Transcripts For CSPAN3 Jean Baker Margaret Sanger A Life Of Passion 20240713

So we are playing with some technical difficulties. We are glad youre all here and i hope you all found a drink, and again, i appreciate your patience. Of course, welcome to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. My name is amanda leiden. Curator, i am delighted to see you all here to see jean baker, author of Margaret Sanger a life of passion. She will be in conversation this evening with cristina page. We often think of margaret brooklynbeginnings in in the opening of that Family Planning and Birth Control clinic in brownsville. She started that clinic after being a nurse here on the Lower East Side. Here with the cohort of, goldman, who we will be discussing in two weeks. Todays talk is not just fitting, it is surprisingly timely, it is also fitting because it was a good chance Margaret Sanger new one or more of the immigrant women who lived down the street, a few doors down at 97 orchard street. Tonights guest jean baker is goucherr of history at college in baltimore. She is the author of several books on American History, including sisters the lives of americas separatists, and the Mary Todd Lincoln biography. Professor baker has done a remarkable job telling the story of her newest subject, Margaret Sanger in this highly effective biography. Publishers weekly boasts, best known as an advocate for the Birth Control movement , Margaret Sanger was a polarizing figure, who jean baker expertly parses. Professor baker will be joined by cristina page. Talk and baker will read for 20 minutes or so, then we will bring up cristina, who will facilitate a conversation n. After that we will be passing around your microphone and get to as many questions as we have time for, and then officer baker will be signing copies of Margaret Sanger a life of passion. When you buy a copy of the featured book, you are supporting the author as well as all of the programs we offer here at the museum. If you choose to become a Museum Member this evening, your copy of the featured book is comes a mystery. Finally, without further ado, please silence your cell phones and joining me in welcoming jean baker. [applause] i want to begin with the life of jea Margaret Sanger. Her life was full of these dramatic tales and this, it seems to me, is most appropriate tonight. On a summer evening in 1912, a century ago next summer, a young nurse, and i am sure you know who the young nurse was,. Eceived a telephone call here it immediately, we see the influence of new technology, which i am aware of tonight. [laughter] urging her to come quickly to the Lower East Side, where sadie hemorrhaging from a botched abortion. So, Margaret Sanger left her family, taking a small black bag , that symbol that nurses had period, and hurried to the crowded tenement rooms of sadie and jake sacks. And once sadies hemorrhage had been stopped she asked the doctor who was there what she , could do to not have any more children. She was 28 years old and she already had three children and she, her husband did not make enough money to support them. The doctor in that in different way of physicians during this hayward and you should be aware, most doctors will post kind of contraception said tell jake to sleep on the roof. [laughter] sangerlater, margaret was called back to the sacks apartment. This time, now pregnant with her posture of, she had gone again to one of the back alley , as wenists in an era all remember, when abortion was illegal and dangerous. Now she had septicemia. Infection in her vagina. And in a few hours she was dead. This event, as told and retold by Margaret Sanger, was the transforming event in her life, and the founding moment of what became one of the most successful indeed, after writing this biography, i would say the most successful advocacy in American History. Let me quote from her autobiography about this epiphany that she had. When i finally arrived home, i looked out my window on a dimly see, technology really [laughter] ok. When i finally arrived home, i looked out my window on a dimly lighted city. Its pains, its grief crowded in on me. Women writhing to bring forth little babies, themselves naked and hungry and wrapped in newspapers to keep them from the cold and coffins. Coffins. Itssun came up and threw reflection over the house tops. It was the dawn of a new day in my life also. I was resolved to do something to change the destiny of mothers whose miseries were as vast as the sky. And it would be heard. I would be heard. I can think of no more for ariate setting discussion of Margaret Sanger to be heard than this place, this tournament museum, so close to where the sacks family actually lived, and where sanger worked. This is a museum that honors those americans who lived on the Lower East Side, and whose advocate, Margaret Sanger became. All of theto Tenement Museum staff, and especially amanda, for making this occasion possible, and thanks to all of you for coming. I do believe there is a Goucher Group here. Say hurray . [laughter] [applause] good. Wased to think a gopher just a symbol, unathletic symbol. But an athletic symbol. But now i