[applause] and thank you for being with us today. [inaudible conversations] .. and in beginning at 3:00, growing up king.

jonathan reuter examines the speaking style of the rev. king. and the international manhunt for james earl ray. this weekend on booktv, new york times washington correspondent jill decanter looks at the first couple in their attempt to balance between personal life with requirements of public life tonight at 11:00. every weekend on c-span2. up next on booktv jean baker recounts the life of margaret sanger rubicam an expert on contraception after watching a woman diver self induced abortion in 1912. this is just over an hour. >> we move into this space last

week where there were technical difficulties. we are glad you are here and i hope you found -- and my name is the mandel lighten. our evening event series. we are delighted to see all of you here. jean baker, author of "margaret sanger: a life of passion". she will be in conversation with cristina page. we often think of margaret sanger and the opening of that plan of -- family planning and birth control clinic in brownsville, she started that clinic after be a nurse here from the lower east side. here are two of the cohorts of the nobleman who we will be discussing in just two weeks. tonight's talk is not just fitting because it is timely but because there is a good chance that margaret sanger through one or more of the immigrant women who lived in our tenement a few

doors down at 97 orchard street. tonight's guest jean baker is professor of history in baltimore. she is author of several books on american history including sisters:the lives of america's separatists and mary todd lincoln:a biography. prof. baker has done a remarkable job telling the story of her newest subject, margaret sanger in this highly effective biography. best known as an advocate for the birth control movement margaret sanger was a polarizing figure jean baker expert we parses loose underscore the ferocity of the fighter and the necessity of the fight. professor baker will be joined by cristina page. prof. baker will talk and read for 20 minutes or so and then bring up cristina who will facilitate a conversation but after that there will be an opportunity for your questions. we will be passing around a microphone and get to as many

questions as we have time for. prof. baker will be signing copies of "margaret sanger: a life of passion". when you buy a copy of the featured book you are supporting the author as well as all the programs we offer here at the museum. if you choose to become a museum member this evening your copy of "margaret sanger: a life of passion" is complementary. finally without further ado please silence yourself phones and join me in welcoming professor jean baker. [applause] >> i want to begin with a story about margaret sanger. her life was full of these dramatic tales and this, it seems to me, is most appropriate tonight. on a summer evening in 1912, a

century ago next summer, a young nurse and i am sure you know who that young nurse was received a telephone call. immediately we see the influence of new technology which i am aware of tonight. and urging her to come quickly to the lower east side where cedi sacks was hemorrhaging from a botched abortion. so margaret sanger left her family, taking a small black bag, that symbol that nurses had during this period and hurried to the crowded tenement rooms of sadie and jake sacks. and once sadie's hemorrhage had

been stopped she asked the doctor who was there what she could do to not have any more children. she was 28 years old and she already had three children and she, her husband did not make enough money to support them. the doctor in that in different way of physicians during this period, and you should be aware that most doctors opposed any kind of contraception, said tell jake to sleep on a roof. margaret sanger was called back to the sacks apartment. this time now pregnant with her fourth child, she had gone out again to one of the back alley

abortionists in an era as we all remember when abortion was illegal and dangerous. now she -- a staffer caucus infection in her vagina. and in a few hours she was dead. this event as told and retold by margaret sanger was the transforming event in her life and the founding moment of what became one of the most successful -- after writing this biography -- most successful in american history. let me quote from her autobiography about this epiphanies that she had. when i finally arrived home i looked out my window on a --

technology really -- okay. when i finally arrived home are looked out my window at the dimly lighted scene. its pain, its grief crowded in on me. women writhing in travail to bring forth little babies, themselves naked and hungry and wrapped in newspapers to keep them from the cold. the sun came up and for its reflection over the house. it was the dawn of a new day in my life also. i was resolved to do something that changed the destiny of mothers whose misery's were as bad -- and i would be heard. i would be heard. i can think of no more appropriate setting for a

discussion of margaret sanger to be heard then this place, this tenement museum so close to where the sacks family lived and where sanger worked to. this is the museum that honors those americans who lived on the lower east side and -- jews advocate margaret sanger became. so thanks to all the tenement museum staff, making this occasion possible, thanks to all of you for coming. i used to think it was a symbol, athletic symbol but now i know about lions. i think gophers are better.

