Woman of Valor (99 page)

24.
Lyndon B. Johnson to the Hon. L.W. Douglas, Mar. 31, 1965, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Tex., says the Douglas letter and endorsement were turned over to the Distinguished Civilian Service Awards Board. Also see John W. Macy, Jr., executive secretary, Distinguished Civilian Service Awards Board to Hon. Jacob J. Javits, Feb. 11, 1965, copy in L.B.J. Library; Mrs. Harold N. Wells to L.B.J., Dec. 8, 1964, L.B.J. Library.

25.
Piotrow,
World Population
, pp. 88-92, 103-42. As U.S. representative to the United Nations in 1973, George H. Bush, Jr., also underscored the critical importance of family planning assistance in the foreword he wrote to Phyllis Piotrow's book. Also see Marybeth Albanese Petschek, MPH, “Leona Baumgartner, MD: Introducing Population to APHA and U.S.A.I.D.,” unpublished paper presented to the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting, Anaheim, Cal., Nov. 11, 1984. L.B.J. to Hon. Lewis Douglas, Mar. 31, 1965, L.B.J. Library, also contains a dinner invitation with a handwritten notation: “This was not done. No further action necessary, 3/30/65).” Also see George Rosenberg, managing editor, the
Tucson Daily Citizen
to L.B.J., Jan. 20, 1966, and Jack Valenti, special assistant to the President, to George Rosenberg, Jan. 29, 1966, saying “The President has your letter about Mrs. Margaret Sanger and has asked me to thank you in writing. As you well know, no one in this government is unaware of the far reaching contributions of Mrs. Sanger.” Harry C. McPherson, Jr. to Maj. Gen. William H. Draper, Jr., Feb. 9, 1966, L.B.J. Library, rejects a request for a White House reception for population activists, saying it was the unanimous view of his colleagues that the “resources of the Administration could best be used by increasing the efforts we are making, at home and abroad, to meet today's population problem in an effective way.” Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson to Winfield Best, Oct. 10, 1966, L.B.J. Library, says she and the President would be out of the country on the occasion of the PPFA dinner. Interior Secretary Willard Wirtz attended instead. Joseph A. Califano, Jr.,
The Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years
(New York: 1991), pp. 154-159, recounts his negotiations on Johnson's behalf with irate Catholic officials and praises Johnson for this courage in moving forward.

26.
Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson to M.S., Aug. 11, 1966; Douglas Cater, special assistant to the President, to Dr. Alan Guttmacher, Sept. 28, 1966, both in L.B.J. Library. Stuart Sanger and Margaret Marston interviews, 1987.

27.
“Margaret Sanger is Dead at 82; Led Campaign for Birth Control,”
The
New York Times
, Sept. 7, 1966,1:2; Ernest Gruening, “Margaret Sanger,”
Congressional Record
112:150, 89th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1-2; Grant Sanger, Schlesinger-Rockefeller interview, p. 45.

28.
The Ferguson eulogy was reprinted as “Margaret Sanger, A Witty Friend & A Gracious Hostess,”
Tucson Daily Citizen
, Sept. 8, 1966, along with an editorial of praise. Descriptions of the funeral and memorial service are from my interview with Grant Sanger of Dec. 1987 and from Florence Rose to Dorothy McNamee (a friend of Margaret's in Tucson), Sept. 25, 1966, MS-SS, which includes a clipping from the
Daily News
on the weather.

29.
Margaret Marston's interview with Jacqueline Van Voris, p. 58, recalls the phrase, which she reiterated to me in our interview of 1987. Olive Byrne Richard in her interview with Van Voris has almost the same words, p. 25, both in MS-SS.

AFTERWORD

1.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., “History and National Stupidity,”
The New York Review of Books
53 (April 27, 2006), p. 14.

2.
Thompson v. Thompson
, 218 U.S. 611 (1910), quoted in Linda K. Kerber, “The Meanings of Citizenship,”
Journal of American History
84 (Dec. 1997), p. 839.

3.
Vivian Gornick,
The Solitude of the Self: Thinking about Elizabeth Cady Stanton
(New York: 2005).

4.
Janet Farrell Brodie,
Contraception and Abortion in 19th Century America
(Ithaca and London: 1994); Andrea Tone,
Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America
(New York: 2001).

5.
U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, Nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, July 20-23, 1993, at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciarysh 103-482. Catharine MacKinnon,
Women's Lives: Men's Laws
(Cambridge: 2005).

