Free Essay

Margaret Sanger

In:

Submitted By kitypawzs
Words 1252
Pages 6
Margaret (Higgins) Sanger was born on September 14, 1879, in Corning, New York. She was the sixth of 11 children born into a Roman Catholic working-class class Irish American family. Margaret was taught since a young age to stand up for what she believed in and to make sure she always spoke her mind, she got this from her outspoken radical father. Margaret's family lived in poverty as her father was a stonemason, who preferred to drink and talk politics rather than earn a steady wage for the family. At a young age of 50 after eighteen pregnancies, 11 births and seven miscarriages Margaret's mother died from tuberculosis. After her mother's death Margaret decided she wanted to become a nurse and care for women that were pregnant. Wanting to do better for herself, Margaret attended Claverack College and Hudson River Institute in 1896. In 1900, she was wanting to continue her education and transferred to a college in New York City, there she started the nursing program at the White Plains Hospital in 1900. In England in the 1800s, Florence Nightingale led to push the formalization of nursing education with regulations and standards. The United States quickly adopted similar regulations, and the first Nurses Associated Alumnae was established in 1897 to regulate nursing colleges. At this time in the United States nursing was just getting started. Nursing certification and professional training was just being introduced. Healthcare and nursing in the 1900 to 1919 period would change history forever. Nursing during this time would change from the traditional bedside nursing at a home to a more institutional-based nursing within the hospitals. Also during the early 1900's nurses started working at local doctors offices and clinics. Nurses would be in great demand with professional training due to the upcoming wars of World War I and World War II. Margaret changed nursing by speaking out on women's rights on birth-control, sex education and contraceptives. Margaret starting a campaign to educate women about sex in 1912 by writing a newspaper column called "What Every Girl Should Know." The articles dealt with sex education and women's health, two issues that Margaret was passionate about. She also worked as a nurse on the Lower East Side, at the time a predominantly poor immigrant neighborhood. Through her work, Margaret treated a number of women who had undergone back-alley abortions or tried to self terminate their pregnancies. Margaret objected to the unnecessary suffering endured by these women, and she fought to make birth control information and contraceptives available. Margaret began dreaming of a "magic pill" that could be used to control pregnancy. " No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother," Margaret said. In 1914, Margaret started a feminist publication called The Woman Rebel, which promoted a woman's right to have birth control. The monthly magazine landed her in trouble, as it was illegal to send out information through the mail. The Comstock Act of 1873 prohibited the circulation of "obscene and immoral" materials. It also made mailing and importing anything related to these topics a crime also. Rather than go to jail for five years. Margaret left the country and fled to England. While in England she helped with the women's movement and researched other forms of birth control, including diaphragms, which she later smuggled back into the United States. She retuned to the United States in October 1915, after the charges against her for the topics she wrote about had been dropped. She began touring to promote birth control, a term that she coined. In 1916, she opened the first birth control clinic in the United States. Margaret and her staff, including her sister Ethel, were arrested during a raid of the Brooklyn clinic nine days after it opened. They were charged with providing information on contraception and fitting women for diaphragms. Margaret and her sister spent 30 days in jail for breaking the Comstock Law. Later appealing her convictions, she scored a victory for the birth control movement. The court would not change the earlier verdict, but it made an exception for the current law to allow doctors to prescribe their female patients contraception for medical reasons only. I believe that it has changed nursing today by showing other nurses when there is the need for a change and they truly believe in it. They should speak up because they do have a voice and it should be heard for the betterment of others. Birth-control is commonly seen today in stores and easily gotten through your local doctors office. We openly talk about birth-control and offer solutions that many years ago was not allowed. What a huge difference Margaret has brought to us in today's medical care. Margaret has taught me to persevere and not give up even when the time gets tough you push through. You keep fighting for what you believe in and to keep voicing your opinion about it in until your voice is heard. She taught me to speak up when I see that there's a real need for my patients or for anyone until my voice is heard and change takes place. I see that in the medical field today is in nursing homes where I currently work the patient to caregiver ratio needs to shrink. There needs to be more caregivers per patients, so that the patients can receive the care that they deserve. In a lot of nursing homes today and one that I previously worked in a lot of times there's 16 to 17 residents per caregiver and this stresses out the caregiver and the residence get neglected as well. Also the residents do not get the care they deserve. The way that I would handle this or tackle this problem would be to go to our director of nursing and speak with her first and if this doesn't get the issue taken care of. I would proceed by going to the president of the company and seeing if it could be changed for nursing homes company wide. Also knowing that this affects nursing homes state and nationwide, I would then go to the national level and see if I could get it changed so that caregivers across the US would only have no more than 6 to 8 residents on any given shift. I believe the way that it will affect the nurses in 50 years is by giving them a chance to really get to know each of their residents and being able to take the time that is needed for each of those residents to give the care that they are needing. I believe that the quality of life for residents would be longer and a lot better due to the fact that nurses would be able to pay more attention to each of the residents they have. By being able to stay longer with there residents and being able to stay focused on them without feeling that they are rushed to get to the next resident. I also believe this would leave less of a chance for there to be any type of medical error or medication misses. I believe that how it would change society would be Society would have a different outlook and aspect on what nursing homes are. That they do focus on their patients and and the patient doesn't get neglected like they used to because of low staff or not enough caregivers.

