How we cite our quotes: (Sentence)
Quote #1
We have learned in the preceding sessions of this Conference that, if we wish to produce strong and sturdy children, the embryo must grow in a chemically healthy medium. The blood stream of the mother must be chemically normal. Worry, strain, shock, unhappiness, enforced maternity, may all poison the blood of the enslaved mother. This chemically poisoned blood may produce a defective baby--a child foredoomed to idiocy, or feeble-mindedness, crime, or failure. (39-42)
Yeah, sure, Sanger. Blame the mother for everything. That's one thing everyone can agree on. But seriously, because many people weren't on board with the whole "let women decide when they have babies" thing, Sanger's choice to present maternal health as inextricably tied to child health is smart.
Nobody wants an innocent baby to suffer, so hey, let's take care of the mothers in order to take care of the babies.
Quote #2
There is only one way out. We have got to fight for the health and happiness of the Unborn Child. And to do that in a practical, tangible way, we have got to free women from enforced, enslaved maternity. (49-51)
Sanger makes the connection here between the mother's body and the Unborn Child. She acknowledges that, at least until birth, they're connected, an idea that both the pro-life and pro-choice movements seem to struggle with today.
Quote #3
There can be no hope for the future of civilization, no certainty of racial salvation, until every woman can decide for herself whether she will or will not become a mother and when and how many children she cares to bring into the world. That is the first step. (52-53)
Big words, Sanger. "The future of civilization?" That's where we're going with this? Hyperbole much?
Sounds like it at first…but maybe it's an exaggeration and maybe it's not. Birth control affects big issues like population and class mobility. What do you think? Is it a stretch to say the future of civilization depends on birth control, or is it actually true?
Quote #4
The problem of bringing children into the world ought to be decided by those most seriously involved—those who run the greatest risks; in the last analysis—by the mother and the child. (63)
Well, now that actually makes sense, but unfortunately, we don't have the child here to ask about things, so really only the mother can make the decision, which is ultimately Sanger's point.
Quote #5
We want to free women from enslaved and unwilling motherhood. We are fighting for the emancipation of the mothers of the world, of the children of the world, and the children to be. (104-105)
Sanger says children can't be free unless mothers are free. These lines come near the end, but she's used this extended metaphor of slavery to describe lack of access to birth control throughout her speech. What effect might this metaphor have had her listeners in 1925 (only sixty years after the end of the Civil War)? How do we respond today to Sanger's use of the language of slavery to describe something that isn't technically slavery?