The argument over a woman’s right to choose over the life of an unborn baby has been a prevalent issue in America for many years. As a birth control activist, Margaret Sanger is recognized for her devotion to the pro-choice side of the debate as she has worked to provide sex education and legalize birth control. As part of her pro-choice movement, Sanger delivered a speech at the Sixth International Neo-Malthusian and Birth Control Conference in March of 1925. This speech is called “The Children’s Era,” in which she explains how she wants the twentieth century to become the “century of the child.” Margaret Sanger uses pathos throughout her speech as she brings up many of the negative possibilities that unplanned parenthood can bring for both children and parents. She questions society’s actions to boost the clarity of why pro-choice is beneficial to the advancement of the “century of the …show more content…
Sanger connects raising children to growing a garden and does so in an effective, coherent way. By using a metaphor like this, the audience is able to understand that learning “the lesson of the gardener” is directly related to supplying a child with a safe environment with prepared parents. This analogy helps the audience understand that if parents don’t know how to provide and properly care for a child, the child will be cheated out of a happy and healthy life (Sanger). Rhetorical appeals and devices are necessary for all types of literature, including speeches. The use of these appeals and devices varies from speech to speech depending on the speaker’s purpose, relationship with the audience, situation, and intentions for the mood of the speech. In “The Children’s Era” by Margaret Sanger, the rhetorical appeal of pathos and device of analogy were important in order for her to get the reaction she wanted from her
In America and The Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation, Elaine May Tyler examined the history of birth control in the United States. May traced the pill's conception and evolution the United States through to the twenty-first century. The book consisted of an introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion. May approached the topic in the context of influence of suffragist and reformer Margaret Sanger's advocacy originating in the late Progressive Era and Cold War American ideology, through to the emerging movements of the sexual revolution and the feminist movement, including acknowledging political, religious, racial, socio-economic, and gender bias factors.
Her compassion pushed her to take a stand, and fight for birth control for these women so that they could lead better and more fulfilling lives. Margaret believed that forcing women to undergo life-threatening births, and having children that they could not care for was essentially murder to both mother and children. Ironically Margaret’s mother was a devoted catholic, which in most cases because of Catholic faith often rejects birth control and views it as sinful, and Margaret fought for it to be allowed in the United States. Margaret noticed while working as a nurse that if women became pregnant and realized that they could not afford the child, they would seek abortions in unsanitary clinics and often became injured or worse in the process.
Rather than stating the argument, Willis poses it as a question, “Are the fetuses the moral equivalent of born human beings?” (Abortion Debate 76), thus showing how modern feminists can only support one side of the argument in their chosen stance, and cause limitations by doing so. In doing so, Willis shows how to some “extent… we objectify our enemy and define the terms of our struggle as might makes right, the struggle misses its point” (Ministries of Fear 210), which implies that feminists have completely missed the point of the argument by getting caught up in an answer. Rather than looking for a compromise or gray area, they exert their stance as the only solution that woman can have. Willis also shows how feminists fundamentally “see the primary goal of feminism as freeing omen from the imposition of so called ‘male values’, and creating an alternative culture based on ‘female values’”
Sanger's legacy is controversial. Some people view her as a hero who fought for women's rights, while others view her as a eugenicist who promoted birth control as a means of controlling certain populations. Sanger did support eugenics early in her career, but later distanced herself from the movement. Sanger's work had a profound impact on women's reproductive rights in the United States. She popularized the term "birth control" and helped to make birth control legal and more accessible.
In the 1910s, Sanger became an advocate for birth control. As the years went on, Margaret Sanger became associated with the term of birth control and even later, eugenics. In the 1920s, she gave a speech entitled “The Morality of Birth Control”. In the speech, she addressed why birth control should be legal and why women deserve
Margaret Sanger Margaret Sanger, a feminist social reformer, argued that “women cannot be on equal footing with men until they have complete control over their reproductive functions”. Her argument improved our everyday life by providing more information on contraceptives, giving women the power to control their bodies, and changing the role of women and men. Margaret Sanger was determined and dedicated to provide women with information about contraceptives which eventually improved the lives of many women. During the Progressive Era, women had gained a lot more interest in becoming independent by working and improving their education.
