localcontent. Youre watching American History tv. All weekend, every weekend on cspan. Up next, a discussion about the 20th century Birth Control advocate Margaret Sanger and her legacy. We hear from a panel of historians, activists, and her own grandson. They discuss the impact of race, social class, and politics on the birthcontrol movement. This is about an hour and 20 minutes. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I think we will get started. We are expecting lots more people, but we dont know what the traffic or the subway situation is. I am Susan Henshaw jones, i am also the Ronay Menschel director of the museum of the city of new york. I am so delighted to welcome you all here for this program. Women rebels, Margaret Sanger and the birthcontrol movement at 100. Tonight, author and journalist Katha Pollitt will lead a conversation with activists and scholars of the productive Rights Movement. Sanger biographer, Ellen Chesler, reproductive justice activist loretta ross, and historian linda gordon. To mark the 100th anniversary of the movements origins in 1914, they will discuss sangers legacy and the birthcontrol movement for activists today. And i really do thank cspan for recognizing the importance of this milestone, and for being here to record tonights program. This is part of our ongoing activist new york series. All of which are sponsored by the puffin foundation. Our series is done in conjunction with an exhibition on the second floor called activist new york, which looks at new york city history from 1654 right up until 2009. It looks at new york citys history through the lens of social activism. So, i really do i see that you do not know about this do we have it open afterwards sarah . Not tonight . Can we do it . Can angel open it . Yeah, for anybody who has not seen it, you absolutely have to see this. That is terrific. We do have courageous women in that gallery. But i also think that i have to tell you we have a courageous woman right here in our curator for social activism, sarah sideman. I think that we may be the only museum in the country maybe that is too broad to have a curator of social activism on our staff, fulltime. It is really wonderful. That, too, is by virtue of the puffin foundation. But what were talking about today, activism is not only historical. We witnessed widespread activism last night, and i am certain that something is going on now. My husband in foley square says that there are thousands of people there. I am delighted. Activism is an essential democratic function. We are so very happy here at the museum to celebrate responsible activism in the history of our state. City. Tonight, we have a great cosponsor in planned parenthood new york. I thank them. I also want to thank the Margaret Sanger papers project at nyu for their cosponsorship as well. Tonights speakers, Ellen Chesler is right here to my left. Ellen is a senior fellow at the roosevelt institute, the partner to the Roosevelt Library in hyde park, new york. She is the author of the critically celebrated woman of valor, Margaret Sanger and the birthcontrol movement in america, which was published in 1992 and rereleased in 2007 as a paperback. She was coeditor with Wendy Chavkin of where human rights begin, health, sexuality, and women in the new millennium. She is currently at work on a new book about the history of womens rights as fundamental human rights. Ellen and i i take great pleasure in saying this were classmates together at a Womans College no longer a Womans College, vassar college. So i am thrilled to have ellen on this podium. Linda gordon is a famed professor of history and the University Professor of humanities at nyu. Her first book, womans body womans right, a history of Birth Control in america, was published in 1976 and later revised and republished as the moral property of women, in 2007. It remains the definitive history of birthcontrol politics in the United States. Her more recent books are the great arizona orphan abduction and Dorothea Lange a life beyond limits, both of which have won bancroft prizes. Katha pollitt is the author of the newly published pro reclaiming abortion rights as well as virginity or death and learning to drive. She is a poet, essayist, and columnist for the nation. She has won many prizes and awards. Including the National Book critics circle award and two National Magazine awards. Loretta ross is a nationally renowned expert on womens issues, hate groups, racism and intolerance, human rights, and violence against women. She has served as the National Coordinator of the sistersong women of color reproductive justice collective, and director of the women of color programs for the National Organization for women. She has written extensively on the history of africanamerican women and reproductive justice activism, including as coauthor of undivided rights, women of color organize for reproductive justice. Now, i am going to introduce, in one heartbeat, alex sanger, who is Margaret Sangers grandson. But before i do that, i always want to say that i want everybody here to be members of the museum, so we can sign you up tonight and if we sign you up tonight we would love to give you, as a free book, pro reclaiming abortion rights, and i bet katha would sign the book. Autograph the book. [laughter] that would be a great, great thing. Anyway, if