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Article: Birth Control
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BIRTH CONTROL
BIRTH CONTROL.
The term "birth control" was coined by Margaret Sanger in 1921, when she founded the American Birth Control League (later Planned Parenthood). She believed that women should have control over their own bodies and their own pregnancies. Though she recognized birth control in larger social and political contexts and was criticized for working too closely with the eugenics movement, she saw it clearly as a health issue for women. Sanger worked as a nurse in New York City's "Hell's Kitchen" and saw women's health suffering as the result of many pregnancies. Her own mother died of tuberculosis after bearing eleven children.
Sanger had promoted the use of birth ...