Greatest Need in America, The.
The Benefits of Birth Control
[Sanger, Margaret]. The Greatest Need in America. New York: American Birth Control League, n.d.
8vo.; printed pamphlet, folded to make four pages; small crease mark to upper right hand corner. In a specially made cardboard slipcase.
Sanger’s pamphlet advocating birth control; it prints the testimonies of five women in various family situations, all of whom plead for information on family planning. One letter from “Mrs. E.F.” confesses, “I have been married four years and I have three children and that last one is not very strong. I prayed to God that it would be dead when born, but it didn’t do any good.” Another woman, the wife of an alcoholic man 11 years older than her, writes, “I live in constant dread of pregnancy, had an abortion three years ago which nearly finished me, as I too would rather die than have any more children under the circumstances.” Mrs C.B. in Virginia also explains her circumstances, “I am very anxious to learn how to protect myself from having too many children. I am the mother of six and my age is only 23 years last June.” In the final letter excerpted, the woman writing blames herself for her lack of knowledge; “I am a mother of 11 children, 10 living. Green, that is what I am, only 34 years old and am 3 months in the family way again. I have a man that thinks it’s my fault because we have children. I do confess it is.”
Sanger explains that these excerpts are only a handful of the “hundreds and hundreds of letters” that the League receives every day from “harrowed, distressed, sick, broken mothers.” Also prints an order form for enrollment into the League, asking one dollar to join; the last page is a section titled “Birth Control – What It Will Do,” and lists the many beneficial reasons women should be informed about birth control, including the fact that “It will give every mother the right to have children only when she feels her health and strength will allow her to give them the care and attention they need;” “It will give her a chance to develop mother-love, instead of becoming a slave, a worn-out, broken, spiritless drudge;” “It will prevent the practice of taking drugs and poisonous nostrums to avoid undesired pregnancy;” and It will prevent the death of thousands of babies whose passing out is caused by poverty, ignorance, neglect and insufficient vitality inherited from exhausted mothers.”
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