Margaret Sanger was a dedicated, caring advocate of the human right of every woman to control her body - and thus her destiny. Her "aha moment" was her fervent belief in every woman's entitlement to decide if and when, to have a child; every child's right to be wanted, planned for, and loved; and the equal importance of sexual enjoyment and fulfillment for women as for men.
She was born Margaret Louise Higgins on Sept. 14, 1879, the sixth of 11 children of Irish part-time stonemason and free-thinker Michael Higgins and Anne Purcell Higgins in Corning, N.Y. Margaret nursed her mother, a tubercular woman worn out from the endless cycle of pregnancy (18 in all), childbearing, child-rearing, household duties, inadequate diet, and sickness - a fate common to many impoverished, overburdened women who frequently died far too young. Margaret saw firsthand the need for a better existence for families such as hers, and for women like her mother.
A year after her mother's death, Margaret began nurse's training at White Plains Hospital. While studying nursing at Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital, she met architect William Sanger. They were married in 1902. By 1912, they had three children, but suburban family life was not satisfying for her. They moved to New York, where she did childbirth nursing in the overcrowded tenements of Brownsville in the lower East Side. These desperate women begged her to tell them how to prevent pregnancies. Sanger saw their plight as a kind of servitude and resolved to lessen the burden.
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Defiant nurse promoted women's health issues [Philadelphia Inquirer,PA]
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