes, it does read like a rhetorical statement. The context is a chapter on the "wickedness of creating large families," a chapter about the misery caused by overpopulation and poverty. The whole section is descriptive of the problem without suggesting any course of action at all. I do think she was overstating the situation a bit (scaremongering?) to get her point across, but in every other source I've found, Sanger is consistent in recommending birth control as a means to make abortion unnecessary.
Remember that in other quotations, Sanger discourages women from having abortions (which were illegal during her lifetime), and directly refers to the "horrors of infanticide and abortion." Were you aware that she advertised her first clinic with a handbill that told mothers "do not kill, do not take life, but prevent!" ? MFNickster 13:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
All I'm saying is that, what with these statements that can be taken in multiple ways--as we have just shown--the contrary statements in the article should be less... absolute. But it's really not an article in which I have previously been involved, and I know there's nothing more irritating than some outside editor coming in and making demands without getting familiar with the standing consensus. Particularly in controversial articles. So, since I don't have the time to get involved, I'll leave it at what I've said. Thank you for your time, and good work overall on the article. --BCSWowbagger 06:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
What changes do you suggest? MFNickster 13:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Margaret Sanger

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 18:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] army of god

Sorry for not editing this myself, I haven't really done much editing on here ever. I just thought someone would like to know that this article links to the army of god website here:

"The previous year she had addressed a Ku Klux Klan rally in New Jersey.[1]"

This website contains pictures of dead babies, essays such as "why shoot an abortionist", and refers to abortion clinics as "babykilling abortion mills".

I hadn't noticed that, but it's certainly not appropriate to use such a POV link to support the edit. I changed it to the primary source, Sanger's autobiography. I'm leaning toward deleting the Klan thing altogether, because without any supporting context or further information, it's pretty meaningless and serves only to imply a "guilt by association."
Unfortunately, Sanger is not very specific in her anecdote about what she said at the meeting, and there's no third-party corroboration that she even attended this meeting, but since she herself reported it as "one of the weirdest experiences" she had in lecturing, it might be noteworthy.
That whole middle part of the Life section is a mishmash of people, dates, and events-- I'll try to patch it up a bit when I have time. MFNickster 06:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Delete it or move it to wikiquote. It's just her saying women in the Klan are stupid. JeffBurdges 20:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] unsupported statment

I see no support for the statment:

With advances in biology and genetics, it has become clear that the policies Sanger advocated to prevent the disabled from reproducing would in practice be ineffective

Notice how the reasons "advances in genetic" have no bearing on the disputed outcome "prevent the disabled"?

Its just someone pushing a POV. JeffBurdges 20:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The support I originally gave for that statement was Down Syndrome sufferers. I named them as an example of the kind of "unfit" group that the eugenicists sought to prevent from reproducing. The point being, Down Syndrome is not heritable, so there is no eugenic justification for limiting the reproduction of these so-called "feeble-minded" individuals. The reason we removed the statement is that no one had a source which specifically mentioned Down Syndrome sufferers as a target group of the eugenicists. I wasn't very conscious of the no original research policy when I added it. MFNickster 00:18, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
What do you mean Down's Syndrome is "not heritable"?? It's more than just being "feeble-mindend," Down's Syndrome is a genetic condition whose sufferers have an extra chromosome. Often times it does run in families, even if the parent himself/herself does not have the syndrome. November 10, 2006.
I simply meant that sterilizing those with Down Syndrome would do nothing to "improve the race" or lessen the incidence of the condition. I'm unsure of the eugenicists' actual position on the syndrome, but considering some of the minor conditions they used to classify people as "unfit" (some well within the "normal" variance of human genetics), it seemed likely that they would have considered Down sufferers as unfit, and therefore candidates for segregation or sterilization. It would have been unjustified and fruitless, that's my point. MFNickster 01:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see yor point, if its partially heritable, i.e. some other genetic factors influence the probability of the extra chromosome, then how you can say the race definitely wont be improved by eliminating one risk factor? Seems more complex than that. If Margaret Singer had an excessively simple minded view of eugenics, fine qoutes to that effect should be included. Heck, everyoby living in her time had an excessively simple minded view towards something technical, it was called moernism But keep in mind, Sanger's support for eugenics is not that of any irrational racist. And she would likely change her position to account for any new information presented to her. So you are essentially just attacking a strawman, when the reality is simply that our understanding of biology was nieve at the time. Also the modern opposition to eugenics is not based upon such technical difficulties. Modern opposition to eugenics is due to the fact that every single time it has been tried, the people implementing it applied it in a racist way. Even if you sterilize people who carry a segregation disorder gene, history suggests that a racist politician will see to it that many many more blacks are sterilized than whites. This was simply not known at Sanger's time. JeffBurdges 20:25, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I'm not "attacking" anything; in fact, I was trying to make the same point you just made-- Sanger's support for eugenics was limited by the scientific knowledge available at the time. In the case of Down Syndrome, you can't eliminate the "risk factor" through selective breeding, because the condition occurs in all human populations. It can't be "bred out," but the eugenicists of 1920 didn't know that. It probably doesn't belong in the article anyway, because it's not specifically relevant to Sanger's story-- though it is to eugenics in general. Except to illustrate that Sanger's motives were not racially motivated, as some critics claim, I think they were at least somewhat misguided and elitist. MFNickster 20:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Daughter

Is it known why her daughter died? -- CecilK 12:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Found the information. It was pneumonia. -- CecilK 12:25, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
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