Margaret Sanger and Birth Control

The mother no longer considers herself a slave. She is glad that she is standing upon her own feet. She feels herself mistress of her own life, and no longer the inert, helpless, hopeless victim of circumstances which inevitably go from bad to worse. The difference is as striking as that between freeman and slave. The mothers who are liberated—and liberated through the exercise of their own intelligence and foresight—from the relentless pressure of involuntary motherhood—almost automatically become more interested in life, in the future, in the upbringing of their children, in the affairs of the community at large. In a word, they have become more civilized. And this has been made possible not through the much-vaunted agencies of popular education, but because she has been given simple, sanitary instruction which assures her mastery of her own body and procreative functions. I could present the testimony of many parents—and particularly mothers—who have thus been enabled to regain mastery over the conditions of their lives and are consequently fulfilling their maternal function in far happier and more efficient fashion.