know about lions. I think gophers are better. [laughter] to speakopose to do is for 20 minutes about my version of singers life and work sangers life and work, and then cristina page, a fellow gawker goucher graduate and advocate rights,oductive and author of how the prochoice movement saved of politics,dom and the war on sex. We will have a conversation on sanger then we look forward to your questions and comments. Cristina is an expert on the recent history of abortion rights. So i will defer all questions after Margaret Sangers death in 1966. Fore are perilous times womens reproductive rights. The signposts every day. A constitutional amendment in mississippi that would bestow on finalizedeggs yes, personhood and constitutional rights. I should think that its defeat last week was a victory rather such an amendment testifies to the degree that we have shifted from concern for pregnant women to a fetuscentric society where such an amendment is on the ballot and supported by the states outgoing governor, haley barbour, who almost run for president. Amendment, if it should pass anywhere, and it will be on the ballot in colorado and other states, reminds me of Margaret Atwoods the handmaids tale. Does anybody know . I knew i was in the right city. [laughter] and of course, we are all , with the aware continuing erosion of abortion , longer waiting times, new standards for clinics insistence on fetal pain, nothing to do with maternal remarked on now, and now, even the efforts of the republicancontrolled house of representatives to defund planned parenthood. Now Margaret Sanger is very much , a part of this retrograde movement as the brand name for Birth Control and the founder of Family Planning clinics. She is vilified in purposeful propaganda that seeks to discredit providers of essential health services. Two weeks ago i guess i should apologize for even bringing his name up herman cain declared that sangers objective was to put Birth Control clinics in primarily black communities to kill black babies. Thats a quote. This is also a quote, it is planned genocide. Perhaps some of you have heard about or even seen the billboards outside of atlanta, put up by the georgia right to Life Movement that read black babies are an endangered species. Of course they are intended to scare away black women. It is a pernicious attempt of the antiabortion movement. Now, there is a link this is in connection to Margaret Sanger , on some of the right to life websites, to Margaret Sanger who is portrayed as a racist and eugenicist who taught the nazis about sterilization. My book, Margaret Sanger a life of passion, is an effort sanger, to place her in a context of her time, especially insofar as 20th century eugenicism is concerned. , itgreat story of her life seems to me, is how a young, uneducated nobody without money without training in a persuasive techniques of lecturing and writing, a woman who suffered from tuberculosis for much of her life, and in her later life, heart trouble and gallbladder disease, how did this woman become the leader of an Effective Campaign to make contraception legal, cheats, effective and accessible . It was none of these things when she began that summer in 1912. It was all of those things when she died in 1966. When she began, sanger faced a daunting task. She had to reorient sexual values. She had to gain acceptance for the revolutionary notion that sex and reproduction could be separate. Anyone here think that it wouldnt be separate . And that, by the way, is one of her contributions to both men and women. And that women could enjoy sex without worrying about pregnancy. In this struggle, sanger had very powerful enemies. An obdurate Catholic Church that made any use of Birth Control a scene. Made any use of Birth Control ua sin. A dismissive medical profession that opposed contraception for a variety of reasons, and static Public Opinion that held Birth Control as suffrage leader carrie catt once said in a letter to sanger, by the way, vulgar and obscene. She also faced the legal prohibition of the comstock law birth3 that defined control as obscene and pornographic matter, and that made any publication, mailing,ment, importation of devices and information about Birth Control punishable as a criminal felony. In acts of civil disobedience sanger violated this and was , jailed and once she fled the United States to avoid prosecution. So, how did she create a movement and an organization that by the 1920s included prominent americans . Commitments was her byradical causes fostered the cultural and Political Climate of this city before world war i . Why did she not just ride along with radicals like emma goldman inbout whom you will hear two weeks . And the 1950s is an extraordinary choice. Why did she choose to support lab of dr. Known ra Gregory Pincus who was working on progesterone, and why did she encourage her rich friend, catherine maccormack, to do so as well. And what of her personal life . Two husbands, many, many, many motheringstyle of that would not or in her, the centerfold in parents magazine. [laughter] and human it is these questions but i thought the answer in this biography. ,f