The Right To One's Body Margaret Sanger Analysis

The Right to One’s Body by Margaret Sanger serves as a call to action for women to take control of their bodies and make the decision as to whether or not they want to be mothers, without the input or persuasion of a man. Sanger believed that “The basic freedom of the world is woman’s freedom,” and that ultimately, using birth control was a woman’s decision. Sanger was born in 1879 and lived in New York for a majority of her life. She was one of eleven children, and her mother unfortunately had multiple miscarriages. Sanger felt that all of these miscarriages had negative effects on her mind and body, diminishing her health overall, and her mother died very young. Sanger lived in poverty as her father struggled to stay sober and support his large family (biography.com). Sanger studied nursing at Claverack College and Hudson River Institute in 1896 and ended up marrying an architect she met there. Together they had three children. After moving to Manhattan with her family, Sanger joined The Women’s Committee of the New York Socialist party and the Liberal Club. After joining, she started writing a newspaper column titled What Every Girl Should Know, in …show more content…
Sanger’s mission was to address the fact that if any change were to be made, it had to start with the realization that women had to take control of their bodies and their reproductive powers. Not only did Sanger see her mother struggle with excessive childbirth, but she also worked as a nurse and saw how women would hurt themselves as they attempted to terminate their own pregnancies. This was Sanger’s turning point, and so refused to continue her nursing career and made it her goal to fight to make birth control (a term which she coined) and contraceptives more accessible to everyone