However, she had first to address an unresolved issue. Stubborn as usual, she refused any easy way out of her indictments still pending. She would rather face the charges, and conduct her own defense like her husband before her. It never went that far.
On February 18, 1916, the government entered a nolle prosequi declaring that the prosecution was not worth the effort. Sanger would not be made
a martyr, much to her dismay. But it would not silence her, either
On October 16, 1916, Sanger opened a family planning and birth control clinic at 46 Amboy St. in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, the first of its kind in the United States. Nine days later, she, her sister (who was also a nurse) Mrs. Ethel Byrne, and a third woman, Fania Mindell, were
arrested for distributing flyers advertising the clinic’s services. Sanger's was let go on $500 bail.
On November 14, they were arrested again, this time for breaking a New York state law that prohibited distribution of contraceptives without the direction or prescription of a physician "lawfully practicing." Sanger didn't have such physician in her clinic, though some had come forward. Many claim that it
may have been the result of so much haste in Sanger’s "impetuous desire for 'direct
action'" [Birth Control in America, p.84] that caused her to disregard such an important fact.
Mrs. Ethel Byrne went on trial first, and on January 22, 1917, she was convicted and sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse. Byrne, after the example of the English suffragettes, decided she would not drink, eat, or bathe. She became the first woman in the US to be force-fed, and her hunger strike and accounts of her force-feeding through a tube inserted down her throat made front-page news. Only when Sanger pledged that Byrne would never break the law again was she pardoned after serving ten days.
Trying not to repeat the furor and debacle Byrne’s sentence had created, Sanger was offered a more lenient sentence. She was even promised freedom in exchange for her cooperation, to what Sanger replied: "I cannot respect the law as it exists today.” She was sentenced to 30 days in a workhouse.
As Byrne had already gone down the route of hunger strike, Sanger realized it was of little value. An initial appeal was rejected. So, she blasted newspapers with comments on atrocious prison life, and for lack of better, “enjoyed the exotic experience and her status as a heroine among the other female prisoners.” [Birth Control in America, p.87]. Her martyrdom would finally be acknowledged when she emerged out of prison at the sound of the “Marseillaise” sung by her comrades.
“In a subsequent court proceeding in 1918, the birth control movement won a victory when Judge Frederick E. Crane of the New York Court of Appeals issued a ruling which allowed doctors to prescribe contraception.” [Wikipedia]. The publicity surrounding the whole affair sparked birth control interest and activism across the country. Support of numerous donors, started pouring in, providing Sanger with the funding and support she needed.
In the wake of media attention following the 1917 Brownsville Clinic trial, Margaret Sanger broadened her arguments, adding Eugenics and public health reasons to support birth control, in an effort to appeal to a wider audience. She meant to reel in wealthy women, doctors and academics.
In our next issue, we’ll talk about Margaret Sanger's involvement with Eugenics, why she is mistaken for a racist, and why she went to look for help in all the wrong places, along with her regrets for such associations.
(Part 2)
Women's-rights advocate Margaret Sanger, left, was charged with maintaining a "public nuisance" after opening the first birth-control clinic in the United States. Source: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_19500809
69 | Ceres Magazine | Spring 2016
Margaret Sanger
Her legacy... the controversy