course, i doubt that sanger who believed in the oak, and to someday believed in the oc degree into some spiritualism, would approve of what i have written. I believe this is what whataphers care more about their subject would think about what they have written than they do their reading audience. I guess i shouldnt say that. [laughter] wrote, i hate all these biographies that go backandforth over your early years, dragging out this and that, and that has nothing to do ,th your recent life pragmatics a visionary, she believed in the future. As she once wrote, and they think this is one of the most important things she said about herself i forget the past as fast as i can because i am making plans for the future. To harness these topics, i needed a theme, the kind of organizing principle that biographers require and that professors and courage of encourage of their undergraduate students. You need some sort of umbrella, a conceptual framework as it were. I found mine in the several meanings of the word passion that seem to encapsulate her life. First, selfsacrifice. Christ of the passion of , and we mean his sacrifice. Does haved passion that sense of sacrifice. Upt is what sanger gave during her long and very, very traumatic life. She surrendered time with her children. She suffered from loneliness. She gave up the possibility of leisure and some of the best watering spots in the world with , whoich second husband complain forever that she was never home enough. But passion also refers, as we and, to sexual feelings certainly, an essential component of sangers life is her enjoyment of sex with many, many lovers. Hard to be redundant and many, butd many, it does take her into a different framework in terms of the number of men that she had sexual relationships with. So it should. And her advocacy from her own experience, of female sexuality, at a time when american women were just awakening from their victorian slumbers. And finally, passion means a commitment. I think this is probably its ant common usage, a zeal and intensity toward a specific purpose. There was nothing in sangers life, not children, nor her husband, nor friend nor lovers that was ever as important to her as her commitment to Birth Control. Making it legal, effective cheap , and accessible. I found in the word, passion, the lever for an understanding of this long and important life. I will read a brief passage from the end of the introduction. This biography also seeks to the personal and the political, not as had geography but as the should not hy but not as hagiograp as authenticity. I hold no expectation that the angry defile hours of sanger will revise their information, nor do i believe that sanger deserves sanctification. But i do hope that a new generation of americans will consider the life of an important american from her perspective and on her terms. Accordingly, this biography focuses on sangers means of ascent from the invisibility of her birth as one of 11 poor higgins children in new york, to come by the early 1950s, one of the most influential women in the world. Favormodern americans those who perpetually reinvent themselves, shedding their earlier beings like crocodile skins, sanger was different. She kept adding various lives and talents to what became a very effective public temperament. In 1940, a writer wrote to his friend, Margaret Sanger the thing which is recognized and taught would make over the life of thousands is that you want your battle, in spite of the fact that when you started, you were not a strong woman, that you didnt have the advantages of a complete or formal education nor training as a speaker, and that you did not have an organization to back you up, but you won, because you had devotion,onsecration, compassion, and a ceaseless desire to be of the greatest service to mankind. That is the inspiring lesson of your life. Now you see all this different kind of paraphernalia. Cristina and i are going to sit on these chairs . No, no. You are all supposed to be taking questions inking of questions you could ask. [applause] no. I wasnt asking for only questions. No applause. Cristina thank you, jeanne. First, thank you for writing a fascinating book. I was riveted throughout it. Theomebody who works in reproductive Rights Movement, this book could not come at a more Perfect Moment in history, because he is a biographer, you seem to specialize in rescuing misunderstood women like Mary Todd Lincoln and the american suffragists, and now, Margaret Sanger. So i would love for you to talk a little bit more about the current efforts to rewrite history as it relates to her life in particular the of her eugenics billys. Beliefs. There is ank continuity in terms of criticism about sanger, not what i said about her. She grew up in the birthcontrol movement knowing she would by thebe criticized world. And so she was in the beginning. Therthe criticisms in the beginning, when i compare them to what is going on today, or similar in that they both suggest ignorance on the part of those who are making the criticisms. In the first case, those who opposed sanger on the basis of her movement for Birth Control, most of them were