what i propose to do is to speak for 20 minutes about my version of sanger's life and work and then cristina page, a fellow gawker graduate and advocate for reproductive rights and the author of an important book, how the pro-choice movement saved america, freedom and politics and the war on sex. and we both look forward to your questions, christina is an expert on the recent history of abortion rights. i will be for all questions after margaret sanger's death in 1966. these are perilous times for women's reproductive rights. we see the sign posts everyday.

a constitutional amendment in mississippi that made a fertilized egg personhood and constitutional rights. i should think that its defeat last week was a victory rather such an amendment testifies to the degree that we have shifted from concern for pregnant women to a fetus centric society where such an amendment is on the ballot and supported by the outgoing governor haley barbour who almost ran for president. that particular amendment, if it should pass anywhere and it will be on the ballot in colorado and other states, reminds me of

margaret atwould -- does anybody know -- i knew are was in the right city. [laughter] and of course we were all constantly aware, with the continuing erosion of abortion rights, longer waiting times, new standards for clinics, insistence on fetal pain, nothing to do with maternal pain is ever remark on, and now even the efforts of the republican controlled house of representatives to defund planned parenthood. margaret sanger is very much a part of this retrograde movement as the brand name for birth control and the founder of family planning clinics, she is

vilified in purposeful propaganda that seeks to discredit providers of central health services. two weeks ago -- i guess i should apologize for even bringing his name up -- herman cain declared that sanger's objective was to put birth control clinics in primarily black communities to kill black babies. that is a quote. this is also a quote. it is planned genocide. perhaps some of you have heard about or even seen the billboards outside of atlanta put up by the georgia right to life movement that read black babies are an endangered species. of course they are intended to scare away black women.

it is a pernicious attempt of the anti-abortion movement. there is a link to this connection to margaret sanger on some of the right to life websites to margaret sanger who is portrayed as a racist and eugenicist who taught the nazis about sterilization. my book, "margaret sanger: a life of passion," is an effort to reach situated sanger, to place her in the context of her time. especially insofar as 20th century eugenics is concerned. the great story of her life, it seems to me, is how young, uneducated nobody without money

or contact, without training in the persuasive techniques of lecturing and writing. a woman who suffered from tuberculosis from her early life and in her later life, and gallbladder disease. how did this woman become the leader of an effective campaign to make contraception legal, cheap, effective, and accessible. it was none of these things when she began that summer in 1912. it was all of those things when she died in 1966. when she began she faced the daunting task. she had to reorient sexual values. she had to gain acceptance for the revolutionary notion that

sex and reproduction -- could be separate. anyone here think that it wouldn't be separate? and that is one of her contributions to both men and women. and women could enjoy sex without worrying about pregnancy. in this struggle sanger had very powerful enemies. an obdurate catholic church that made any use of birth control a san. a dismissive medical profession that opposed contraception for a variety of reasons, and static public opinion that held birth control as suffrage leader carrie catt once said in a letter to sanger, boulder and

obscene. she also faced -- the law of 1873 that the find birth control as a pornographic matter. and made any publication, importation of devices and information about birth control punishable as a criminal felony. in acts of civil disobedience sanger violated this and was jailed and once she fled the united states to avoid prosecution. how did she create a movement and an organization that by the 1920s included prominent americans? in what ways was her commitment to radical causes fostered by

the cultural and political climate before world war i? why did she not ride along with radicals like emma goldman about who you will hear in two weeks? the 1950s is an extraordinary choice. why did she choose to support the little loan grab of dr. gregory pace those who was working -- why did she encouraged her rich friends, catherine mccormack to do so as well? what of her personal life? two husbands, many lovers, a style of muttering that would not earn her the centerfold in

parent magazine. it is these questions that i sought to answer in this biography. i doubt that sanger is believed in the occult and to some degree in spiritualism would approve of what i have written. i believe this is what biographer's care more about what they're subject would think about what they have written than they do their reading audience. i shouldn't say that. in 1953, sanger wrote high hate all these biographies that go back and forth over your early years, dragging out this and that and has nothing to do with your recent life. instead, as a pragmatic