Similar Documents

Free Essay

Margaret Sanger

...APA Paper Kara Piehl College of Menominee Nation TPN 110 Nursing Fundamentals Pearl Webster September 10 , 2014 APA Paper In this paper I will provide information about Margaret Sanger who was an influential person in nursing history. She grew up understand the perils of childbirth on a women and wanted to change the situation. While trying to change what she new was going to be her life, she continued and changed that for all women. In her life she created a movement that empowered women and gave women their autonomy. She gave women power over their own bodies and changed public’s views on contraceptives. She educated women on how contraceptives would change the lives of women and give them the freedom to choose. She had many obstacles during her campaign, but she created what we now know as Planned Parenthood and the International Planned Parenthood Federation that help women all over the world. Her accomplishments for a woman from the 19th century are radically huge and changed the world’s views on women’s autonomy. Margaret Sanger was born on September 14, 1879, born in Corning, New York. She was one of 11 children and her parents struggled to provide for all of them. The author of this article, Todd E had made sure he mentioned that her mother died prematurely and Margaret was deeply affected by this. She blames the fact that her mother carried and gave birth to so many children attributed to her death along with being poverty stricken and not being...

Words: 884 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Margaret Sanger Quotes

...The Women Rebel Margaret Sanger, born 1876-1966, was an inspirational woman. Birth control, sex educator, writer, and nurse Margaret Sanger is a hero to women (Margaret Sanger Quotes). She started businesses to help women that are pregnant or are trying not to get pregnant. These businesses will help the woman decide whether or not to keep the baby, how to prevent getting pregnant, and much more. Events that happened in her life helped with Sanger’s passion for birth control. Her influences helped her a lot in her journey like anarchists, labor activist, and socialists (Margaret Sanger Quotes), all helped her make her dream come true. She did these things because of her personal experiences with childbirth (Margaret Sanger Quotes). Creator...

Words: 1141 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

The Woman Rebel By Margaret Sanger

...Despite all the obstacles that she encountered, she believed that women needed to be informed about contraceptive methods and they should be the one to decide whether to get or not pregnant. Therefore, she figured that the only way to change the Comstock Law was to challenge them. In 1914, Sanger wrote another article for “The Woman Rebel,” a newspaper for women promoting women’s rights including the right to practice birth control. As a result, she again had problems with the law, but that didn’t stop her. In 1916, Margaret Sanger assisted by her sister opened her first birth control clinic in Brooklyn New York where she gave speeches and educated women about birth control and advocated women to prevent unwanted pregnancies. She worked secretly,...

Words: 427 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Margaret Sanger: The Women's Suffrage Movement

...Margaret Sanger was born on September 14, 1879 in Corning, New York. Margaret was the sixth of eleven children in a Roman Catholic family. Her parents were both socialists and early activists in the women’s suffrage movement. She attended Claverack College and Hudson River Institute, but was forced to drop out due to her mother’s death. However in 1900 she went back to school at White Plains Hospital and Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital. In 1902 she managed to obtain her nursing degree and soon after married an architect/socialist named William Sanger. They had three children together, Grant, and Stuart. However, their youngest child died at the age of four due to pneumonia. Her marriage to William fell through, however, and they divorced in...

Words: 345 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Margaret Sanger Speech Summary

...Margaret Sanger had the qualifications to give this speech because of her work in providing birth control for poor women and families who desperately needed it. She also understood on a personal level the negative caused by a lack of birth control through her mother. Sanger’s mother did what was expected of her in the time period; she was pregnant 18 times with 11 children and seven miscarriages. She died at the early age of 40 that Sanger blamed on her mother’s body having to go through the struggles of pregnancy 18 times (Parenthood). Because of her experience with her mother’s pregnancies and death, Sanger knew at a deeply personal level just how deadly the consequences of lack of birth control could be. Sanger also knew the effects lack...

