"While I personally believe in the sterilization of the feeble-minded, the insane and syphilitic, I have not been able to discover that these measures are more than superficial deterrents when applied to the constantly growing stream of the unfit. They are excellent means of meeting a certain phase of the situation, but I believe in regard to these, as in regard to other eugenic means, that they do not go to the bottom of the matter. Neither the mating of healthy couples nor the sterilization of certain recognized types of the unfit touches the great problem of unlimited reproduction of those whose housing, clothing, and food are all inadequate to physical and mental health. These measures do not touch those great masses, who through economic pressure populate the slums and there produce in their helplessness other helpless, diseased and incompetent masses, who overwhelm all that eugenics can do among those whose economic condition is better."
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Educators from the United StatesFree speech activistsWomen activists from the United StatesWomen's rights activistsHealth activists
Original Language: English
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger
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Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger (September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, feminist, and eugenicist who opened the first birth control clinic in the United States and established organizations that evolved into the .
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