Margaret Sanger was arrested and served time for educating women about birth control and distributing contraceptives. As an early advocate for birth control, Sanger was willing to defy the law to see that women who wanted to limit their number of offspring had the resources to do so safely. Let’s look at the criminal activity of America’s first birth control advocate, Margaret Sanger.

Who Was Margaret Sanger?

Margaret Higgins Sanger was born in 1879. Her father was an Irish Catholic who became an atheist. He was a big proponent of both women’s suffrage and free public schooling. Her mother endured 18 pregnancies with eleven surviving children. Margaret attended Claverack College and became a nurse in 1900. Two years later, she married William Sanger, a man she would eventually divorce because of her activism. 

The Sangers lived in New York City and Margaret worked as a nurse. She made frequent house calls to low-income women living in the slums. It was an eye-opening experience for her. She encountered women with multiple back-to-back pregnancies, numerous children to feed, and chronic gynecological health problems. She worked with other women who had frequent miscarriages and ones suffering from self-induced abortions.

Sanger’s work with these impoverished women made her realize that most poor women at the time had no knowledge of safe and effective ways to avoid unwanted pregnancies. She also observed the link between lack of contraception, family size, and poverty. She went to several public libraries in the city in search of information about contraceptives, but she came up empty-handed. The root of the problem was the Comstock Law of 1873. This federal law, together with several state laws, made it illegal for women to obtain information about birth control because it was too ‘obscene’. Sanger made it her mission to change this and set in motion the actions that would eventually lead to her arrest and hunger strike.

Birth Control, But Not Abortion

To be clear, Margaret Sanger was an advocate of birth control, but not abortion. Because she was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood, Sanger is often criticized by anti-abortion advocates, however, Sanger was opposed to abortions. As a nurse, she refused to participate in abortion procedures.

In 1914, Margaret Sanger relocated to England. She connected with women’s rights advocates in Europe and spoke about her belief that poverty and starvation could be relieved if women could control their reproductive rights. She toured around Europe and learned about birth control methods from the more liberal Europeans. Some of these methods, particularly diaphragms, were not available in the U.S. at the time so Sanger arranged to have them imported from Europe, which was against the law. 

Back in the U.S., Margaret Sanger teamed up with her sister, Ethel Byrne, to open the first birth control clinic in the United States. It was located in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood. The doors opened on October 16, 1916. It didn’t take long for word of the clinic to reach the authorities. The clinic was open for just nine days when it was raided by police. Sanger and her sister were both arrested. They were charged with breaking New York’s law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives, as well as running a public nuisance establishment.

On Trial

Margaret Sanger and her sister went to trial separately in early January 1917. Ethel Byrne was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Immediately, she went on a hunger strike. Sanger was concerned for her sister’s health and pleaded with the judge to release her from jail. The judge agreed only after Sanger promised that her sister would never again break the law. Byrne was released after ten days. Then it was Sanger’s turn to be sentenced. Like her sister, she received a 30-day sentence. The judge offered to reduce her sentence if she, like her sister, gave up the contraception distribution business. Sanger told the judge, “I cannot respect the law as it exists today.” While serving her sentence, she also went on a hunger strike in hopes of bringing more awareness to the issue of female reproductive rights. The judge realized what she was doing and tried to thwart her efforts. He ordered her to be forcibly fed.

All Publicity Is Good Publicity

The newspapers of New York closely followed the arrest, trial, and jail term of Margaret Sanger. The authorities hoped that the publicity would shame Sanger into giving up her advocacy, but in reality, it had the opposite effect. News reports of Sanger’s arrest for distributing contraceptives in her birth control clinic helped to raise awareness for her birth control activism. In fact, generous donors, including John D. Rockefeller, offered financial support to Sanger to help keep her birth control clinic open.

Shortly after the end of World War I, Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League which later morphed into Planned Parenthood. When Sanger died in 1966, she was called the founder of the modern birth control movement.