visionary, she believed in the future. she once wrote, and this is one of the important things she said about herself leaders will i forget the past as fast as i can because i am making plans for the future. to harness these topics, i needed a theme of the kind of organizing principle that biographers require and that is a professor's courage of undergraduate students. you need some sort of umbrella, conceptual framework as it were. i found mine in the several meanings of the word passion that seem to encapsule late her life. first, as self sacrifice, we

talk of the passion of christ and mean his sacrifice. so the word passion has that sense of sacrifice. that is what sanger gave up during her long and dramatic life. she surrendered time with her children. she suffered loneliness. she gave up the possibility of leisure and the best spots in the world with her rich second husband j. l. lewis we who complained that she was not home enough. but passion also refers as we know to sexual feelings. certainly a central component of sanger's life is her personal enjoyment of sex with many lovers. hard to be redundant and use the

many many but it does take her into a different framework in terms of the number of men that she had sexual relationships with. so it should. and from her own experience, of female sexual already at a time when american women were just awakening from their victorian slumber. and finally passion means a commitment. this is the most common usage. 8 zeal and attempt to specific purpose. and there was nothing in sanger's life, no children or husband or friend or lover that was ever as important to her as her commitment to birth control, making it legal, effective, cheap and accessible. i found in the word passion the

lever for an understanding of this long and important life. a will read a brief passage from the end of the introduction. this biography also seeks to connect the personal with the political. as authenticity. i hold no expectation that the angry defile hours of sanger will revise their information, more do i believe that sanger deserves sanctification. but i do hope that a new generation of americans will consider the life of an important american from her perspective and on her terms. accordingly this biography

focuses on sanger's means of ascent from the invisibility of her birth as one of 11 -- to, by the early 50s, one of the most influential women in the world. modern americans savored those who perpetually reinvent themselves, shedding their earlier beings like crocodile skins, sanger was different. she kept adding various lives and talents to what became a very effective public temperament. in 1940, the writer kate wrote to margaret sanger the thing that is recognized that would make over the life of thousands is you won your battle. in spite of the fact that when you started you were not a strong woman, you did not have

the advantages of complete reform -- formal education or training as a speaker and you did not have an organization to back you up, but you won because you had consecration, devotion, compassion and a ceaseless desire to be of the greatest service to mankind, that is the inspiring lesson of your life. now you see all this different kind of paraphernalia. cristina and ira going to have a brief -- are we going to sit on these chairs? no, no. [applause] i wasn't asking -- only

questions. not applause. >> thank you for writing about -- i was riveted. throughout it. as someone who works in the reproductive rights movement this book couldn't come at a more perfect moment in history because you as a biographer am

suffragists and now margaret >> she grew up when she began the birth control movement knowing she was criticized by the world and so she was at the beginning. the criticism at the beginning when i compare them to what is going on today were similar in that they both suggest ignorance on the part of those making the criticism. in the first case, those who opposed sanger on the basis of birth control, most of them were arguing that birth control would lead to promiscuity. and we aren't talking about men here.

we are talking about women. that is especially ignorant and foolish kind of criticism. umbrellas don't bring rain, do they? [laughter] thanks. there seems to be some delay tonight. it is the protest -- or whatever. today sanger is being used again with the kind of ignorant criticism that makes her into a racist. margaret sanger started her

birth control clinic in 1930 and this is years after sheet begin the one in new york because black leaders -- it is this kind of information that when you hear from the right -- that she was a racist, it is just not true. so indeed it was not true that birth control would lead to promiscuity. perhaps we should talk about eugenics. >> i think so. it is so persistent. such a viral campaign of what are called a pro lie movement. and i think they often take what our parcels of truth and embellish it with all of these

inaccurate statements whether it is about conflating birth control as abortion, taking all of the negative parts and assigning it to her. put her in her time. the backdrop to what the eugenics movement was. >> a cousin of darwin's came up with the words eugenics, agreed word meaning good. the idea being in an age in which biology was becoming more and more important, scientists and experts were beginning to control the way public policy, that if you could understand

enough about the jeans you could create a better human beings. i believe at the very beginning that this was a progressive idea that went wrong. by the time sanger gets involved with eugenics, she is going to use the expertise of these scientists. she is going to put them on the board of her american birth control we. she is going to use them to in some ways legitimize what needs legitimizing. the eugenics movement by the 1920s and the 1930s and after the holocaust, we still have

certain remnants of the eugenics movement but by that time eugenics was in the air everywhere. most americans believe in eugenics. a question of what that exactly mend. for sanger what this meant was a kind of feminist eugenics. if you had birth control and if all women could use it, it was cheap and it was available, we would have better babies. mothers could space for children. sanger was a great believer in space and children and not having them too close together. mothers could pay more attention to their children. that was her version of eugenics at the beginning. perhaps some of you remember

