Woman must have
her freedom
—the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she shall be a mother and how many children she will have.
_Margaret Sanger
Sanger and Her Sons |
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Margaret
Sanger (1879–1966). Woman and the New Race. 1920.
The chronicle of
Sanger’s decades-long battle to legalize and develop information on the
prevention of venereal disease and then methods of birth control, during which
she endured indictment, exile and prison.
XVIII. The Goal
XVIII. The Goal
WHAT is the goal of woman’s upward struggle? Is it
voluntary motherhood? Is it general freedom? Or is it the birth of a new
race? For freedom is not fruitless, but prolific of higher things. Being the
most sacred aspect of woman’s freedom, voluntary motherhood is motherhood in
its highest and holiest form. It is motherhood unchained—motherhood ready to
obey its own urge to remake the world.
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Voluntary motherhood implies a new morality—a
vigorous, constructive, liberated morality. That morality will, first of all,
prevent the submergence of womanhood into motherhood. It will set its face
against the conversion of women into mechanical maternity and toward the
creation of a new race.
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Woman’s rôle has been that of an incubator and
little more. She has given birth to an incubated race. She has given to her
children what little she was permitted to give, but of herself, of her
personality, almost nothing. In the mass, she has brought forth quantity, not
quality. The requirement of a male dominated civilization has been numbers.
She has met that requirement.
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It is the essential function of voluntary
motherhood to choose its own mate, to determine the time of childbearing and
to regulate strictly the number of offspring. Natural affection upon her
part, instead of selection dictated by social or economic advantage, will
give her a better fatherhood for her children. The exercise of her right to decide how many children she will have
and when she shall have them will procure for her the time necessary to the
development of other faculties than that of reproduction. She will give play
to her tastes, her talents and her ambitions. She will become a full-rounded
human being.
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Thus and only thus will woman be able to
transmit to her offspring those qualities which make for a greater race.
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The importance of developing these qualities
in the mothers for transmission to the children is apparent when we recall
certain well-established principles of biology. In all of the animal species
below the human, motherhood has a clearly discernible superiority over
fatherhood. It is the first pulse of organic life. Fatherhood is the
fertilizing element. Its development, compared to that of the mother cell, is
comparatively new. Likewise, its influence upon the progeny is comparatively
small. There are weighty authorities who assert that through the female alone
comes those modifications of form, capacity and ability which constitute
evolutionary progress. It was the mothers who first developed cunning in
chase, ingenuity in escaping enemies, skill in obtaining food, and
adaptability. It was they also who attained unfailing discretion in
leadership, adaptation to environment and boldness in attack. When the animal
kingdom as a whole is surveyed, these stand out as distinctly feminine
traits. They stand out also as the characteristics by which the progress of
species is measured.
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Why is all this true of the lower species yet
not true of human beings? The secret is revealed by one significant fact—the
female’s functions in these animal species are not limited to motherhood
alone. Every organ and faculty is fully employed and perfected. Through the
development of the individual mother, better and higher types of animals are
produced and carried forward. In a word, natural law makes the female the
expression and the conveyor of racial efficiency.
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Birth control itself, often denounced as a
violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of
the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives
or of those who will become defectives. So, in compliance with nature’s working
plan, we must permit womanhood its full development before we can expect of
it efficient motherhood. If we are to make racial progress, this development
of womanhood must precede motherhood in every individual woman. Then and then
only can the mother cease to be an incubator and be a mother indeed. Then
only can she transmit to her sons and daughters the qualities which make
strong individuals and, collectively, a strong race.
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Voluntary motherhood also implies the right of
marriage without maternity. Two utterly different functions are developed in
the two relationships. In order to give the mate relationship its full and
free play, it is necessary that no woman should be a mother against her will.
There are other reasons, of course—reasons more frequently emphasized—but the
reason just mentioned should never be overlooked. It is as important to the
race as to the woman, for through it is developed that high love impulse
which, conveyed to the child, attunes and perfects its being.
