Answering Sophie: Mother Teresa vs. Margaret Sanger

I want to address Sophie Fletcher's comments from yesterday's post comparing Mother Teresa and Margaret Sanger.


Sophie's comments are in red italics.


Wow. I don't mean to butt in here, but I am sensing a bit of bias against Sanger. 


Actually, you should be sensing a huge bias against Sanger here.  :)


I do have a few questions as to some of your points, Leila. I'm sorry if I word my questions bluntly--I don't mean to offend, but I haven't got much time right now and I am simply curious.


Totally fine. I love straight talk!


You say "Mother Teresa was truly humble and radiated joy" etc while Sanger was "proud, troubled selfish and never at peace." I thought both Mother Teresa and Sanger did much for others, especially the poor--Mother Teresa through her physical care, and Sanger through her distribution of contraception. 


Oh, yes, they both did a lot for others. In a way that was diametrically opposed.


Mother Teresa loved and cared for the untouchables of society, taking them out of the streets, picking maggots out of their rotted, dying flesh and giving them a clean place to lay, food to eat and water to drink, loving them till their last breath. Many of those she cared for reported that this was the first time in their lives that they had been loved, listened to, touched and cherished.


Margaret Sanger did a lot for others, too. She called for poor people, black people, immigrants and disabled to to stop reproducing themselves since they were "unfit" and "human weeds." She worked her whole life to achieve her goal of culling the herd of undesirables, all while neglecting her children and carrying on multiple adulterous affairs.


Nowadays, because so many people believe in sex before marriage, it is wiser to be prepared for it than to expect it never to happen. 


Actually, it's wiser to educate our children about self-control and human dignity. Wouldn't that serve them well? I am actually planning to do a whole post on this...


But you are right that we expect most people to have sex before marriage now, because Sanger's push for widespread contraception was successful. Contraception makes engaging in promiscuous sex much easier. Now women can take pills to make themselves sterile, giving them the freedom to be used and discarded by dozens of men over their lifetime. 


Why would Sanger have been considered selfish if she did this?


Well, when one's motive is to eliminate poor people, black people, disabled people or anyone else deemed "unfit," we may rightly call that selfish. Seeing dirty, impoverished, imperfect brown people made Maggie feel icky. Sorta like people who walk halfway around the block to avoid the homeless man lying in the street. Sharing the earth (and a common humanity) with the riff-raff makes us uncomfortable. And, yes, that is selfish.

You also say that Sanger worked for herself alone. I think we can both see that isn't true. If you think it is, please explain to me how so. 


But it is true, by her own admission. The slogan on her newsletter was "no gods, no masters" -- she said it, I didn't. Everything Maggie did was for Maggie because Maggie wanted to. She was no Mother Teresa. ;)


And although I do agree with you on the "don't-kill-unborn-children" idea, by law, a child is merely a fetus until out of the womb, at which time it becomes a baby. 


And once upon a time, a black person was not considered fully human under the law. In Nazi Germany, Jews were not protected under the law, either. Don't confuse what is legal with what is moral. Sometimes they coincide, sometimes not. My humanity doesn't depend on whether or not some lawmaker says I am human, you see?


Not sure how a fetus (which means offspring or little one) "becomes" a baby at birth. Seems like simply a location change to me. I'm willing to hear how that happens, but in the meantime you may want to check out my response to Christa regarding the science of human life and the concept of "personhood."


However, studies show that in countries where abortion was illegal and considered bad, both the amount of crime and the infant mortality rate went up exponentially. 


First, I'd have to see the studies. That is pretty vague. Second, even if crime went through the roof because babies were allowed to live, it still wouldn't justify killing the unborn. 


Abortion can only happen before a certain point in pregnancy. 


Untrue, but a common misconception (no pun intended). 


Roe v. Wade legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. It allows individual states to put restrictions on late-term abortions if they so desire, but any American woman who wants an abortion at full-term can legally attain one. She might have to travel to another state to find an abortionist willing to do it, but it's legal. Your statement is incorrect.


I believe that abortion is the right choice in some situations, such as certain cases of teen pregnancy. 


I don't doubt that you believe that. However, I imagine that if you were that child about to be dismembered and sucked out of your mother's womb, you might have a different belief. Unfortunately, the unborn don't have a voice, and they don't vote. I'm sure glad my husband's mother didn't abort him (she was a teen mom).


Don't you agree it is better for both mother and embryo to lose the fetus and continue living as a teenager than it is to be possibly disowned, homeless, and susceptible to disease? 


No, I don't agree (see my previous answer, re: my dear husband). And it doesn't make sense... how could it be "better" for the embryo to be dead rather than alive? Unless death is better than life? I've never understood the mindset that says the potential for suffering is enough to warrant an abortion. If that's the case, then we all should have been aborted, because we all suffer. Every single one of us could "possibly be disowned, homeless and susceptible to disease." No one can predict what will become of a human life. The human spirit is an amazing thing.


Please help me to understand your point of view. 



It's incredibly simple: Every human life, from the moment of conception, is intrinsically valuable and inviolable. Either we are all human, or none of us is.

(Unborn children at about eight or  nine weeks)