1927 supreme court case buckley bell. raise your hand. i am too attuned to the classroom but always asking people to raise their hand and ask questions and whatever. it involved a young woman from the virginia -- people minded is a word this generation uses office and apply to all kinds of different kinds of differences that americans might have. in any case, the case of virginia belle was involuntarily sterilized and got to the supreme court and the supreme court ruled 8-1 that involuntary sterilization was ok, the

grounds were, as some of you will find this abhorrent, as all of us do in 2011, oliver wendell holmes wrote the majority decision said that it was just like immunization. if immunization could be coercive than it was ok to have a voluntary sterilization. at the end of this famous decision of his, oliver wendell holmes was one of the great libertarians that we have, he wrote three generations of idiots is enough. i tell that story to give you the context in which sanger was working. she turned to eugenics because she wanted them for legitimization and also because

she herself believed that there was something to be set for this progressive idea that then went badly wrong in the holocaust. but remember, even after world war ii, five states continued to use involuntary sterilization on the mentally ill and some of the -- very peculiar sections in some that the possibility of involuntary sterilization. which is a far out. and the reason that we think it was a kind of terrible thing. >> margaret came from a large irish family would her mother

was a practicing catholic. her father rebuked the church. >> correct. >> her mother delivered 11 children in 22 years and suffered eight miscarriages and she died at age 46 when sanger's father lived into his 80s and as you point out as a nurse sanger witness the ravages of uncontrolled fertility on the lives of women and their families. can you discuss in more detail sanger's family life and early career and how it inspired her. >> margaret sanger was a rebel from the beginning. she came to in new york at one point. the name of her first newspaper was the woman rebel. somewhere at some point in corning she became a rebel.

it has always been difficult to me to figure out why some people are activists and spend their lives trying to make the world better, and others don't. sanger had these brothers and sisters and none of them were involved in any kind of political work. [talking over each other] >> could have been political. don't go there. there was -- frank solloway suggested your birth ordered the germans how and who you are. i am the youngest of seven so i never liked what he said about the youngest. often middle children are the ones who feel comfortable and

able to challenge mother and father. in sanger's case, i think it is her relationship with her father who is really an iconoclast. her father is called marble higgins because there are so many higginses in corning, new york at this time he fights constantly with the catholic church. she asks robert ingersoll to come and give a talk in corning which is a heavily catholic community. he won't let his wife go to church. his children are only baptized years after they're born. margaret for some reason, maybe the middle placement of her birth, is greatly attracted to this idea of being her father's

daughter. so she grows up very aware of class differences. how many of you have been to according? you know the geography in corning is not who lives on which side of the street. it is who lives at the bottom of this hill. can i call it a mountain? the higginses were at the bottom. margaret became very aware of the better life that families like voleses and katharine hepburn later becomes one of her good friends and allies, in her autobiography margaret rights over and over again about how well the buy the houses and only two or three children. when she goes to the bottom of

the mountain, there are the higgins family and all 11 of them. clearly it was not just the sadie sacks's death from a botched abortion that led of margaret sanger to be an advocate for birth control. was also something in the dynamic of that family. >> one of the fascinating parts of the biography was your accounting of sanger's sex life. she does make the women of sex and the city seem crude. are lost track of how many lovers she had and she was still cornered by younger men into her 70s. not only did she enjoy a vibrant sex life but had an intoxicating effect on the men she was involved with. what i wondered was her sexual

know how all. her prowess given this expertise along with her freedom from the sexual repression of her time do you think this inspired their unusual devotion? >> i can't speak to that. i do note reading their letters that they were totally intoxicated. we are talking about age the wells, these are not a bunch of little boyfriends she is seducing. the thing about sanger, physically, she is small. she is a tiny woman. she is not beautiful. she has the higgins knows which had a bum. >> doesn't wear a girdle.

