To Margaret Sanger on Her Birthday

As it’s the 138th birthday of Margaret Sanger, the woman who founded Planned Parenthood and coined the term “birth control,” it seems a good time to mention some of the ramifications of her work.  One can argue that her most important contribution to society was the enabling of the feminist movement, by providing woman greater control and freedom over their reproductive lives and thus their power to engage in recreational sex.  Yet the notion of family planning goes much further, and may, in fact, form the make/break point in the success of our civilization, as overpopulation continues to pour gasoline on the fire of resource consumption and environmental degradation.

When I speak in public, I often talk about the nexus of energy, education, population growth and sustainability.  In the absence of the availability of energy in the Third World (which would normally mean distributed, renewable energy), education is extremely difficult to administer.  In turn, in the absence of education, populations tend to be impoverished, and women tend to have several times more children than their counterparts.  Conversely, educated women tend to seek out the information and contraception they need to have smaller, healthier, more productive and stronger families, thus paving the way to a more sustainable society.

Although Margaret Sanger is also known to us today for her ethically twisted views in support of eugenics, she is nonetheless rightfully credited for getting us headed in the right direction with respect to family planning.