Contraception Books

What I most took away from this autobiography was confusion. How did the "movement" incorporate and become synonomous with abortion? Mrs. Sanger, at least in this piece that she wrote, was outspokenly anti-abortion. Yet, her brainchild- Planned Parenthood- is the largest national provider of abortions today. I took from this book that Mrs. Sanger was a bit naive and surrounded herself with some sinister circles. Circles that saw the profit that could be made through abortion. Sufficing their desires for population control and greed. Mrs. Sanger helped in the opening of a Pandora's box of eugenics and moral relativeness. Did she really mean what she wrote- "Do not kill, do not take life, but prevent"?

Margaret Sanger was no better than Hitler with her population control. She chose to focus on control because she was one of many children from her family and obviously did not get enough attention. Now she focuses on being selfish. Most of us have children because we love them. For those who have abortions, they need to stay out of other peoples beds if they can't handle the responsibility or the unselfishness of having a child or children.

Don't expect an accurate depiction of Sanger from this propaganda piece. Save yourself a lot of time and read the following quotes if you're really interested in finding out what kind of woman Margaret Sanger really was and what type of agenda she promoted for America:

On the extermination of blacks:
"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," she said, "if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, by Linda Gordon

On abortion:
"The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923)

On the right of married couples to bear children:
"Couples should be required to submit applications to have a child." -- Margaret Sanger "Plan for Peace." (Birth Control Review, April 1932)

Margaret Sanger is not only one of the most influential women in 20th century America, she's the rare sort of individual whose autobiographies are better than the biographies that others have written about her. The Sanger described by others is typically little more than an icon, a stilted "Woman of Valor." The real Sanger you'll discover here is far more interesting and in many ways far more apt to reveal flaws and shortcomings.

This is a reprint of her 1938 autobiography, written by a mature Sanger as she was retiring from public life to become the birth control movement's senior representative. Her 1931 My Fight for Birth Control has more fire to it, but at that time she was much more ill-tempered. She'd been pushed out of the American Birth Control League that she had founded and was having little success in her attempts to get federal birth control legislation passed. If you read one of her autobiographies, this should be the one.

Just remember that you will not get a full picture of Sanger from this book. Here you get the events of her life told from the inside. To understand what motivated her you need to read the book she termed her 'head' book, her 1922 The Pivot of Civilization (recently republished with additional material). It's her most intellectual book and contains an introduction by her friend H. G. Wells.

It is demeaning of Sanger's legacy that so few of those who claim to take her seriously as an activist take the time to examine her ideas. It was Sanger the thinker who inspired Sanger the activist. We must understand both to understand the movement she founded.

In reviewing Sanger's autobiography, there is a difficult balance to manage.

On one hand, Sanger had a genuine desire to reduce unwanted births and, indirectly, reduce the population of the poor and mistreated.

On the other hand is the ungirdings of her beliefs: that African-Americans were second-class citizens. Backing what she believed was a growing acceptance of eugenics, that to have a better world, the population needed to be genetically purer. For Sanger, not too different that Hitler, this meant encouraging abortions among African-Americans.

To read Sanger's auto-biography alone might mislead the reader into believing her views were founded in cleanly laid-out welfare theories and of women's rights. That was part of it... but deeper still... and the reason I'm not comfortable fully recommending this book... is her core racial prejudice under the guise of freedom.

I understand my review might offend fans of Sanger, but read it in context.

Pick up George Grant's book on it... get past his over-emphasis on his own conservative views, and read his analysis of her own comments. Better yet... if you can find one, read Doug Scott's "Bad Choices" expose of the founding and practices of Planned Parenthood. Again, exceedingly conservative and not for the close-minded, but his citations of Sanger's letters and official documents are astounding and alarming.

Anthony Trendl

While browsing through a college bookstore, I recently came across Catholic University of America (CUA) Professor Leslie Woodcock Tentler's "Catholics and Contraception: An American History" (Cornell University Press, 2004) - one of fourteen books from Notre Dame's Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. In 335 pages covering 125 years, Tentler offers little evidence of appreciating modern methods of Natural Family Planning or Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. She envisions NFP as repackaged "rhythm" and those who embrace it as likely to be unable to explain its theological rationale, as well as likely to abandon it with experience. Be that said, she does offer some thought-provoking history.

A "cafeteria" mindset is often noted to exist among misguided Catholics. Some have gotten the notion that the Church offers teaching on the sanctity of human life and marriage for "conservatives," while she alternately offers teaching on social concerns for "liberals." Authentic, seamless connections between teachings on the sanctity of human life, marriage and family, and social issues get lost. While no history of "Catholic Social Teaching" would be complete without an extensive discussion of Msgr. John A. Ryan, Ph.D, Msgr. Ryan kept Church teachings on human life, marriage and family, and social issues very much intact.

