Margaret Sanger Analysis

The dog and I are walking down Edgars Lane, which is a long, flat street filled with old Colonials and Tudors. No two houses look alike, and all are very impressive. It’s one of the nicest blocks in our lovely village along the Hudson River.

The dog suddenly freezes. There are two squirrels scrambling wildly around an oak tree a few feet ahead. They have the dog’s complete attention, and we are now at a standstill. Not the workout I’d envisioned when we left the house 20 minutes earlier for a lunchtime walk.

I use the break to organize many thoughts competing for space inside my head. Pushing aside concerns about the half completed outline of my next article and a missing library book, I start planning how I’m going to get three kids to three different ball fields after school while wondering about the the current
contents of the fridge and the state of my raggedy sneakers.

The squirrels are still at it.
The dog is mesmerized and looking like he wants to get in on the action. We’re going to be here a while.

I look around and realize that the tree the squirrels are climbing and descending at dizzying speeds is sitting in the front yard of the former house of Margaret Sanger, the nurse and activist who lived here for a few years in the first decade of the 1900s.

Sanger’s time in Hastings was brief and, at least initially, traumatic. Her young family’s newly built house went on fire the night they moved in. She, her husband, and young son escaped safely, and the house was rebuilt, but Sanger grew to dislike life in our leafy ‘burb. She ultimately moved her family, which by then included three children, back to the city, so they could participate in the “. . .great ‘Pageant of Living,’” as she described it in her 1931 book, My Fight for Birth Control.

Many of us happen to think we “live” quite well while residing in Hastings. This statement has always rankled a bit. As I looked over the house, I also find it tough to believe someone would want to leave this stately home and address.

But we’re lucky Sanger chose to
go.

The move allowed her to more actively pursue her goal of making sure women had access to safe and effective birth control information and methods. In 1916, Sanger opened the country’s first birth control clinic in Brooklyn. It was followed by similar clinics in the Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan, which eventually formed the basis for Planned Parenthood of New York City.

It’s difficult now to imagine now how radical her work was then. The Comstock Law of 1873—officially the Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles for Immoral Use—made it illegal to disseminate information about birth control and available devices, as well as information about abortion, sexuality, and sexually transmitted diseases. Many women’s health advocates, including Sanger, went to jail and were prosecuted for discussing and sharing reproductive health information.

Ultimately, Sanger played an instrumental role in the development---and FDA approval, in 1960---of the first oral contraceptive, providing women with unprecedented control over their fertility.

It’s reasonable to think Sanger might not have played such a large part in these milestones for women had she remained in our sleepy little town in the early 20th Century. So, while it’s hard to imagine giving up the daily Hudson River views she enjoyed while here, women everywhere are fortunate she did.