arguing that Birth Control would lead to promiscuity. And were not talking about men here, we are talking about women. That is especially ignorant and foolish kind of criticism. Umbrellas dont bring rain, do they . [laughter] thanks. Um there seems to be some delay tonight. Is that protest, cant get through the subway or whatever. [laughter] today sanger is being used again , with the kind of ignorant criticism that makes her into a racist. Margaret sanger started her Birth Control clinic in 1930 and this is years after she begins the one in new york, because black leaders asked her to. It is this kind of information that, when you hear from the right lets face it, they are she is racist,at it is just not true. So indeed it was not true that Birth Control would lead to promiscuity. Perhaps we should talk about eugenicism, or . Cristina i think so. It is such a Viral Campaign of what are called a pro lie movement. Jean what did you call it . Cristina the pro lie movement. I think they often take what our parcels of truth and embellish it with all of these inaccurate statements whether it is about conflating Birth Control as abortion, taking all of the negative parts of eugenics is and assigning it to her. Put her in her time. The backdrop as to what the Eugenics Movement was. Francis dalton was a cousin of darwins. He came up with the word eugenics. Genes, in greek, meaning good. It was an age in which biology was becoming more and more in which scientists and experts were beginning to control the way that public policies, but if you could understand enough about the genes, you could create better human beings. Much i believe at the very beginning that this was a progressive idea that went wrong. By the time sanger gets involved with eugenics, she is going to use the expertise of these scientists. She is going to put them on the board of her american Birth Control. She is going to use them to in some ways legitimize what needs legitimizing. The Eugenics Movement by the 1920s and the 1930s and after the holocaust, we still have certain remnants of the Eugenics Movement but by that time eugenics was in the air everywhere. Most americans believe in eugenics. It was a question of what that exactly meant. For sanger what this meant was a kind of feminist eugenics. If you had Birth Control and if all women could use it, it was cheap, it was available, we would have better babies. Mothers could space their children. Sanger was a Great Children andacing childre not having them too close together. Mothers could pay more attention to their children. That was her version of eugenics at the beginning. Perhaps some of you remember 1927 Supreme Court case buckley bell. Raise your hand. I am too attuned to the classroom but always asking people to raise their hand and ask questions and whatever. It involved a young woman from the virginia people minded is a word this generation uses office and apply to all kinds of different kinds of differences that americans might have. In any case, the case of virginia belle was involuntarily sterilized and got to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled 81 that involuntary sterilization was ok, the grounds were, as some of you will find this abhorrent, as all of us do in 2011, Oliver Wendell holmes wrote the majority decision said that it was just like immunization. If immunization could be coercive than it was ok to have a voluntary sterilization. At the end of this famous decision of his, Oliver Wendell holmes was one of the great libertarians that we have, he wrote three generations of idiots is enough. I tell that story to give you the context in which sanger was working. She turned to eugenics because she wanted them for legitimization and also because she herself believed that there was something to be set for this progressive idea that then went badly wrong in the holocaust. But remember, even after world war ii, five states continued to use involuntary sterilization on the mentally ill and some of the very peculiar sections in some that the possibility of involuntary sterilization. Which is the far out point of eugenics. And the reason that we think it was a kind of terrible thing. Margaret came from a large irish family would her mother was a practicing catholic. Her father rebuked the church. Correct. Her mother delivered 11 children in 22 years and suffered eight miscarriages and she died at age 46 when sangers father lived into his 80s and as you point out as a nurse sanger witness the ravages of uncontrolled fertility on the lives of women and their families. Can you discuss in more detail sangers family life and early career and how it inspired her. Margaret sanger was a rebel from the beginning. She came to in new york at one point. The name of her first newspaper was the woman rebel. Somewhere at some point in corning she became a rebel. It has always been difficult to me to figure out why some people are activists and spend their lives trying to make the world better, and others dont. Sanger had these brothers and sisters and none of them were involved in any kind of political work. [talking over each other] could have been political. Dont go there. There was