filed in What Gets Me Through the Day
The Woman Rebel
I got my first prescription for birth control pills when I was 17, away at college, and ready for sex. By then, it was no longer a rebellious act, but a fact of modern life. It is staggering to imagine that until 1972, there were states in America, where it was illegal for single women to buy contraception. The hero of our story is the revolutionary Margaret Sanger who fought for 50 years to ensure that women could control their pregnancies. In 1914, she coined the very term, birth control, was wanted by the law, and fled to Europe, where she launched the journal, The Woman Rebel, declaring, “a woman’s body belongs to herself alone.” She returned to the States and started the first birth control clinic in 1916 (which eventually became Planned Parenthood), and was actively involved in the development of the Pill.
In celebration of Margaret Sanger’s birthday, September 14, 1879, I made a donation to Planned Parenthood.
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We’ve come a long way but still have so
e more to go 🙂
@Sunehra: True! One of these days, birth control pills will be covered by every woman’s health plan, loons will stop shooting up Planned Parenthood, and everyone will acknowledge that partial-birth abortion is undertaken as a necessary last resort, not some whimsical quick fix.
Oh yes, let’s celebrate the woman who inspired Adolf Hitler in his views of eugenics and “murdering socially undesirable people.”
She is quoted as admitting, “We do not want word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”
Do some research and find less morally-bankrupt people to admire.