名人轶事:Margaret Sanger

By Doreen Baingana

Broadcast: December 19, 2004

(THEME)

VOICE ONE:

I’m Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Sarah Long with the VOA Special English Program, People in America.

Today, we tell about one of the leaders of the birth control movement,

Margaret Sanger.

(THEME)

VOICE ONE:

Many women today have the freedom to decide when they will have children, if

they want them. Until about fifty years ago, women spent most of their adult

lives having children, year after year. This changed because of efforts by

activists¹ like Margaret Sanger. She believed that a safe and sure method of

preventing pregnancy² was a necessary condition for women’s freedom. She also

believed birth control was necessary for human progress.

VOICE TWO:

The woman who changed other women’s lives was born in Eighteen-Eighty-Three

in the eastern state of New York. Her parents were Michael and Anne Higgins.

Margaret wrote several books about her life. She wrote that her father taught

her to question everything. She said he taught her to be an independent

thinker.

Margaret said that watching her mother suffer from having too many children

made her feel strongly about birth control. Her mother died at forty-eight

years of age after eighteen pregnancies³. She was always tired and sick.

Margaret had to care for her mother and her ten surviving brothers and

sisters. This experience led her to become a nurse.

Margaret Higgins worked in the poor areas of New York City. Most people there

had recently arrived in the United States from Europe. Margaret saw the

suffering of hundreds of women who tried to end their pregnancies in illegal

and harmful ways. She realized that this was not just a health problem. These

women suffered because of their low position in society.

Margaret saw that not having control over one’s body led to problems that

were passed on from mother to daughter and through the family for years. She

said she became tired of cures that did not solve the real problem. Instead,

she wanted to change the whole life of a mother.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

In Nineteen-Oh-Two, Margaret married William Sanger. They had three children.

Margaret compared her own middle-class life to that of the poor people she

worked among. This increased her desire to deal with economic and social

issues. At this time, Margaret Sanger became involved in the liberal

political culture of an area of New York City known as Greenwich Village.

Sanger became a labor⁴ union organizer. She learned methods of protest and

propaganda⁵, which she used in her birth control activism.

Sanger traveled to Paris, France, in Nineteen-Thirteen, to research European

methods of birth control. She also met with members of Socialist⁶ political

groups who influenced her birth control policies. She returned to the United

States prepared to change women’s lives.

VOICE TWO:

At first, Margaret Sanger sought the support of leaders of the women’s

movement, members of the Socialist party, and the medical profession. But,

she wrote that they told her to wait until women were permitted to vote. She

decided⁷ to continue working alone.

One of Margaret Sanger’s first important political acts was to publish a

monthly newspaper called The Woman Rebel. She designed it. She wrote for it.

And she paid for it. The newspaper called for women to reject the traditional

woman’s position. The first copy was published in March, Nineteen-Fourteen.

The Woman Rebel was an angry paper that discussed disputed and sometimes

illegal subjects. These included labor problems, marriage, the sex business,

and revolution.

Sanger had an immediate⁸ goal. She wanted to change laws that prevented birth

control education and sending birth control devices through the mail.

VOICE ONE:

The Woman Rebel became well-known in New York and elsewhere. Laws at that

time banned the mailing of materials considered morally bad. This included

any form of birth control information. The law was known as the Comstock Act.

Officials ordered Sanger to stop sending out her newspaper.

Sanger instead wrote another birth control document called Family Limitation.

1 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

3 pregnancies   

怀孕，妊娠( pregnancy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Since the wartime population needed replenishment, pregnancies were a good sign. 最后一桩倒不失为好现象，战时人口正该补充。
• She's had three pregnancies in four years. 她在四年中怀孕叁次。

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 propaganda   

n.宣传，宣传机构

参考例句：

• A lot of propaganda has painted him as bad.大量宣传把他说得很坏。
• Art may be used as a vehicle for propaganda.艺术可以用作为宣传的媒介。

6 socialist   

n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的

参考例句：

• China is a socialist country,and a developing country as well.中国是一个社会主义国家，也是一个发展中国家。
• His father was an ardent socialist.他父亲是一个热情的社会主义者。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

9 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

10 violating   

亵渎( violate的现在分词 )； 违反； 侵犯； 强奸

参考例句：

• Ignorance of a law does not excuse a man for violating it. 一个人不懂法律不构成犯法的理由。
• It was sued by the U.S. federal government for violating antitrust law. 它被美国联邦政府指控违反了反托拉斯法。

11 pneumonia   

n.肺炎

参考例句：

• Cage was struck with pneumonia in her youth.凯奇年轻时得过肺炎。
• Pneumonia carried him off last week.肺炎上星期夺去了他的生命。

12 creation   

n.创造，创造的作品，产物，宇宙，天地万物

参考例句：

• Language is the most important mental creation of man.语言是人类头脑最重要的产物。
• The creation of new playgrounds will benefit the local children.新游戏场的建立将有益于当地的儿童。

13 judicial   

adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的

参考例句：

• He is a man with a judicial mind.他是个公正的人。
• Tom takes judicial proceedings against his father.汤姆对他的父亲正式提出诉讼。

14 historians   

n.历史学家，史学工作者( historian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Historians seem to have confused the chronology of these events. 历史学家好像把这些事件发生的年代顺序搞混了。
• Historians have concurred with each other in this view. 历史学家在这个观点上已取得一致意见。

15 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

16 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

17 federation   

n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会

参考例句：

• It is a federation of 10 regional unions.它是由十个地方工会结合成的联合会。
• Mr.Putin was inaugurated as the President of the Russian Federation.普京正式就任俄罗斯联邦总统。

18 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。