6.
Ellen Chesler, “Introduction,” Wendy Chavkin and Ellen Chesler, eds.,
Where Human Rights Begin: Health, Sexuality, and Women in the New Millennium
(New Brunswick, N.J.: 2005), p. 13.

7.
Rebecca J. Cook, ed.,
Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives
(Philadelphia: 1994). Also see Chavkin and Chesler,
Where Human Rights Begin
, p. 13.

8.
Esther Katz, ed., Cathy Moran Hajo and Peter C. Engelman, assistant editors,
Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 1: The Woman Rebel, 1900-1928
(Urbana, III.: 2003). Esther Katz, ed., Cathy Moran Hajo and Peter C. Engelman, associate editors, and Amy Flanders, assistant editor,
Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 2: Birth Control Comes of Age, 1928-1939
(Urbana, Ill.: 2006).

9.
Margaret Sanger to Alfred Knopf, February 17, 1953, MS-LC (now on microfilm reel 6:388).

10.
Ellen Chesler and Charles F. Westoff, “What's the World's Priority Task? Finally Control Population/No, The First Priority Is Stop Coercing Women,”
New York Times Magazine
, February 6, 1994, reprinted in Rutgers University Women's Studies Program,
Women, Culture and Society: A Reader
(Dubuque, Iowa: 1994). For more recent perspectives on controversies over population policy, also see Matthew Connelly, “Population Control in India: Prologue to the Emergency Period,”
Population and Development Review
32:4 (December 2006), pp. 629-67. On the relationship between women's status and sexual and reproductive health, see Amartya Sen, “The Many Faces of Gender Inequality,”
The New Republic
225:12 (September 17, 2001), pp. 35-40; and Mahmoud Fathalla, M.D., Steven W. Sinding, Ph.D., and Allan Rosenfield, M.D., “Sexual and reproductive health for all: a call for action,” published online November 1, 2006, http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/DOI:10.1016/SO140-6736 (06)69483-X/fulltext; and Anna Glasier, A. Metin Gulmezogluy, George P. Schmid, Claudia Garcia Moreno, and Paul F. A. Vanlook, “Sexual and reproductive health: a matter of life and death,” published online November 1, 2006, http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/DOI:10.1016/SO140-6736(06) 69478-6.

11.
Rosalind P. Petchesky and Karen Judd, eds.,
Global Prescriptions: Gendering Reproductive Health and Rights
(London: 2003), quoted in Chavkin and Chesler, eds.,
Where Human Rights Begin
, p. 20.

12.
Joanne Omang, ed.,
Countdown 2015: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All
(New York: 2004), quoted in Chavkin and Chesler,
Where Human Rights Begin
, pp. 26-27. Also see Edwin A. Winckler, “Maximizing the Impact of Cairo on China,” Chavkin and Chesler, pp. 204-35, and Radhika Chandiramani, “Mapping the Contours: Reproductive Health and Rights and Sexual Health and Rights in India,” Chavkin and Chesler, pp. 127-54.

13.
A recent analysis of these issues also sympathetic to Sanger is Leslie Woodcock Tentler,
Catholics and Contraception: An American History
(Ithaca and London: 2004).

14.
Linda J. Wharton, Susan Frietsche, and Kathryn Kolbert, “Preserving the Core of
Roe
: Reflections on
Planned Parenthood v. Casey,” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism
18:2 (2006), pp. 319-87.

15.
Chris Black, “The Partial Birth Fraud,” pp. a2-6; Ellen Chesler, “New Options, New Politics,” pp. al2-14; Jodie Levin-Epstein, “Reproductive Roulette,” pp. al9-20, all in “Body Politics, A special report on the far-flung, life-denying influence of the ‘right-to-life' movement,” a special supplement to
The American Prospect
12:17 (Fall 2001). Also see Helena Silverstein and Wayne Fishman, “All Eyes on Kennedy,” pp. 18-20; Allison Stevens, “What the Left Didn't Do,” pp. 21-23; Scott Lemieux, “Men Overboard,” pp. 24-27, all in “Body Politics,”
The American Prospect
17:7 (July/August 2006).

16.
Supreme Court of the U.S.,
Gonzales v. Carhart et al.
, together with
Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., et al.
, decided April 18, 2007, Justice Anthony Kennedy writing for the majority, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer joining in dissent at http:// www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/05-380-All.pdf.