As director of the social justice department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (now the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) and as a CUA professor, Ryan was the face of Catholic Social Teaching in the first part of the 20th century in the United States. Long before Humanae Vitae discussed the anti-family agendas of those promoting contraceptives, Ryan took on Planned Parenthood founder and eugenics pioneer Margaret Sanger. He recognized that promotion of contraceptives served as an accomplice to selfishness among some wealthy and powerful of this country, who would accept workers' sweat but not their families. To borrow a phrase from Father Cox of 1930s radio fame, Msgr. Ryan fought for wealth control AGAINST birth control. Ryan argued for just family wages, which would allow a worker to properly support his family. While Tentler makes Ryan's passionate fight against contraceptives crystal clear, others seem to whitewash that part of his legacy.

For various reasons, Ryan's forthrightness about contraceptives was often the exception. Tentler tells us that the earliest part of the 20th century was not characterized by regular preaching about contraception from any pulpits. Among non-Catholic clergy, adherents were even quietly gathering to contraceptive promoters. Yet, no Protestant denomination formally supported contraception until the Anglicans in 1930. Tentler sees Pope Pius XI's encyclical of that year as a counterattack to the Anglican position and a call to arms for more proactive promotion of Church teaching. While Tentler might have us believe "Casti Connubii" to be a simplistic prohibition against contraception, it is a profound and beautiful treatise on marriage. Proclaiming marriage's dignity and sanctity, Pius XI shows deep affection and paternal concern that people not be led astray. Preventing such, he calls the "sacred trust" of priests and bishops.

While the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s saw a growing promotion and acceptance of authentic teaching on marriage and marital relations, hints of dissent became ever more present - starting in the late 1950s. Instead of embracing their "sacred trust," more and more priests and bishops seemed to be signaling - often through thundering silence - that a change in teaching was on the horizon. For a number of years, CUA even kept Father Charles Curran - who openly advocated such change - aboard its faculty. It was into a festering chasm of chaos and confusion that Pope Paul VI presented "Humane Vitae." Rather than a Holy spirit inspired and prophetic document, Tentler intimates this encyclical to be the product of minority voices who successfully coerced Paul VI. Yet, she provides an insightful quote about its reception: "'A peculiar, implicit gentleman's agreement has developed between clergy and hierarchy in which the hierarchy commits itself not to try to seriously enforce compliance with Humanae Vitae so long as the clergy is not too open and public in its opposition to the encyclical,' Andrew Greeley asserted in 1972" (p. 263). While no promoter of Humanae Vitae, Tentler acknowledges that this silent treatment has had a devastating impact: "The result was a church where sexual ethics were seldom discussed, despite rapid change in the cultural values.... Divorce rates rose, even among regular churchgoers, as did the practice of premarital cohabitation. Birth and marriage rates declined....Many Catholics...were newly tolerant of abortion" (pp. 276, 277).

The post Humane Vitae silence has continued for a generation and a half. Some Catholics nearing menopause may have never even encountered the clergy's "sacred trust." If we truly love our clergy, don't those of us who embrace the Theology of the Body and NFP bear responsibility to remind them that Pius XI's words were never abrogated? "If any confessor or pastor of souls, which may God forbid, lead the faithful entrusted to him into these errors or should at least confirm them by approval or by guilty silence, let him be mindful of the fact that he must render a strict account to God, the Supreme Judge, for the betrayal of his sacred trust"

21 x 28 cm (approx A4 size), 27 single-sided pages, text only (no pictures or illustrations).

I was quite disappointed with this book, especially for its price. Its 27 pages contain just text that has come from someone's laser printer, complete with a few typos and formatting problems. Ok, the reproduction of those laser printouts is high; I have no complaint with the quality of the reproduction. But it contains no illustrations or pictures of any sort, although the front and back covers are colorful and cheery (although irrelevant to the subject matter).

The actual text of the book is noticably straight-forward and open, more so than other straight-forward and open books. I like the way that it makes it clear upfront that there are two objectives of contraception, to prevent (1) pregnancy, and (2) disease. The remainder of the book generally discusses prevention of pregnancy only, though; discussing the various types of contraceptives.

The content of the text is very well written, but the text doesn't deserve to be sold alone, unillustrated, at such a high price. The title of this book is a bit misleading too; it's not specifically about the condom, but rather about contraceptives generally. Discussion about condoms takes up two pages of the text.

The author must be out of his mind. At at time when the earth's population is exploding to dangerous numbers, he is concerned that there aren't enough babies being born. There seems to be anti birth control agenda behind this book. He also conveniently forgets Africa and statistics like the average woman there giving birth eight times (to children that often starve to death). Birth control and sterilization in third world countries are the only hope for improving their lives and conserving the world's resources. If you read this book, you will be baffled--and perhaps disgusted--by the author's stance and his blind eye to the facts about overpopulation and its devastating effects.