frank solloway suggested your birth order determines how and who you are. I am the youngest of seven so i never liked what he said about the youngest. Often middle children are the ones who feel comfortable and able to challenge mother and father. In sangers case, i think it is her relationship with her father who is really an iconoclast. Her father is called marble higgins because there are so many higginses in corning, new york at this time. He fights constantly with the Catholic Church. She asks Robert Ingersoll to come and give a talk in corning , which is a heavily catholic community. He wont let his wife go to church. His children are only baptized years after theyre born. Margaret for some reason, maybe the middle placement of her birth, is greatly attracted to this idea of being her fathers daughter. So she grows up very aware of class differences. How many of you have been to according . You know the geography in corning is not who lives on which side of the street. It is who lives at the bottom of this hill. Can i call it a mountain . The higginses were at the bottom. Margaret became very aware of the better life that families Katherine Hepburn later becomes one of her good friends and allies, in her autobiography margaret rights over and over again about how well the buy the houses and only two or three children. When she goes to the bottom of the mountain, there are the Higgins Family and all 11 of them. Clearly it was not just the sadie sackss death from a botched abortion that led of Margaret Sanger to be an advocate for Birth Control. It was also something in the dynamic of that family. One of the fascinating parts of the biography was your accounting of sangers sex life. And really, she does make the women of sex and the city seem prudish. [laughter] i lost track of how many lovers she had and she was still by younger men into her 70s. Not only did she enjoy a vibrant sex life but had an intoxicating effect on the men she was involved with. What i wondered was her sexual knowhow. Given her prowess this expertise along with her freedom from the Sexual Repression of her time do you think this inspired their unusual devotion . I cant speak to that. [laughter] i do know reading their letters that they were totally intoxicated. We are talking about age the wells, these are not a bunch of little boyfriends she is seducing. The thing about sanger, physically, she is small. She is a tiny woman. She is not beautiful. She has the higgins nose, which had a bump. Doesnt wear a girdle. Doesnt wear a girdle. Doesnt have to. She and her friends talk about that. She has that something. In the cliche, you call it sex appeal. She has an ability to interest men. Curious, anditive, sexually practiced to a generation of men who didnt often meet women like Margaret Sanger, so this combination and this desire of hers because she was curious and practice makes perfect to continue to have Sexual Affairs is one of the dominating things about her life and one of the things she truly enjoyed. This was a woman who loved sex. It was her business. So Margaret Sanger from that point of view is the wonderful thing about sangers life was no one ever knew about all of sangers boyfriends. When one of the latter ones, hobson pittman, who was from Pennsylvania State who was an artist, he refused to travel with her because he said people will talk about us and Margaret Sanger said i have been doing this for years. Nobody talks about my personal life. And this is more, i think, a social comment, we didnt talk or know about Jack Kennedys sex life, did we . So only recently have we come as americans to be intensely fascinated with the sex lives of important at the same time she was very conscious of it not be in a statement of her sex life. She wanted to keep it secret. She was worried that it would impact the movement. So in some ways her sexual cravings were not just experimental, furthering her expertise, but something she c p brings me to make question. How does what relationship does her sex life have on her professional life . I think a lot. In some sense it validates it. Sanger,remember, mckenzie who is it that write about her generation. She must have had a very good form of Birth Control. With all these escapades, right . And what was her form of Birth Control . She never endorsed any one form at the time. That right. We think that she used the diaphragm and there are some students of Margaret Sanger who argue she stuck to that too long. That she should have moved away. The problem with the diaphragm ne has to measure you. It is not something you can go to india and china and say here is the diaphragm, use this. Is something that needs a physician. Now the criticism of sanger has always been she medicalized Birth Control. And so now i would like to turn the tables and ask you, cristina, if you think the fact the Birth Control movement as it emerged from Margaret Sangers work and as it included doctors, has been a good or bad thing . Shouldnt we be able to go to the local pharmacy without a prescription and by a pill . We have that option with emergency contraception. But having read your book i know she didnt have a choice. For