>> doesn't wear a girdle. doesn't have to. she and her friends talk about that. she has that something. in the cliche, you call it sex appeal. she has an ability to interest men and she is in prison of and curious and sexually practiced to a generation of men who didn't often meet women like margaret sanger so this combination and this desire of hers because she was curious and practice makes perfect to continue to have sexual affairs is one of the dominating things about her life and one of the

things she truly enjoyed. this was a woman who loved sex. it was her business. so margaret sanger from that point of view is -- the wonderful thing about sanger's life was no one ever knew about all of sanger's boyfriends. when one of the latter ones, pittman who was from pennsylvania state who was an artist, it to travel with her because he said people will talk about us and margaret sanger said i have been doing this for years. nobody talks about my personal life. this is more a social comment. we didn't talk or know about

jack kennedy's sex life, did we? only recently have we come as americans to be intensely fascinated with the sex lives of important -- >> at the same time she was very conscious of it not be in a statement of her sex life. wanted to keep it secret. she was worried that it would impact the movement. so in some ways her sexual cravings were not just experimental, furthering her expertise but something -- that brings me to make question. how does -- what relationship does her sex life have on her professional life? >> a lot. in a sense validates it. remember sanger -- mckenzie --

who is it that write about sex? >> johnson. >> she is that for her generation. >> must of had a good form of birth control. with all these escapades -- what was her form of birth control? she never endorsed any one form at the time. >> that is right. we think that she she is the diaphragm and there are some students of margaret sanger who argue she stuck to that too long. that she should have moved away. the problem with the diaphragm is all the women of the room know and all of men as well in 2011, someone has to measure you and it is not something you can

go to india and china and say here is the diaphragm, use this. is something that needs a physician. the criticism of sanger has always been she medicalized birth control. i would now like to turn the tables and ask you, cristina, if you think the fact the birth control movement as it emerged from margaret sanger's work and as it included doctors, has been a good or bad thing? should we be able to go to the local pharmacy with -- without a prescription and by a pill? >> yes. we have that option with emergency contraception. having read your book i know she didn't have a choice. she didn't have our choice. she worked with in what she had.

pregnancy and prevention of pregnancy is primary care, there's also the argument that if we did make it over the counter, it would be less affordable for many women who don't have health insurance. so right now we see the same battles she fought with, trying to get federal funding for contraception. what you were saying before about -- it is amazing to hear what is happening on the national stage with discussions about family planning and birth control. rick santorum and the comes to comstock regularly says he pledges -- i don't even know -- he is certainly not in the forefront of the presidential campaign. >> but they change.

>> one of his platform is is to repeal all federal funding for contraception and he explained it was because contraception is licensed to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. so right now we are trying to get coverage and so for me it has to be viewed as primary care and as a result make it as affordable as possible. >> we are probably running out of our time. i will get to the last question. i want to know why is that sanger was the lodestar. she became the brand name of the

birth control movement. i don't see anyone after her that we can refer to. it is interesting because some important reformers don't have one. the gay rights movement has never had a single person or group of people. but in terms of civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s we have martin luther king and a few lesser known americans but sanger stands for birth control in a remarkable way. why is it we don't have that? >> it is a good thing. i don't think the days of political icons exist anymore. the way in which communications happen and activism happens much more confused. one of the wonderful thing about having her was she was able to

ignore the personal attacks. it was about her and she could push forward in this really heroic way whereas organizations -- they are risk averse. the end of your book you talk about her frustration with the bureaucracy, she is demoted into a position of no authority within the organizations that she created and she is amazing in her survival skills as a leader because when she sees a barrier, domestically she moved her movement internationally and she owns the international family-planning movement. i think it is true. the gloria steinems and martin luther kings and the 60s might have been the last generations as we're seeing with occupy wall street that there's not one

leader who emerged and it is a populist movement. that is the times. >> i think we should now turn to our long-suffering audience. i have one joke to tell before we get to your questions. i did a book on the stevens and family. i learned a lot of witticisms from adlai stevenson who was a very funny guy. he always said when it is night and you are talking to a group and you come to the end of what you are going to say, say finally, to give them some hope. [laughter] i saw some hands. [inaudible] >> two points. i am so grateful for you writing this book because i was at a

