For those of you who haven’t yet read Jill Lapore’s New Yorker essay on Margaret Sanger and the politicization of birth control and abortion (or want more), you can hear her interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air for free thanks to National Public Radio:
A full transcript is not available, sadly, but select sections are available through the NPR website.
I’m looking forward to listening to the interview. I have to make an aside comment here. Terry Gross is one of the best interviewers of all time. However she interviews pathetically few women. Why so few women, Terry, Why?
thanks for posting this Anna – it’s really interesting!
the bit that was particularly fascinating was the middle part looking at the allies Sanger worked with to have contraception freely available.
I learned something really interesting from this. Giovanni Montini (aka Pope Paul, but I am never using that title again for anyone ever) made official statements on abortion and birth control in 1968 (against). Nixon’s campaign suggested Nixon change his position on abortion in order to split off Catholics from the Democratic party. So he did, and it worked. Now we have abortion as a wedge issue every single election cycle.