The Sanger Gospel, Part 2

One of the most troubling economic indicators for our country is the declining birth rate. A nation built on two-worker households cannot survive if those workers do not replace themselves. And, we are not. I shared this with my physical therapist in South Carolina many years ago. His response was, “The more troubling thing is that lower classes reproduce at a higher rate than the educated classes.”

His statement left me dumbfounded. I rarely find someone who will verbalize what Margaret Sanger, followed by Adolf Hitler, believed and sought to instill nationally. Sanger wrote, “The feebleminded are notoriously prolific in reproduction.”

Last week, we noted that Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, held that having large families is humanity’s original sin. She taught this is the particular sin of ignorant women. For instance, she wrote, “Nor have famine and plague been as much ‘acts of God’ as acts of too prolific mothers.”

This assertion demands we ask a follow-up question of Sanger’s feminist gospel: “If having too many children is the sin of humanity, what is its salvation? If childbearing is a woman’s bondage, what is her means of freedom?”

She would answer that a woman’s salvation, her means of freedom, is to give her “control of her own body.” “No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body.” And, how does a woman gain control of her own body? Her answer: “We must popularize birth control thinking…Through birth control she will attain to voluntary motherhood. Having attained this, the basic freedom of her sex, she will cease to enslave herself and the mass of humanity.” Sanger laid the very foundation of the mantra, “My body, my choice.”

This foundation rests upon a godless worldview. However, Scripture teaches us that our bodies are not our own but are vessels for God’s glory. First, God created all men (Genesis 1:26-28). By nature, we belong to God; he made us for himself. Second, Christians belong to God through Christ Jesus. The very term “redemption” means to purchase out of bondage. As Paul wrote, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Thirdly, in marriage, our bodies belong to our spouse: “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (1 Corinthians 7:4).

We won’t solve humanity’s problems by teaching women to gain control of their bodies. This teaching is just another form of bondage. Our good news is found only in Christ Jesus, who gave his life as a ransom for many. He redeemed us to deliver us from bondage to sin and self.