you dont want to join but you want the book, it is available for sale in the museum shop. Now, next week, we have a Womens Program going on here, too. It is a Panel Discussion called todays modern woman. It is about the depiction of working women in Current Media and public conversation. It is with npr correspondent ashleigh milnetyte and cosmopolitan Magazine Editor leslie yazel, among the other speakers. It is next week, in conjunction with an exhibition down the corridor, which is mac conner a new york life. He was an illustrator in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. He was creating the idealized view of the modern american women, so that we could all know how to dress ourselves and behave and wear our gloves and hats. Now, Alexander Sanger will introduce the topic of tonights program and get us going. In addition to being Margaret Sangers grandson, alex is currently chair of the International Planned parenthood council. He has also served as a goodwill ambassador for the u. N. Population fund, as well as the president of planned parenthood of new york city and its international arm, the Margaret Sanger center international. He is the author of beyond choice, reproductive freedom in the 21st century. So please welcome alex and all of our panelists. Thank you. [applause] good evening and welcome. The issues of social justice racial justice, humanitarian justice, i know, are on our minds this evening. The movements to correct the worlds many inequities and injustices take many forms. Because there are so many root causes to be addressed. The symptoms of the inequity that my grandmother saw 100 years ago on the Lower East Side when she was nursing were an epidemic of Maternal Death unsafe abortions, infant deaths, and rampant disease. Maternal and infant mortality statistics of the United States 100 years ago are the equivalent of the least developed countries in the world today. To her, and to us at planned parenthood, these deaths are an affront to civilization and decency, and they are preventable. Her solution, Birth Control, which allowed women to control the number of births contributed to a massive improvement in Public Health that we have seen in the last 100 years. But still, worldwide, over 290,000 women die every year from pregnancyrelated causes. That is 800 women a day. Including 43,000 women dying annually from unsafe abortions. 5. 6 million babies die at birth or are stillborn. 1. 5 million men and women die annually from aids. 35 of women worldwide have been the victims of intimate partner violence. This carnage is an affront to decency and civilization. No surprise, there are those today, as there were 100 years ago, who oppose our efforts to prevent this carnage and save these lives. 100 years ago, anthony comstock, whose laws criminalized contraception, said, sexual and was my grandmothers tormentor said, sexual pleasure within marriage is bestial and base. The judge who sentenced my grandmother to jail for opening a Birth Control clinic, said, a woman has no right to copulate without fear of pregnancy. Some men are continuing this dubious tradition. In the last week, listen to this litany. The male president of turkey said women would never be equal to men and they should stay at home and have three, preferably five, children. The male minister of education in russia declared, Sex Education would never be taught in russia. Isis banned Birth Control. The gambia enacted a trip coney and draconian antigay law. Another leader said Birth Control was equal to or worse to communism and combined. And then there is the text of Legislature Texas legislature. Is reproductive freedom a male versus female thing . Do women win and men lose . No, it is not. Our women universally in favor of reproductive rights and men universally opposed . In this country, not even close. In the United States, women favor reproductive freedom only slightly more than men. So, do not leave men out of the solution. Not all men are hopeless. 100 years ago, my grandmother was in exile in europe for publishing the woman rebel, there was a trial going downtown of an unsuspecting individual who was entrapped into handing to an Undercover Police officer a copy of one of my grandmothers pamphlets. Family limitation, 16 pages of Birth Control advice. The accused, on the witness stand, declared that comstock was a religious and pornographic fanatic. And, a victim of incurable sexphobia. I wish i thought of that. He further declared, i deny the right of the state to exercise dominion over the souls and bodies of our women by compelling them to go into unwilling motherhood. The defendant was found guilty. The presiding judge said, in sentencing, your crime is not only a violation of the laws of man, it is a violation of the laws of god. Such persons who circulate pamphlets like these is a menace to society. There are now many who believe it is a crime to have children. If some of the women advocating suffered would advocate having children, they would do a service. He sentenced the defendant to 30 days in jail for handing out this pamphlet. The defendant was my grandfather, william sanger. The first person to go to jail for advocating Birth Control in my grandmothers crusade was not my grandmother, it was my grandfather. Thank you. [applause] i am Katha Pollitt, i want to welcome you to this