screening of a documentary of margaret sanger in the past six months. not sure if you are aware of it. it is a very important thing. it was a film that emphasized eugenics in a very negative light and i was very upset about it. my question to you is you mentioned her relationship to ethel. i would really like to know if you could correct this. for research i have done. when it came to choosing who was going to stand up for this movement and ethel was involved in a discussion about this and she did take the position of going to blackburn island and she was sent there after she went on a hunger strike. can you tell me what happened as a result of that in their relationship? >> let me go back a little bit

and say the relationship of two sisters was somewhat barred -- barb. ethel had always been that supporter of the clinic and was arrested. ethel complained margaret was paying too much attention to the rich people. margaret's answer was pragmatic. how am i going to have a movement? how am i going to afford the birth control review of the magazine if i don't get money from deep pockets? the two sisters are estranged and ethel tried first. that makes all the difference. at the time there were already hunger strikes that were going

on used car alice paul in washington. so these women knew about hunger strikes and ethel did undergo this -- don't know how many days it was -- nearly died. years later -- this is the bad part of the story -- sometimes our heroes lead messy lives -- years later someone is going to make a film and as margaret sanger -- so margaret goes to ethel and says i want you to give me the right to be thunder striker and ethel by this time really didn't care. she said yes. you can do this. but at the end of the story, she will not be marred sanger -- so the movie is never done. a very duplicitous move by

sanger and there are other things like that that she certainly did during her lifetime. >> i just wanted some clarification about eugenics. did she support in voluntary sterilization? >> yes she did. not for groups. this is the distortion that is going on today. never for groups. never for classes but for individuals who were in sane. but she had a caveat. she never believed in surgical castration because -- this fits in to her philosophy. it would destroy the sexual feelings of the person. with those kinds of caveats she

did briefly support involuntary sterilization. brief. i don't know that she effort retracted it. it just disappears. sanger is the kind of person who has trouble specifically admitting they are wrong on positions. the points simply disappear from the rhetoric and the writing. that is what happens with involuntary sterilization. she hated the holocaust, she raged against hitler and what he was doing. we hear almost nothing about sterilization from sanger after world war ii. >> i read somewhere that sanger recommended for poor women to use rancid butter as a spermicide. is that true?

>> i don't want to be crude. the things that women were putting up their vaginas to prevent pregnancy are truly shocking. i would criticize sanger not so much -- rancid butter? for lysol. that was the spermicide of the day. these people are working in a paradigm of spermicides,. s, diaphragms for years until sanger figures out because she is in touch with endocrinologist that hormonal contraception is a possibility and she deserves i think more credit than she has gotten for this support of

gregory pinkus who is a defrocked harvard biology -- biologist who had moved his lack of to worcester. hand in there? >> i wonder what your comment was on an article i read in the new york times by a section in which -- the cure for prostate cancer? >> you can talk more about -- the pill has been blamed incorrectly at the beginning for the possibility of blood clots. at the beginning there was too much estrogen in the bill. that diminished. then after hearing the washington there was talk that the bill does this, it does

that, one of the issues here is i don't think -- i don't think there are enough randomized studies to be able to prove some of the points made about the bill. the pill does good things besides prevent pregnancy and does bad things. i can't speak -- >> prostate cancer? [talking over each other] >> men shouldn't be taking the pill. >> is this their offspring? [inaudible] >> a study says that she -- taking a survey. >> there are some correlations

with breast cancer. recent studies came out that a whopping 42% of women are taking the pill for non contraceptive reasons. for endometriosis to control heavy periods. a lot of other beneficial effects. but the pill and margaret sanger really is responsible almost singularly for the resolution that took place in short period of time after the introduction of the hill that we now -- a laundry list of rights we would never give up. but the pill is a flawed method and margaret sanger always believed that if she were to create a perfect method that she would -- there would be no need for abortion. ..

