When Publics Collide: Margaret Sanger's Argument for Birth Control and the Rhetorical Breakdown of Barriers

Abstract

Women have fought for centuries in the United States to secure and maintain reproductive rights. Yet, few understand the rhetorical history that paved the way for women to access a public space to speak on the once taboo topic of birth control. At the turn of the twentieth century, the 1873 Federal Comstock Act prohibited the public discussion of reproductive information and control. This essay investigates how the private topic of family planning became a public debate during the start of the twentieth century. To accomplish this, I examined Margaret Sanger's newspaper articles written for the New York Call, The Woman Rebel, and Family Limitation and argue that storytelling and personal experiences became the primary rhetorical tactics used to bridge the divide between subaltern counterpublic, counterpublic, and public spheres.

Keywords:

• birth control
• Margaret Sanger
• public spheres
• storytelling

Parts of this essay are drawn from the author's doctoral dissertation.