17.
Prevention First Act, Title X Family Planning Services Act of 2007
, S.21 and H.R.819. 110th Congress, Senate--1/4/07 House--2/5/07, http://thomas .loc.gov.

18.
“Planned Parenthood by the Numbers,” an overview prepared for the Jan. 2007 Planned Parenthood board meeting in San Jose, California, and a Dec. 19, 2006 report on the organization's annual Diversity Index. (I was recently elected to the board of directors of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.)

19.
On Margaret Sanger and eugenics see herein, including pp. 122-23, 192-98, 215-19, 343-45, 379. The best more recent treatment of the subject is Carole R. McCann,
Birth Control Politics in the United States 1916-1945
(Ithaca and London: 1994), pp. 99-134.

20.
An excellent summary of these and other published statements that misquote, falsely quote, or distort Sanger is now on the Planned Parenthood Web site at www.plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/medicalinfo/birthcontrol/biomargaret-sanger.

21.
Since this book was first published, a transcript of a speech has been found where Sanger appears to endorse immigration restrictions, but her meaning is not completely clear. “Racial Betterment,” a 1926 address Sanger gave to the Vassar College Institute of “Euthenics,” was broadcast on radio and then excerpted in
The Poughkeepsie Evening Star
. See Katz et al.,
Margaret Sanger, Vol. 1
, pp. 423-24, where Sanger is quoted as saying: “I am glad to say the United States Government has already taken certain steps to control the quality of our population through its drastic immigration laws, whereby our gates are closed to those whom she considers undesirables.…Most people are convinced that this policy is right, and agree that we should slow down on the number of immigrants coming here as well as to taking a stand on the kind of people they should be.” She then moves on, however, to say: “But while we close our gates to the so-called ‘undesirables' from other countries, we make no attempt to discourage or cut down on the rapid multiplication of the unfit and undesirable at home.” She does not repudiate immigration laws directly, however, as she had done previously. There are reasons to question the accuracy of the speech transcript, as it appears to quote her selectively and in the most possibly unflattering light. She also calls for sterilization of the feebleminded and insane so as to alleviate the public burden of these dependents on the educated and responsible population, and suggests a bonus or pension for unfit parents willing to be sterilized. Uncharacteristically, she never talks about birth control. The content and tone of the published remarks is particularly harsh and unflattering. It differs from other published versions of the speech, including one that later appeared as “The Function of Sterilization,” in the
Birth Control Review
(Oct. 1926, p. 299), which I cite in this book. A third version of the speech appeared in the
Poughkeepsie Eagle News
and is also cited in Katz et al., pp. 427-28. This version contains additional passages stating the aim of the American Birth Control League “to make a new world, a conscious civilization, with women free, and with children free, conceived in love and given a heritage of a sound body and a sound mind.” It also quotes Sanger as deploring poverty, slums, and other social problems in order to make a case for legal birth control. She says: “We are moved by generosity, humanitarian feelings; we try to alleviate and ameliorate conditions.” The alternative versions suggest how easily Sanger's meanings were subject to misrepresentation even in her own time.

22.
Angela Davis, “Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights,” in Gary Null and Barbara Seaman, eds.,
For Women Only!: Your Guide to Health Empowerment
(New York: 1999), pp. 940-50. Dorothy. Roberts,
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
(New York: 1997), pp. 56-65. Recent dissertations, articles, and several fine books have profiled local birth control clinics and leagues across the country, including those in Arkansas, California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee. A valuable historiography is in Cathy Moran Hajo, “What Every Woman Should Know: Birth Control Clinics in the United States, 1916-40,” Doctoral Dissertation, New York University, 2006. I am grateful to Hajo, an associate editor on the Sanger Papers Project, for sharing her work with me. Especially important on the subject of African Americans and birth control advocacy and organizing are Jessie Rodrique, “The Afro-American Community and the Birth Control Movement, 1918-1942,” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, 1991, and Jamie Hart, “African Americans, Health and the Reproductive Freedom Movement in Detroit, 1918-1945,” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1999. Particularly valuable is Johanna Schoen,
Choice & Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare
(Chapel Hill: 2005), which uncovers coercive practices but also makes the point that sterilization was not always imposed and that many women preferred it as a permanent birth control option, once they had had the number of children they wanted. This point is also made in Laura Briggs,
Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico
(Berkeley, California: 2002). I am grateful to Regina Morantz-Sanchez of the University of Michigan for keeping me current on this academic literature.