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Marriage, quite aside from parentage, also
gives two people invaluable experience. When parentage follows in its proper
time, it is a better parentage because of the mutual adjustment and
development—because of the knowledge thus gained. Few couples are fitted to
understand the sacred mystery of child life until they have solved some of
the problems arising out of their own love lives.
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Maternal love, which usually follows upon a
happy, satisfying mate love, becomes a strong and urgent craving. It then exists
for two powerful, creative functions. First, for its own sake, and then for
the sake of further enriching the conjugal relationship. It is from such soil
that the new life should spring. It is the inherent right of the new life to
have its inception in such physical ground, in such spiritual atmosphere. The
child thus born is indeed a flower of love and tremendous joy. It has within
it the seeds of courage and of power. This child will have the greatest
strength to surmount hardships, to withstand tyrannies, to set still higher
the mark of human achievement.
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Shall we pause here to speak again of the
rights of womanhood, in itself and of itself, to be absolutely free? We have
talked of this right so much in these pages, only to learn that in the end, a
free womanhood turns of its own desire to a free and happy motherhood, a
motherhood which does not submerge the woman, but which is enriched because
she is unsubmerged. When we voice, then, the necessity of setting the
feminine spirit utterly and absolutely free, thought turns naturally not to
rights of the woman, nor indeed of the mother, but to the rights of the
child—of all children in the world. For this is the miracle of free
womanhood, that in its freedom it becomes the race mother and opens its heart
in fruitful affection for humanity.
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How narrow, how pitifully puny has become
motherhood in its chains! The modern motherhood enfolds one or two adoring
children of its own blood, and cherishes, protects and loves them. It does
not reach out to all children. When motherhood is a high privilege, not a
sordid, slavish requirement, it will encircle all. Its deep, passionate
intensity will overflow the limits of blood relationship. Its beauty will
shine upon all, for its beauty is of the soul, whose power of enfoldment is
unbounded.
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When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep
yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become
the foundation of a new race. There will be no killing of babies in the womb
by abortion, nor through neglect in foundling homes, nor will there be
infanticide. Neither will children die by inches in mills and factories. No
man will dare to break a child’s life upon the wheel of toil.
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Voluntary motherhood will not be passive,
resigned, or weak. Out of its craving will come forth a fierceness of love
for its fruits that will make such men as remain unawakened stand aghast at
its fury when offended. The tigress is less terrible in defense of her
offspring than will be the human mother. The daughters of such women will not
be given over to injustice and to prostitution; the sons will not perish in
industry nor upon the battle field. Nor could they meet these all too common
fates if an undaunted motherhood were there to defend. Childhood and youth
will be too valuable in the eyes of society to waste them in the murderous
mills of blind greed and hate.
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This is the dawn. Womanhood shakes off its
bondage. It asserts its right to be free. In its freedom, its thoughts turn
to the race. Like begets like. We gather perfect fruit from perfect trees.
The race is but the amplification of its mother body, the multiplication of
flesh habitations—beautified and perfected for souls akin to the mother soul.
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The relentless efforts of reactionary
authority to suppress the message of birth control and of voluntary
motherhood are futile. The powers of reaction cannot now prevent the feminine
spirit from breaking its bonds. When the last fetter falls the evils that
have resulted from the suppression of woman’s will to freedom, will pass.
Child slavery, prostitution, feeblemindedness, physical deterioration,
hunger, oppression and war will disappear from the earth.
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In their subjection women have not been brave
enough, strong enough, pure enough to bring forth great sons and daughters.
Abused soil brings forth stunted growths. An abused motherhood has brought
forth a low order of humanity. Great beings come forth at the call of high
desire. Fearless motherhood goes out in love and passion for justice to all
mankind. It brings forth fruits after its own kind. When the womb becomes
fruitful through the desire of an aspiring love, another Newton will come
forth to unlock further the secrets of the earth and the stars. There will
come a Plato who will be understood, a Socrates who will drink no hemlock,
and a Jesus who will not die upon the cross. These and the race that is to be
in America await upon a motherhood that is to be sacred because it is free.
*This article & the entire contents of this information, can be found in its original form on this website: http://www.bartleby.com/1013/18.html
*One great resource: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/
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