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Margaret Sanger was a public health nurse who watched many poor women, including minorities, suffer under lifetimes of continual pregnancy and early death. Her position on eugenics (which is overblown and often mischaracterized as a racially-centered position, it was not) is hardly defensible in this day and age, but at the time and place she was working (slums of NYC in the early 20th century) it is at least understandable. The focus of her life, though, was to help women of all races gain control of their bodies and to decide when they want to have children. The good work she did (and inspired in others) in those days was invaluable to a woman's ability today to have a career and upwardly mobilize herself and her family. But I guess summing up the efforts of a strong woman who actually spent her life 'in the trenches' helping the hopeless improve their states in life is the point, yes?
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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce
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