Words: 363 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Birth Control By Margaret Sanger Summary

...members is to kill it.” This shows that she did not approve of large families and later she found a way to prevent them. Margaret Sanger spent her whole life trying to find a cure for unwanted children. Her whole purpose in life was to promote birth control. Sanger founded Planned Parenthood on October 16, 1916 and gave women the option to be in control of their bodies. Margaret Sanger’s speech, “The Morality of Birth Control” was given at the Park Theater in New York on November 18, 1921 and pleaded with women to use birth...

Words: 729 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Margaret Sanger The Morality Of Birth Control Summary

...Rhetorical Analysis of “The Morality of Birth Control” In the article “The Morality of Birth Control”, Margaret Sanger argued that birth control is a moral solution to unwanted pregnancies and everyone should be informed about it (559). She originally published these claims as a well-known speech. She had hoped to motivate people with positions of power to join her movement promoting birth control. This article was one of the first steps Sanger took to change society’s view about birth control. Although “The Morality of Birth Control” contains a lot of Margaret Sanger’s personal opinions, I agree with her claim and feel as though she made a persuasive argument. At the time that this speech was given, there was a lot of controversy over...

Words: 1797 - Pages: 8

Free Essay

Argumentative Essay on Woman and the New Race by Margaret Sanger

...Control In her text, Margaret Sanger describes the early part of the twentieth century as a time when the United States was still recovering from war and struggling with an influx of immigrants, uncontrolled population growth, poverty, disease, and labor issues. In Woman and the New Race, Sanger explores the causes of overpopulation, including ignorance, immigration, and religious ideals, which have the effect of degrading the race, and details how birth control is the only logical and moral response to this crisis. Sanger insists that woman’s ignorance of her reproductive abilities causes her to bear more children than she can properly care for and her husband can support resulting in overpopulation. In fact, when her husband’s salary does not increase at the same rate as the size of the family, Sanger reports, the mother must join her husband in the work force, leaving her little time to attend to her children and household, causing harm to her health as well as to the children’s well-being. Additional strain on the mother’s health, Sanger informs, comes when she has too many children born one after another, preventing the mother from having sufficient time to recover her health. Therefore, a mother who bears children when she herself is not in good health passes along this legacy of ill-health and poor strength to her offspring, she states. Consequently, as the foregoing reasons demonstrate, the degradation of the race is the end result, asserts Sanger. She notes in the...

Words: 822 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Planned Motherhood: Margaret Sanger and Her Fight for Birth Control

...Planned Motherhood: Margaret Sanger and Her Fight for Birth Control Morgan Ledford History 1200 Tamia Haygood November 13, 2014 During the Progressive Era, the United States was changing and developing but social issues were often neglected. With the rise of factories and big business, populations in small compact areas were exceeding holding capacity and the quality of life was decreasing. Margaret Sanger, born in New York in 1876, knew from an early age the change that she wanted to make in America. Sanger desperately wished to rise in class and her current education level so she attended Claverack College after which she enrolled in a nursing program at White Plains Hospital. She worked as a visiting nurse in New York City in the 1910s until she began to challenge the Comstock Law and write and mail contraceptive information to women. Through creation of different committees, leagues and publications, Sanger was able to slowly push the idea of birth control into the public. In 1914, Margaret Sanger coined the term birth control and then printed it in the Woman Rebel journal. Sanger also opened up her own birth control clinic and fought for contraceptives until her death in 1966.1 Throughout the Progressive Era, Margaret Sanger started the foundation for the Birth Control Movement and actively advocated for the passage and approval of birth control in the United States. Women in the Progressive Era had only two choices, “passive and usually pleasure less submission...

Words: 1499 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

How Does Margaret Sanger Use Literary Devices In The Children's Era Speech

...People are consistently aware of changes made throughout the time they were born to the time they die. Yet to obtain those changes, people must fight hard and intelligently. Many types of people are held back so these changes cannot occur and one prime example is the early 1920’s woman’s fight for birth control. The Children’s Era speech by Margaret Sanger addresses the many issues that were caused by the unwanted pregnancies and speaks to the audience that is only understandable if you were there or if the background of this speech is present. Many types of literary devices are present as Sanger addresses the public as a whole yet the group that is the true receivers of Sanger's message are the men who say no and oppose what Sanger stands...

