A Young Woman's Response to Lena Dunham's "100 Years" Video and Margaret Sanger

I don't normally post about such confrontational issues, but since the March for Life is coming up, I'd like to point out a few things about this video that is going to be aired to kick off the Women's March that is incidentally occurring January 21st, just six days before the March of Life.

The video starts out by telling about how Planned Parenthood got started. Back in 1912, a woman named Margaret Sanger happened to care for a woman who had undergone an abortion that went wrong. She tells about how the woman was in pain, suffering from fever. She dies later as a result of her internal injuries, thus prompting Sanger to never rest until she found reproductive solutions for women. Hundreds of women came to her, asking how to prevent more pregnancies so they would be able to handle the five, ten, or nineteen children they already had. Early devices and illegal abortions were in place until she worked to promote birth control and federally permitted abortions that were offered later by the growing number of Planned Parenthood clinics. It goes on to celebrate the many accomplishments of the women's clinic.

If you want to know about the values of a corporation or organization, take a good look at the founder!

What not many people know is that Margaret Sanger, the highly acclaimed founder and advocate for "women's rights", was actually raised as a Roman Catholic, being one of eleven children. This seemed to contribute little in her life, as she was also involved with Eugenicists, believing that the mentally impaired should not be allowed to reproduce. "Every child should be a wanted child" she used to say.

My first thought when watching the video was how awful it was for the woman under Sanger's care to undergo such a traumatic experience, which is exactly the response they are looking for! But here's something the crowds of people on march day won't think about: what of the baby? He/she too underwent a traumatic experience, perhaps even more painful! In addition, if the abortion was botched, there is a chance the baby survived and encountered greater suffering as it slowly died. That tiny soul was easily forgotten by a woman who was raised and lived in a world where children were burdens. Burdens she believed women had the right to relieve themselves of. 

Planned Parenthood is an organization that is supported and praised by thousands of people. But it was founded by a woman who had a distorted view of the world, especially of humankind. To begin with, Sanger had no understanding of what love is, or how love is integrated into human sexual interactions. As a reproductive educator, she was famous for her article "What Every Girl Should Know". Here is an excerpt from the section, "Sexual Impulse, Part 1":

"At the time of puberty, there comes both to boys and girls two impulses--one, the desire to touch and caress; to come in contact with, to write and to speak to an individual of the opposite sex. This impulse is much stronger in girls than in boys. The other is the impulse that impels the individual to discharge the accumulation of ripe sex cells and relieve himself of the nervous tension which this accumulation produces. This latter impulse is stronger in boys than in girls. One writer states that this is an unconscious desire for relief from physical congestion, not differing greatly from the sense of relief which the emptying of the bladder or rectum produces.

These two impulses together constitute the Sexual Impulse, and this constitutes the foundation upon which love, the greatest of all emotions, is based" (Sanger 1). 

So then love is related merely to an impulse, spurred on by physical scientific processes in the body? How demeaning to a force that motivates the impossible, creates bonds between human beings, and ultimately drove the Creator of the Universe to give His only Son to die for all mankind! Saint Augustine wrote that to love is to will the good of another. Even the early Greeks were able to distinguish four kinds of love: storge, philia, eros, and agape. That is, a closeness, affection, or devotion to family, friends, a mate, and generally to human beings as brothers and sisters. All of these reference activity of the SOUL, not of physical processes of the reproductive system. Surely people like Martin Luther King Jr, St. Teresa of Calcutta, Pope Francis, Abraham Lincoln, St. Pope John Paul II, and a plethora of others did not accomplish what they did, driven only by their body's physical impulses.What a disgrace to them, and what a shame for the women who were educated by Sanger. 

Thus it was that women were taught to disregard their natural, nurturing motherly instincts, and instead view their reproductive abilities as prisons:

"No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body" ~ Margaret Sanger

There really is no logic in her statement. Never in the history of science or biology has a creature adapted or evolved with a natural bodily component that imprisoned its potential to survive or thrive. When examined scientifically, a woman's reproductive cycle contains a time of fertility and non-fertility. If educated properly, a woman can use her natural cycles to promote or avoid pregnancy. The imprisonment of women in Sanger's time was not in their reproductive system, but the lack of education and knowledge on it. This is still true today. Control of women's bodies is not what is needed. Control is for something that has the potential for disaster or disorder. In Sanger's case, pregnancy was the chaos. Rather, the utility of what is already naturally provided makes better sense. It also does not give fault to the wonders that a woman's reproductive system can carry out. 

Where is the soul then, Planned Parenthood? You speak about how "the doors will always be open" and that equality and freedom must come to every woman. But what is the point to "serve" these women, if you disregard their bodies and souls, as well as the beings they have the privilege of carrying? What does that freedom or equality feed? What do any of us work towards, if not the soul? For the body ages, dies, and returns back to the ground. It is the soul that gives the body dignity; dignity which demands freedom, equality, kindness, charity, and friendship. 

So I'm not going to be one of the hundreds of young women supporting the work of modern "women's rights" activists like Lena Dunham, marching together to take back what's ours. Nothing was stolen to begin with! What has been stolen in the last 100 years is the dignity of women and the beautiful gift they have to bring forth life. It has stolen the chance to educate women about their bodies and give them a deeper understanding of themselves. No thanks to you, Margaret Sanger. 

Thankfully, we have voices of our own and have every opportunity to prayerfully fight for the souls of every woman and child. I will be praying for each person who walks in the March of Life on January 27th.