sure. She didnt have our choice. She worked with in what she had. You know, pregnancy and prevention of pregnancy is a medical, a primary care event. I think there are also the arguments that if we did make it overthecounter, it would be less affordable for many women who dont have Health Insurance. So right now we see the same battles she fought with, trying to get federal funding for contraception. What you were saying before about, you know it is amazing to hear what is happening on the National Stage with discussions about Family Planning and Birth Control. Santorum, who channels comstock regularly, says he pledges i dont even know he is certainly not in the forefront of the president ial campaign. The gop is change. Has changed. One of his platform is is to repeal all federal funding for contraception and he explained it was because contraception is licensed to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. Back to the past. Yeah. So right now we are trying to get coverage and so for me it has to be viewed as primary care and as a result make it as affordable as possible. Are probablyk we running out of our time, but i have a last question for you. I want to know why is that sanger was the lodestar. She became the brand name of the Birth Control movement. I dont see anyone after her that we can refer to. It is interesting because some important reforms dont have one. The Gay Rights Movement has never had a Single Person or group of people. But in terms of civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, 1970s, we have king and a few lesser known americans, but sanger stands for Birth Control in a remarkable way. Why is it that we dont have anyone . It is a good thing. I dont think the days of political icons exist anymore. The way in which communications happens is activism much more diffused. One of the wonderful thing about having her was she was able to absorb the personal attacks. It was about her and she could push forward in this really heroic way, whereas organizations arent as agile. They are risk averse. At the end of your book you talk about her frustration with the bureaucracy, how she is demoted into a position of no authority within the organizations that she she, and how is amazing in her survival skills as a leader because when she sees a barrier, domestically she moves her movement internationally and she owns the international familyplanning movement. And so, i think it is true. The Gloria Steinems and martin kings, in the might have 1960s been the last generation. As were seeing with occupy wall street that theres not one leader who emerged and it is a populist movement. That is the time. I think we should now turn to our longsuffering audience. I have one joke to tell before we get to your questions. I did a book on the stevenson family. I learned a lot of witticisms from Adlai Stevenson who was a very funny guy. He always said when it is night and you are talking to a group and you come to the end of what you are going to say, say finally, to give them some hope. [laughter] so get your hands up. I saw some hands. Yes. [inaudible] two points. First of all, i am so grateful for you writing this book because i was at a screening of a documentary of Margaret Sanger in the past six months. I am not sure if you are aware of it. It was a film that really emphasized eugenics in a very negative light and i was very upset about this. My question to you is you mention this, her relationship to ethel. I would really like to know if you could correct this if i am wrong from research i have done, whowhen it came to choosing was going to stand up for this movement and ethel was involved in a discussion about this and she did take the position of going to Blackburn Island and she was sent there after she went on a hunger strike. Can you tell me what happened as a result of that in their relationship . Let me go back a little bit and say the relationship of two sisters was somewhat barbed. Ethel had always been that supporter of the clinic and was arrested. Ethel complained margaret was paying too much attention to the rich people raising money. Margarets answer was pragmatic. Oh my goodness. I have a movement. How am i going to afford the Birth Control review of the magazine if i dont get money from deep pockets . The two sisters are estranged and ethel is tried first. That makes all the difference. At the time there were already hunger strikes that were going on used by alice paul in washington. So these women knew about hunger strikes and ethel did undergo this i dont know how many days it was nearly died. And this is the bad part of the story sometimes our heroes lead messy lives years later someone is going to make a film with one person as Margaret Sanger, so margaret goes to ethel and says i want you to give me the right to be the hunger striker and ethel by this time really didnt care. She said yes. You can do this. But then the end of the story, she decided she will not be Margaret Sanger, so the movie is never done. It is a very duplicitous move by sanger and there are other things like that that she certainly did during her lifetime. I just wanted some clarification about