From my standpoint, this column should be the last in a series of four very different columns by two very different authors.
Two brilliant philosopher scientists have been maligned in previous columns, so it was my duty to come to their defense.
Thomas Malthus predicted overpopulation. While his overpopulation limits were too aggressive, there are people starving in many parts of the world today. Suggesting anything different shows a callous lack of concern for the suffering in overpopulated areas.
Margaret Sanger was a nurse who took a different view of the overpopulation issue more than 100 years after Malthus. She believed that the solution to overpopulation was in education regarding family planning and birth control. She practiced obstetrical nursing in the poverty-stricken Lower East Side of New York City.
There, she witnessed the terrible correlation between poverty, uncontrolled fertility and high rates of infant and maternal deaths from illegal abortions. She devoted herself to removing the legal barriers to publicizing the facts about contraception.
In 1916, Sanger was indicted for mailing materials advocating birth control. The charges were later dropped due to something we call the First Amendment. She was also jailed for opening the first birth control clinic which was branded a “public nuisance” by the local authorities. Eventually her organization morphed into Planned Parenthood centers.
Sanger’s critics focus on her early belief in eugenics, which means selective breeding. She is branded to be a racist as a result.
Many great people made mistakes in their early thinking. To quote her writings on eugenics in a column without giving credit to her reversal on the subject is patently deceptive. Further, to use Sanger’s work to alleviate poverty and educate people on family planning options as a linkage to a personal belief about abortion is a leap too far. She died in 1966 at the age of 86.
Her active career ended many years before the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. All she tried to do was to save lives lost by desperate women.
The Age of Enlightenment began in the early 1700’s in Europe. The ideas included individual liberty, leadership by reason and evidence as the primary source of knowledge. The philosophers at the time wrote about advanced ideals such as the pursuit of happiness, progress, tolerance, constitutional government and separation of church and state.
The Enlightenment followed the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution. All of these periods ended the Dark Ages.
Most periods of progress for humanity end quickly. Our American freedom began with a revolution that was philosophically based on the Enlightenment, not the Dark Ages.
Democracy emerged for some Americans unless you were a slave or a woman. The Civil War began an era of freedom for Blacks that was nearly crushed by the Jim Crow laws including massive voter suppression. Suffragettes won the vote for women. Teddy Roosevelt began the National Park System. FDR began the New Deal. Ronald Reagan crushed Communism. Private entrepreneurs with disruptive technologies make our lives mostly better every day.
In closing, the French philosopher Voltaire was a key voice of the Enlightenment. Voltaire is credited with saying “I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Please remember, the opposite of enlightenment is ignorance.
Thanks to Kevin Hensley and The Graham Star for printing different views.
Roger Carlton writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, rcarlton57@hotmail.com.