September 14 is Margaret Sanger’s birthday.
It turns out every thing you’ve been told about her by conservatives is a lie, according to a new book by Peter Bagge.
She did not favor government enforced eugenics, and she was not a big proponent of abortion as opposed to birth control.
Though married to a socialist, having a socialist father, and friends with anarcho-communist Emma Goldman, her entire life work was devoted to publishing information about birth control and women’s sexual autonomy, for which she was prosecuted under the Comstock policies prohibiting mailing “obscene” material through the government controlled postal service. Her publications, like Woman Rebel, seem very libertarian. Both socialist newspapers and the government postal service banned her shocking and obscene articles and pamphlets on such nefarious topics as how to use a diaphragm. Peter Bagge has just written a new graphic bio on her.
Mrs. Sanger largely ignored gay people and gay issues, concentrating on birth control information for women. At one point she founded a lunch group/salon for women, mixing political radicals and heiresses, called Heterodoxy, which had a large component of lesbians seeking to meet other lesbians.
The Insomniac Libertarian 