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Sanger, Margaret, 1883-1966

"Woman and the New Race"


Why is all this true of the lower species yet not true of human
beings? The secret is revealed by one significant fact--the female's
functions in these animal species are not limited to motherhood alone.
Every organ and faculty is fully employed and perfected. Through the
development of the individual mother, better and higher types of
animals are produced and carried forward. In a word, natural law makes
the female the expression and the conveyor of racial efficiency.
Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law,
is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of
weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of
those who will become defectives. So, in compliance with nature's
working plan, we must permit womanhood its full development before we
can expect of it efficient motherhood. If we are to make racial
progress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in
every individual woman. Then and then only can the mother cease to be
an incubator and be a mother indeed. Then only can she transmit to her
sons and daughters the qualities which make strong individuals and,
collectively, a strong race.
Voluntary motherhood also implies the right of marriage without
maternity.


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