Culture Of Life 101… “Origins Of Pro-Abortion Slogans In The Birth Control Review”

By BRIAN CLOWES

(Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For an electronic copy of 900 of the best quotes from The Birth Control Review, which is organized by topic, e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.)

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Most of us have heard all of the tired old pro-abortion slogans many times. When we hear people start to chant them again, we usually roll our eyes and think, “I’d sure give a lot to hear something original!”
It turns out that these pro-abortion slogans are even more unoriginal and unimaginative than we thought.
Reformed abortionist Bernard Nathanson recounts how he spent his time plotting the future course of the pro-abortion movement with NARAL co-founder Larry Lader:
“Women must have control over their own bodies.”
“Safe and legal abortion is every woman’s right.”
“Who decides? You decide!”
“Freedom of choice — a basic American right.”
“I remember laughing when we made those slogans up. We were looking for some sexy, catchy slogans to capture public opinion. They were very cynical slogans then, just as all of these slogans today are very, very cynical,” said Nathanson.
But history reveals that it was not Nathanson and Lader who created the modern-day pro-abortion slogans. This dubious honor must go to Margaret Sanger and other writers for The Birth Control Review.
“Woman’s Body, Woman’s Choice.” The precursor of this slogan first appeared in the October 1928 Birth Control Review, when the editor claimed that “when women are in full control of their own bodies, then the world will honor motherhood and will learn that it is worthwhile to do everything possible to make it safe and desirable.”
Three years later, Maynard Shipley said: “One can say of him [author George Ryley Scott] that he is sincere, forthright, and unafraid; that he is a thorough believer in birth control, and also in legalized abortion — in other words, over a woman’s right to possession and use of her own body.”
Magnus Hirschfield wrote: “For we have here merely the question of a woman’s rights over her own body. Moreover, experience shows that when proper methods are not available wrong and harmful ones are resorted to.”
This slogan soon caught on and became very popular among writers for The Birth Control Review.
“Every Child a Wanted Child.” This hideous slogan, which reduces children to the status of appliances, was first used by Mary Knoblauch in the April 1919 issue of The Birth Control Review. She said: “The first right a child should have, and since he can’t protest, we should insist upon it for him, is that of being wanted.”
Margaret Sanger echoed that “the first right of the child is to be wanted — to be desired with an intensity of love that gives it its title to being and joyful impulse to live.”
Ella K. Dearborn said that “it is an injustice to both parents and child to bring an unwelcome baby into the world.”
This “better off dead” slogan is still very popular among pro-abortionists today in their attempts to portray themselves as kind, child-loving people.
“Children by Choice, Not by Chance.” This slogan first appeared in the May 1927 edition of The Birth Control Review. Louis Mann wrote that “religion…believes in cosmos, not chaos, in choice not chance, in free will, not fatalism. It must, therefore, believe in children by choice rather than by chance.”
Harry Fosdick claimed that “the tragedy of unplanned parenthood our children’s children will look back upon as utterly inhuman. It is just as much a man’s problem as it is a woman’s to see that this inhumanity is done away and that voluntary parenthood is established as the normal functioning of family life.”
Similar slogans appeared throughout the magazine’s entire run.
“Freedom of Choice.” Although Nathanson and Lader claimed credit for the star-spangled “freedom of choice” slogan, Margaret Sanger used it a half-century before NARAL was organized. She said that “woman must have her freedom — the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she shall be a mother and how many children she will have….That right to decide imposes upon her the duty of clearing the way to knowledge by which she may make and carry out the decision.”
“No Mandatory Motherhood!” The “No mandatory motherhood!” slogan is a favorite of the most extreme feminists. Margaret Sanger first used it when she claimed that “my interest is to see American womanhood freed from forced maternity” and “women clamor for deliverance from compulsory motherhood.”
She also claimed: “The church has been powerless and the champions of worn-out moral creeds find themselves trying in vain to force all women to become mothers against their wills.”
Ella Dearborn later wrote in The Birth Control Review: “Forced motherhood and unwelcome children are pitiful and heartbreaking.”
“Safe, Legal, and Rare.” Even this slogan, which helped Bill Clinton get elected to the presidency, was first used in The Birth Control Review. John Vaughn stressed that “the bringing about of an abortion should never be necessary; can never be moral; and must rarely be legal….I say again, abortion should never be necessary, can never be moral, and must rarely be legal.”
It is interesting now that as the extreme pro-abortion crowd has become politically empowered, they now demand that abortion be considered good, and no longer claim that they want it to be rare. Some have actually said that they want more, not fewer, abortions, and the hundreds of women who have been killed by negligent and incompetent abortionists show that the self-described “feminists” certainly do not care about the safety and health of women.
“Not the Church, Not the State!” As we have previously seen, the birth controllers and eugenicists who wrote for The Birth Control Review correctly recognized that the Catholic Church was their greatest enemy. Therefore, they did their best to shame and sideline the Church and her spokesmen.
The “Church and State” slogan is derived from a 1931 argument by Kate Gartz: “The church and the state must keep their hands off these most personal affairs.”
Later the same year, Clarence Little launched an attack on priests specifically when he wrote: “This hierarchy of celibate priests is as unqualified to give advice on matters dealing with the physiology of reproduction as their complete inexperience can make them.”
Of course, a priest who has counseled hundreds of couples anticipating matrimony or experiencing marital difficulties probably knows much more about marriage and reproduction in general than the average married person, just as a mechanic usually knows much more about a car than the person who owns and drives it.
“Women Will Get Abortions Whether It Is Legal or Not.” Nathanson and Lader said that “we fabricated the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200 to 250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000.”
This detestable play for public sympathy actually originated in the pages of The Birth Control Review. Writers often fabricated numbers for the United States, but often mentioned other nations as well. One writer from Sanger’s German affiliate wrote that “[in Germany] according to very conservative estimates, there are about one million abortion cases a year. Considering the fact that tens of thousands of women die [annually] because of these illegal operations, very often performed by quacks and midwives, it becomes evident to the sensible that more light must be cast on the subject.”
Another writer claimed that 4,300 women committed suicide in Germany each year due to unwanted pregnancies, and thousands more died of illegal abortions. As always, the authors offered no documentation or references to back up these “statistics.”
And they still don’t.

Truth Will Win

Conclusion. The most popular pro-abortion slogans first appeared in The Birth Control Review in one form or another, only in those days they were in support of contraception. This demonstrates yet again both the link between birth control and abortion, and that the pro-abortion movement has no imagination.
As we have previously seen, not one of the “pro-choice” slogans has any scientific, theological, or moral basis. They are designed to get people to accept abortion without thinking.
This is one of the reasons that the final victory of the pro-life movement is inevitable. Truth always wins out in the end. We have to get people to think. Sometimes this task may seem well-nigh impossible, but if we all get involved, we will hasten the final victory of the Culture of Life.