>> [inaudible] >> i couldn't hear -- >> i think it was a recommendation on a site to find out more information about -- >> oh. >> [inaudible] >> we have time for one more question. >> let me just -- more about eugenics. it is absolutely true that the germans took the playbook from the americans, and hitler was using some of the more extreme

statements by you general cysts in the united states when he began his efforts to exterminate populations, so the united states was practically up with of the -- one of the leaders in the you generallics movement. eugenics movement. yes. >> new york city is about to institute sex education is middle schools and high schools, and the same arguments against sex education are the ones you're talking about for against birth control, mainly, promote promiscuity. was she involved in the sex education movement? >> oh, absolutely, yeah. um, several of her books, this has not come -- i'm glad you asked that question.

we forget the writer. she published two books, the pivot of civilization and women in the new race in the early '20s, and they sell together 500,000 copies. after that she publishes two sort of moon yules -- manuals; happiness in marriage -- [laughter] sort of a "ladies home journal", and then a really interesting book of letters that women have written her, "motherhood in bondage." that's the '20s, but earlier she had written what every girl should know, what every little boy should know. this is a woman before the sex educators who really was trying to promote the idea of sex education as part of her entire package.

in women, though, about sexuality and they have sex education and they have -- they're going to have better families. and then the last? yeah. >> um, i came from irish catholic culture, and i went to catholic schools, parochial schools, and i can remember back 40 years ago, 40 years ago when a friend came to visit, a friend who had already had three children came to visit me when i had my first child, and she said, oh, i hope the church changes their mind about birth control, and i can remember saying to her, eleanor, don't wait. [laughter] and to this day i think they haven't. i have since, the people who are against abortion or against any kind of birth control will talk

about the babies and the life movement, but i have a sense it's really more about not letting women get so under control. >> oh, sure. >> in my opinion. >> you know, i -- i'd be interested to hear what you have to say about it. >> well, you know, certainly all of the campaigns that are going on now to roll back reproductive rights by the anti-abortion movement, i think it's wrongly named because, you know, all of their campaigns include efforts to roll back access to family planning. um, and what we know is that it really is the modern pro-choice movement that's done more to realize all of the, what the public understands to be pro-life goals. we live in a country where, you know, the countries on earth with the lowest abortion rates are the ones that have adopted pro-choice policies, and that includes, you know, contraception. and the ones with the highest abortion rates in the world are the ones that have accepted our

pro-life movement's platform; no sex ed, no contraception, no abortion. and the catholic church, you know, right now the bishops have really, are really gearing up aggressively to try to remove contraceptive coverage from health care reform. um, and, yes, we haven't done -- what i see is we have a pro-life public that's very supportive of contraception, yet we don't have one pro-life organization in the united states that supports contraception. that's scandalous. and we need to do a better job of educating the public about what works and, you know -- >> [inaudible] striking to me that the people who are -- [inaudible] show no interest in the -- [inaudible] >> right. right, exactly. you know, i looked at the

children's defense fund, the premier advocacy organization in the united states, and i took their rankings of the best and worst legislators for children, and these are people who are, you know, the worst are consistently voting against children's rights, consistently voting against education and health insurance benefits for children and their parents' unemployment benefits. the very things the kitchen table with an unplanned pregnancy matter. and what i found was comparing it to -- [inaudible] voting record was of the 116 worst legislators for children, 100% were pro-life. conversely, 95% of the best legislators for children were pro-choice. so when the rubber hits the road on these things, um, you know, we're really, this is a very ironic conversation we're having, you know, politically. >> [inaudible] >> thank you.

[applause] >> thank you. >> this event was hosted by the tenement museum in new york city. to find out more visit tenement.org. >> um, i just want to tell you a little bit about how this book came to be, and then i'm going to read a chapter from the book. in 2009, september of 2009, a book that i had written called "the imposter's daughter" about my own father and his cons and his deceptions came out, and i was reading from it at a bookstore much like this one and backstage signing books a woman approached me and said, you know, i can't believe you're here, i can't believe your story and introduced herself as the fiancee of andrew madoff. that, of course, my jaw dropped. this was a year after the scandal, and it was completely just mind blowing, and i had been following it like everybody else. and i came to know the family over the course of two years.

