Margaret Sanger

A couple of days ago I listened to a program on NPR on life of Margaret Sanger, who lived during 1874-1966. Do you know her? It is amazing that considering her contributions, I had never heard of her before. She coined the term birth control, organized a campaign to legalize birth control 100 years ago, and established Planned Parenthood. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, which led to her arrest and being jailed. She continued educating women about contraception and birth control in jail. Her work was motivated and influenced by her mother's life, who became pregnant 18 times in 22 years and died at 48 from cervical cancer! Some accuse her of wanting to remove the black race by opening her clinics in poor black areas. The guest of the program argued that she would have been considered a racist had she not opened any clinics for those communities. Pro life groups argued that Sanger promoted abortion. Sanger died in 1966, years before abortion was legalized in the U.S. in 1971. Sanger believed women will be better mothers, raising children better if they could decide when to have children. She believed "no woman was free if she could not control her body". Regardless, she remains an iconic figure in Reproductive Rights movement. You can see the program's highlight here, and read its full script here.

References:

[1] http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-11-15/jean-baker-margaret-sanger-life-passion
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood

Maturity

At what stage in our lives, do you think, our contemporary evolved brains are fully developed?  At age 2, 5, during puberty?  Did you know that the most advanced and evolved part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, is not fully developed until age 23-25?  This is the part of our brain that executes commands and controls impulses.  Prefrontal cortex starts developing early on, but it is not fully developed till age 23-25.  Now imagine a society where individuals are physically mature, have high sexual drives, very little experience, and an undeveloped prefrontal cortex. They can drive, marry, have kids, have important responsibilities with little training or experience for today's fast paced and complex world.  They function with poor judgement, not enough empathy, nor self control.  Their prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for judgement, self-control, and empathy, is not fully developed.  In fact, researchers have linked high rates of car accidents among teenagers and young adults to this fact.  How would our world be different if we were all aware of this fact and considered it in different aspects of our society, such as education, rules and regulations?

That is what I learned today and thought about.  What did you learn today?