eugenics. Did she support involuntary sterilization . Yes, yes, yes she did. Not for groups. This is the distortion that is going on today. Never, never for groups. Never for classes. But for individuals who were in sane, but she had a caveat. She never believed in surgical castration because this fits right in to her philosophy. It would destroy the sexual feelings of the person. So with those kinds of caveats she did briefly support involuntary sterilization. It was brief you said . Brief, yes. I dont know that she effort retracted it. It just disappears. Sanger is the kind of person who has trouble specifically admitting they are wrong on positions. The points simply disappear from the rhetoric and the writing. That is what happens with involuntary sterilization. She hated the holocaust, she raged against hitler and what he was doing. We hear almost nothing about sterilization from sanger after world war ii. My second question was i read somewhere that sanger recommended for poor women to use rancid butter as a spermicide. Is that true . The things i dont want to be crude the things that women were putting up their vaginas to prevent pregnancy are truly shocking. I would criticize sanger not so butter, butcid lysol. That was the spermicide of the day. These people are working in a spermicides, diaphragms for years until sanger figures out because she is in touch with endocrinologist s that hormonal contraception is a possibility. And she deserves i think more credit than she has gotten for this support of Gregory Pinkus , who after all is a defrocked harvard biology biologist who had moved his lab out to worcester. I saw a hand in there . I just wonder what your comment was on an article i read in the New York Times by a section in which theyre blaming the pill for Prostate Cancer . I think you can talk more about the the pill has been blamed, and correctly at the beginning, for the possibility of blood clots. At the beginning there was too much estrogen in the bill. So that diminished. Then, after hearings in the washington there was talk that the bill does this, it does that, and one of the issues here is i dont think i dont think there are enough randomized studies to be able to prove some of the points made about the pill. The pill does good things besides prevent pregnancy and it does bad things. And i cant speak s particular Prostate Cancer . Men shouldnt be taking the pill. Is this their offspring . Their study says [inaudible] they took a survey and found [inaudible] there are some correlations with breast cancer. Recent studies came out that a whopping 42 of women are taking the pill for non contraceptive reasons. For endometriosis to control heavy periods. There are a lot of other beneficial effects. But the pill, and while Margaret Sanger really is responsible almost singularly for the revolution that took place in short period of time after the introduction of the pill that we now, a laundry list of rights we would never give up. But the pill is a flawed method , and Margaret Sanger always believed that if she were to create a perfect method that she would there would be no need for abortion. She didnt live at a time when abortion was legal. She never inserted herself in the discussions that began at the end of her life, but it is difficult. Methods, different more respected methods. We need to do a better job of abouting and educating the efficacy for different methods. [inaudible]. I couldnt hear what was the question . I think it was a recommendation of sites to find out more information about eugenics. Oh. [inaudible] we have time for one more question. Let me just more about eugenics. It is absolutely true that the germans took the playbook from the americans, and hitler was using some of the more extreme statements by eugenicists in the United States when he began his efforts to exterminate populations in germany. So the United States was thetically was one of leaders in the Eugenics Movement. Do you want to yes . New york city is about to institute Sex Education is middle schools and high schools, and the same arguments against Sex Education are the ones youre talking about for against Birth Control, mainly, promote it will promote promiscuity. Was she involved in the Sex Education movement . Oh, absolutely, yeah. Um, several of her books, this has not come im glad you asked that question. We forget that sanger is a writer. She published two books, the pivot of civilization and women in the new race in the early 1920s, and they sell together 500,000 copies. After that she publishes two sort of manuals, happiness in marriage [laughter] sort of a ladies home journal, and then a really interesting book of letters that women have written her, motherhood in bondage. That is the 1920s, but earlier, she had written what every girl should know, what every little boy should know. This is a woman before the sex educators who really was trying to promote the idea of Sex Education as part of her entire package. In women, though, about sexuality and they get Sex Education and they have contraceptives, they are going to have better families. And then the last . Yeah. I came from Irish Catholic culture, and