like so many people that had been following this story, i, of course, thought that andrew was most likely involved, that he and his brother had known all about his father's fraud. i was convinced that ruth had to have known, and it was only really curiosity that sort of brought me into this story. i was a journalist, and i wanted to get to the truth of this story like every other journalist out there and most of the people in the public. and so when i was, you know, when it came time that they were ready to write a book and i sat down with them and was taken into the heart of their story, i was absolutely astonished to find that nothing i thought i knew was true. so i'm just going to read to you from the chapter of the confession itself. and there we'll go. the confession. by 6:50 a.m. andrew and mark were, once again, perched in the conference room behind the trading floor. they shot each other tense, worried looks periodically breaking the silence to speculate or offer a new theory. one thing they knew, something

was terribly wrong. by 8:00 a.m., peter still hadn't arrived. mark shook his head. let's wait at our desks. ruth, according to court filings, had taken out some 15 million in two separate withdrawals from her brokerage account in the past three weeks, bernie had used it to cover redemptions. she did his bidding unquestioningly, something that the media claimed as proof of her involvement, but then the family moved millions of dollars around all the time buying boats and apartments, making large wire transfers and donations to philanthropic organizations. had ruth questioned bernie's directive, andrew says, bernie would have barked at her, and that would have been the end of the conversation. it wasn't until 9:20 a.m. that andrew spotted peter making his way across the trading floor. peter is bernie's brother. he signaled to mark, and they hurried into the conference room. andrew felt the back of his neck grow hot with anticipation.

peter stood by the door, his mouth a grim line. i talked to your father, it's bad. he wants to talk to you himself, he said. andrew knew that his uncle tended to put a positive spin on things. the brothers followed their uncle onto the trading floor. they passed their colleagues, a cluster of secretaries, a large conference room. the walk seemed to take forever. when they arrived at bernie's glass-walled executive office, they found him sitting behind his desk leaning back in his chair staring at a television set mounted on the ceiling. he didn't greet them or even acknowledge their arrival. andrew and peter took the two chairs facing bernie, mark sat on the couch to the left of his desk. for a few minutes, the four sat in tense silence. bernie's voice caught in his throat, and tears started to well up in his eyes. andrew felt a river of alarm rise through his chest. he glanced at mark, he was studying bernie intensely.

let's not do this at your main desk, peter suggested, let's move to the table in the corner. the four gathered at the far end of the room where a wall offered a shade more previous. privacy. again, bernie started to talk and couldn't continue. andrew watched his father struggle for words. i can't do this here, bernie finally said. andrew looked at his father feeling as though he had entered, quote, the world of the surreal. what could possibly be so bad that he couldn't discuss it at the office? why don't we go to your apartment, andrew suggested. are we all going up there, mark asked? bernie cleared his throat, no. peter, you stay here. peter nodded and left the office. the coat closet was right outside bernie's office. as the three struggled into their winter gear, bernie said to eleanor, have lee bring the car around. where the hell are you going, the market is open, eleanor joked, liking to bust her boss' chops from time to time, mind your own business, immediately

silencing eleanor. andrew, mark and bernie rode the elevator down in silence, then waits for lee watching the rain streak across the revolving doors. there was no small talk. andrew tried to blend into the surroundings wishing he could be teleported to his parents' apartment so he could get whatever was going to happen over with. the anticipation was unbearable. the car pulled up front driven by clive, not lee. of again, they rode in silence, bernie sandwiched between his two sons in the backseat misty-eyed and shaken as though he'd already received bad news and was trying to cope with it, andrew says. andrew stared out the window at the early christmas shoppers, his brain a dead zone. clive dropped them off in front of the entrance to ruth and bernie's penthouse apartment. the three rode up to the 11th floor entrance and then removed their shoes in the foyer. they laid their or coats across the banister of the staircase, taking care not to drip water onto the floor. ruth greeted them at the door,

her face grim. she, too, had no idea why her husband had rushed home to talk to her family, but like her sons, she suspected the news was bad, somehow connect today the mayhem on wall street. bernie had called her and said i have something to tell you, i'm coming home with the boys. she'd gotten off the phone shaking and had waited for them in the kitchen. together, the family entered the sitting room, a room andrew had never liked with dark green walls, khaki carpeting and a heavy desk. bernie sat by himself on a large, leather sofa, ruth sat next to the couch. andrew took the ottoman and mark the desk chair. the four faced one another sitting a considerable distance apart. i don't know where to start, bernie began again. he started to sob. the firm is insolvent, i'm broke. how is that possible, andrew asked, i don't understand. the money is gone, it's other. i don't understand, andrew repeated. how can that be? we're having an okay year. what