Margaret Sanger, Problematic Rebel

 I don't think anyone can argue that Margaret Sanger, strong proponent of family planning and birth control, was a rebel.  Margaret Sanger advocated that married women should take control of their reproductive options at a time when women, married or otherwise, didn't have much control over anything.  In my mind, anyone who argues that women should have autonomy over their bodies and be able to make their own decisions about when (and whether) to have a family belongs in the "good guy" category.  However, questions have arisen as to exactly what the motivations were behind Margaret Sanger's advocacy of family planning.  Was she in fact motivated by racism and actually promoting eugenics?  Having done some brief research, here is what I have found:

In the good guy column:

• She was an advocate that birth control should be available to married women.  Death in child birth was MUCH more common then so having a baby could be viewed as a very dicey proposition for most women.  That's ignoring the financial/emotional ramifications of having to care for another human being, assuming the birth is successful.  To that end, she helped legalize contraception.  Again, she was trying to make contraception available to married women.  The idea that anyone would try to police sex between two individuals married to one another was really shocking to me when I was younger.  I know now that certain religions believe that sex should only be between married people (a man and a woman) and then only for the purposes of procreation.  So, I can see that what Margaret Sanger was doing was revolutionary at the time (hence her rebel status) but today the idea that a married woman should have autonomy over her own body is much more prevalent.  She wanted women to have more choices, the way men did.  
• At the time, because of the lack of contraception, many women (including married women) who found themselves pregnant would opt to have an abortion rather than give birth.  Abortions were illegal and often dangerous operations which sometimes ended in serious infection or even the death of the women. Margaret Sanger wanted to avoid this scenario altogether and felt that contraception was the most practical option.  She didn't think asking married people to avoid sex was going to go over well.
• She was very concerned with overpopulation and its effects on society, which she felt would include poverty and famine.  This seems to have been a general concern about numbers and not aimed at a specific group.  She felt strongly that the decision to give birth should always rest with the woman, never with the state.  This sets her at odds with racist governments such as those in Nazi Germany or the United States (see Mississippi Appendectomy for the immoral treatment of certain of its citizens by the United States government).
• She opened a clinic in Harlem to serve African Americans and was very strict about making sure the patients there were provided with equal services.
• Her second husband was the first legal manufacturer of diaphragms in America.  That doesn't really make Margaret Sanger a good person but it is an interesting fact.

In the "bad guy" column:

• She was, in fact, a supporter of eugenics but NOT based on race.  It turns out there can be many reasons why one might want to limit someone's ability to procreate and race/ethnicity is just one of those factors.  Margaret Sanger wanted to discourage procreation by those she deemed "unfit", by which they either didn't meet a certain threshold financially or mentally.  (The last could refer to either intelligence or mental health and could even include things like alcholism.)
• She strongly stressed the idea that one should limit the number of births in order to live within one's economic ability to raise and support healthy children.
• She was willing to look the other way when others framed arguments in terms of race.  She took a "by any means necessary" attitude towards her goals.  They do say that politics makes for strange bedfellows.

I will leave it to the reader to decide their own feelings about Margaret Sanger.  I will just say that all human beings are complicated and that people sometimes do what turns out to be the right thing for the wrong reason (and vice versa).  I'm glad that I took a closer look at Margaret Sanger and can have a more nuanced view of her work.