i went to catholic schools, parochial schools, and i can remember back 40 years ago, 40 years ago when a friend came to visit, a friend who had already had three children came to visit me when i had my first child, and she said, oh, i hope the church changes their mind about Birth Control. And i can remember saying to her, eleanor, dont wait. [laughter] and to this day i think they havent. The people who are against abortion or against any kind of Birth Control will talk about the babies and the Life Movement, but i have a sense its really more about not letting women get so under control. Oh, sure. In my opinion. Yeah. You know, i id be interested to hear what you have to say about it. Well, you know, certainly all of the campaigns that are going on now to roll back reproductive rights by the antiabortion movement, i think its wrongly named because, you know, all of their campaigns include efforts to roll back access to Family Planning. Um, and what we know is that it really is the modern prochoice movement thats done more to realize all of the, what the public understands to be prolife goals. We live in a country where, you know, the countries on earth with the lowest abortion rates are the ones that have adopted prochoice policies, and that includes, you know, contraception. And the ones with the highest abortion rates in the world are the ones that have accepted our proLife Movements platform; no m, no sex ed, no contraception, no abortion. And the Catholic Church, you know, right now the bishops have really, are really gearing up aggressively to try to remove contraceptive coverage from health care reform. Um, and, yes, we havent done what i see is we have a prolife public thats very supportive of contraception, yet we dont have one prolife organization in the United States that supports contraception. Thats scandalous. And we need to do a better job of educating the public about what works and, you know [inaudible] striking to me that the people who are [inaudible] they show no interest in the babies. [inaudible] right. Right, exactly. You know, i looked at the childrens defense fund, the premier Advocacy Organization in the United States, and i took their rankings of the best and worst legislators for children, and these are people who are, you know, the worst are consistently voting against childrens rights, consistently voting against education and Health Insurance benefits for children and their parents unemployment benefits. At the kitchen unplanned pregnancy matter. And what i found was comparing it to [inaudible] voting record was of the 116 worst legislators for children, 100 were prolife. Conversely, 95 of the best legislators for children were prochoice. So when the rubber hits the road on these things, um, you know, were really, this is a very ironic conversation were having, you know, politically. [inaudible] thank you. [applause] thank you. [applause] history bookshelf features the bestknown American History writers of the past decade talking about their books. You can watch every saturday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan3. History tv on cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court, and Public Policy events, from the president ial primary to the impeachment process. And now the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch all cspan programming on television, our cspan radio app. Cspan, created by American Cable Television companies as a public service, and brought to you today by your television provider. Announcer sunday night, one journalist discusses her book, the great pretender, about an experiment testing the legitimacy of psychiatric hospitals. Much of ano influence on the Mental Health crisis today, and a lot of Public Opinion about psychiatry and institutions were shaped by it,study, so in questioning we have to question our assumptions. I hope this gives us an opportunity to go back and reassess in a way to move this studyd if wasnt legitimate, we have to rethink some of the conclusions. Announcer sunday night at 8 00 on cspan. N announcer you are watching American History tv, 48 hours of programming every weekend on cspan3. Forow us on twitter information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. From the late 1970s through the 1980s, Variety Club International hosted an annual televised tribute to a hollywood celebrity who contributed to childrens charity. Honorees included lucille ball, frank sinatra, humphrey bogart, and carol burnett. Next on reel america, from 1985, all star party for ronald dutch reagan. Hosted by frank sinatra, the program of song, comedy, and tributes includes nancy reagan, dean martin, charlton heston, burt reynolds, ben vereen, steve lawrence, and eydie gorme, and Variety Clubs International chairman monty hall. Host welcome to our Allstar Party for dutch reagan. Speaking for variety clubs, monty hall. [applause] monty thank you very much. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the variety clubs Allstar Party. Join me in welcoming a lady that we love, formerly appearing in motion pictures, and now in a supporting role in a major production back east, mrs. Dutch reagan. [applause]