In her pilgrimage to fight for women’s rights, activist Margaret Sanger created a speech on a severely controversial topic not only during her time period, but during our present time period as well. While many firmly disagreed with her and still do, she did bring to light a major disparity between sexes and social classes. By vocalizing her qualms with the rights of women, mainly in the middle and lower classes, to decide for themselves if they wish to have children or not. By voicing her opinions in an extremely misogynistic era she made herself a totem in women’s history. Women do have a right to decide for themselves if they wish to have children or not.
Taylor Hurst Kaiser AP Lang 11 November 2015 Analysis of Margaret Sanger’s Speech on Birth Control Margaret Sanger, an American birth control activist, made an announcement titled “The Children’s Era,’ at the first national birth-control conference in March of 1925. In this speech, Sanger attempts to influence her ideas and beliefs on the importance of birth control and contraceptives to the health of society’s women. She also vividly explains how controlled childbearing would apply to children who would eventually be born.
Trying to prevent neglected children and back-alley abortions, Margaret Sanger gave the moving speech, “The Children’s Era,” in 1925 to spread information on the benefits and need for birth control and women's rights. Margaret Sanger--activist, educator, writer, and nurse--opened the first birth control clinic in the United States and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. During most of the 1900’s, birth control and abortions were illegal in the United States, causing women to give birth unwillingly to a child they must be fully responsible for. This caused illness and possible death for women attempting self-induced abortion. Sanger uses literary devices such as repetition and analogies
Margaret worked as a visiting nurse in the impoverished neighborhoods of New York City’s Lower East Side. After working with numerous patients that were poor, immigrant women suffering the health consequences of botched abortions and repeated pregnancies (“Margaret Sanger,” n.d.). Seeing women suffer was the catalyst which brought about her belief that the ability to limit family size was an essential component to maintaining women’s health and breaking the cycle of poverty. Therefore, Margaret redirected her attention from nursing to advocating for the use and legalization of birth control and contraceptives (Margaret Sanger,” n.d.). During this time, it was illegal to provide contraceptives information due to the Comstock Act passed by Congress in 1873.
“Rather than face a possible five-year jail sentence, Sanger fled to England. While there, she worked in the women’s movement and researched other forms of birth control” (“Margaret Sanger”). Still, in the most stressful of times, Margaret Sanger was unremitting and determined to make a difference. Through all of her trials and tribulations, she was astounding in her unending efforts. All of Sangers hard work started to pay
Southern University’s Founders’ Day Dr. Mae C. Jemison Speech Dr. Mae Jemison is the first African American woman to go to space. Currently, she works with National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. On March 9, 2016, she gave a brilliant speech to everybody present in the F.G Clark Activity center at Southern University on the occasion of the 136th Southern University Founders’ Day.
A women’s right to personally decide what she wants done to her body in any medical situation has been something they have fought for many years. On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court set a precedent that gave women that right. Along with this right to decide came the legalization of medical abortions. This is a subject that affects all American citizens nowadays, both men and women, because of the recent protests such as the Women’s March on Washington. As citizens of the United States, men and women alike, we know the historical past of what women have fought for and what rights they have been given due to that fight.
In 1960, the first birth control pill was put on the market. This was the first time a woman’s reproductive health was in her own control. Ever since the 1900’s women have been fighting for the right to their own reproductive rights (“The Fight for Reproductive Rights”). With the upcoming presidential election the right to obtain birth control and other contraceptives for women could be jeopardized, and taken out of the control of the woman. Thus, the history of birth control, the statistics of how it affects today’s society, why women should have the ability to obtain it easily, and how if outlawed it would not only hurt women, but also the economy are all important topics in the women’s rights movement and very relevant in modern day society.
Doris Gudino Professor Chounlamountry Political Science 1 27 July 2015 Pro-Choice Anyone? A woman has, undoubtedly, the freedom to procreate, but once a woman chooses to retreat from that freedom, a commotion arises. Abortion is a woman’s choice for many reasons. It’s her body, therefore, no one else can decide for said person.