panel. Thank you, susan, alex for these wonderful remarks. It is all so fascinating, one hundred years later, Margaret Sanger still stirs my blood. Anyway the way we will work this is, every panelist speak for five minutes and fiv minutes only. On some area of this that interests them particularly. We will have a general discussion and questions afterward. After a half an hour, it will be your turn to ask questions. We will go in alphabetical order. Ellen chesler, kick us off. It is a pleasure to be here especially because susan runs this wonderful institution in new york, she is a halfcentury friend of mine. Also because i have been talking about Margaret Sanger for a lmost half a century and i never tire of the subject. I thought i would say five things that defined Margaret Sanger and to find the movement, and frame the debates which are ongoing today, i will essentially put exclamation pionts on points on some things alex said. Margaret sanger was a nurse. She had an unquestioning and from our perspective, and almost naive concept of alleviating suffering, which fueled her interest in Birth Control. As a tool not only for women, it but all so of social betterment. Margaret sanger was a secularist. She was the daughter of a protestant mother and a secular catholic father. Both irish. One thought heard to deport, the other two to five the other to defy, one died at the age of 50 after multiple pregnancies, and a bout of tuberculosis. The other lived to a ripe old age, squandering his artistic and intellectual talent on too much talk and drink. It was a powerful, potent combination to inspire rebellion. Sanger lifted the religious shroud that had encased sexuality and reproduction in mystery, and replaced houses of worship with clinics, houses of worship run by male clerics, with clinics run by women and doctors and social scientists. She made us the arbiters of our own behaviors and values, and from this conflict, a century of turbulence has ensued. And perhaps, another century will ensue as not only the judeochristian culture reforms itself in this regard, but many millions of muslims go through the same sorts of transitions. She was progressive. This is important, it defines or her politics. She emerged on the american scene in the halcyon days at the turnofthecentury, a time when america seemed wide open with possibility before the Russian Revolution and the overtaking of the complications that overtook the labor movement. Her faith and revolution gave way to a more concrete agenda for reform and a confidence that a wellrun state could tame capitalism and provide a floor of wellbeing for the most vulnerable among us. This is critical to understanding sanger and the movement. She embraced the new deal. She was a friend of eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. She believed in government that would guarantee reproductive autonomy for improvements in social welfare and Public Health. She called for a robust social safety net. Increased Public Expenditure on Family Planning as a matter of civil justice. Why would a country that was taking care of its people not also give them the voluntary tools to limit a number of births . One has to understand that the new deal, the foundation of the new deal, were Northern Irish catholics and southern fundamental protestants that became a Political Base that is now holding captive the Republican Party. Held captive the Democratic Party. She never forget that. She became angry and gave up on american politics after the new deal. It is a fundamental point that she always voted socialist. She was so angry about Franklin Roosevelt. She was fourth a feminist her fundamental heresy, was claiming a womans right to experience their sexuality free of consequence, just as men have always done. The hardest challenge in writing about her today, and over the last 22 years, talking about her as well as writing about her, is to explain how absolutely destabilizing she was in her own time. Even given the enormous backlash against womens rights today and in the years since my book was published, it is hard to inhabit an era in our own past and history when sex was seen more as an obligation rather than pleasure for woman and motherhood was a primary goal. Women were denied identities of their own as citizens, and they compromise rights, no protection from violence. This unyielding principle of male coveture was key to understanding why her arguments were so profound. Examining all this in the context of the recent expansions of International Human rights discourse, which i have been involved in as an activist for many years since i wrote this book with george soros, there is an International HumanRights Movement now which is incorporating socioeconomic and cultural rights as what we define as fundamental human rights. Being involved in that underscores the originality of feminist thinkers who demanded Civil Protection of the body not just the states promise to respect our privacy, but also demanded of the states a positive obligation to provide services on a voluntary basis for contraception. This is something that is now enshrined in International Human rights law. In part of a way to eliminate all discrimination against women. It is also now enshrined in the Affordable Care act. If you want to know why the controversy over these issues has intensified,