Words: 314 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

The Morality of Birth Control

..."The Morality of Birth Control" by Margaret Sanger, (1921)Margaret Sanger uses several method's within her speech, "The Morality of Birth Control", to tell her strong views on the topic. She uses a strong sense of bias, fallacies, and colorful rhetoric devices in her speech to not only get the attention of the audiences, but to relay a sense of urgency for the actions that need to be taken. One bias that Sanger uses is toward the idea of motherhood without birth control being condition of ignorance and chance. This may be the case for a small number of women, but it is not accurate to categorize all women who do not use or believe in birth control in this manner.Margaret Sanger uses vivid examples of fallacies and rhetorical devices in her speech. She uses the words "religious scruples" to deliver the basic need for power and morality. When Sanger refers to the opposition to birth control she refers to them as "this group are diseased, feeble-minded, and are of the pauper element dependent entirely upon the normal and fit members of society for their support." Her vivid imagery evokes emotion, and the need for aggressive action. In one way that the speaker addressers arguments and counterarguments is when she talks about the point of the two sexes "mixing together." Sanger talksabout the point that opponents to birth control are the same people that were opposed to women working outside the home and mixing with the opposite sex. Margaret Sanger does an excellent job of pointing...

Words: 437 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Compare And Contrast Jacob Riis

...My reformer was Margaret Sanger who was a birth control activist and sex educator. The reformer I chose to date is Jacob Riis. Jacob Riis was a muckracker who used photojournalism to expose the impoverished conditions of the lower class in New York City. Margaret Sanger advocated that access to birth control and proper sex education would markedly improve the lives of underpriveleged women. Sanger primarily focused on the effects that birth control would have on improving the lives of impoverished women and their children whereas Riis focused on all aspects of poverty and it's effect on the lower classes’ daily life. Sanger believed that if women could control the size of their families they would be able to better care for and provide for...

Words: 344 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

His125 Week6 News Story

...Due to the easy access to these devices to the public, both countries created a bill to prohibit the distribution of contraceptives across state lines and through the mail. Before the use of birth control in America, many women had opted for abortions because they either had too many children to take care of or they were simply not ready to parents. In the early 19th century, abortions could be dangerous. Too many abortions often lead the woman’s death because the technology was not yet available to try and properly prevent internal hemorrhaging. In 1878, Aletta Jacobs established the first birth control clinic in Amsterdam. The first birth control clinic, in the United States, was opened in 1916 by Margaret Sanger and was located in Brooklyn, New York. The clinic opened by Margaret was later closed by the police and she was remanded to jail for thirty days because she was...

Words: 889 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Unwanted Pregnancies

...Margaret Sanger, the founder of the first birth control clinic in the United States, was arrested in 1916. At this time, there was a law prohibiting the distribution of information regarding contraception. Unfortunately, with the new “sexual freedoms” that the Roaring Twenties exhibited for women, thousands of women were baring more children than they wanted, more frequently than they wanted. With limited to no access to women’s health clinics, childbirth left many women too ill and weak to work. Over 250,000 women wrote to Sanger seeking information and advice regarding how to prevent more unwanted pregnancies. With the opening of the first birth control clinic in 1916, and her tireless efforts to support other clinics across the country, Margaret Sanger began a movement advocating for women’s health rights. In the American Promise textbook, the authors explain how Sigmund Freud, an every-day household name, was promoting his ideas that, as sexual beings, we should be able to “seek pleasure without guilt.” These Freudian concepts led to Americans exploring several ways of experiencing pleasure. Many of these newfound “pleasures” led to the prohibition of alcohol, challenged gender boundaries, and the expansion of mass media and communications. This roaring outrage of pleasure in the 1920s became known as the “roaring twenties.” While flappers were known for challenging the traditional gender boundaries through their sexual freedom, there were thousands of women who suffered...

Words: 369 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Birth Control

...The Birth Control Pill: Providing Surprises In Life Allison Wang California Polytechnic University Pomona Professor Lord ANT 350 Research Paper Abstract The pharmaceutical field has overcome countless medical feats since the early times. While “the pill” itself was considered a brand new invention, the idea of creating a birth control pill was not. Since the old times primitive condoms were made from animal intestines and fish bladders. However, it wasn’t until after Margaret Sanger’s multiple convictions and persistent attitude, that a judge ended the Comstock era, providing Sanger with the opportunity to stress the importance of having birth control in th for of a pill to the public. In less than a decade after Sanger persuaded Pincus to begin working on the contraceptive, Pincus created a pill that tested to be 100 percent effective. However, in 1957, while the Food and Drug Adminsitration approved the pill, it was not approved as a contraceptive but rather as a treatment for women that experienced sever menstrual disorders. It was not until 1960 that the drug was actually approved as a contraceptive. Despite this, many controversies arose from the contraceptive leading to its many transformations. Because the original pill had many side effects that were largely ignored, a newer pill with a smaller dosage was created, coming with a decreased risk of developing ovarian cancer, pelvic inflammatory disease, and deficiency anemia in the users. Later on...

Words: 3300 - Pages: 14