Far too radical, then and now: an examination of women’s body autonomy through the work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger

Abstract

In this paper, I plan on showing the extraordinary and radical lives to two progressive feminists, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger, and how their platforms for women’s body autonomy are still valuable and necessary as women’s bodies are continuously dragged into politics. This paper will explore just how politicized women’s rights to their own bodies has been, through the necessity of combating legal and social codes targeting women. I plan on comparing Stanton and Sanger, in their lives and activism, to see what aspects of their work made them valuable for the women’s rights movement. I will also bring the history of women’s reproductive rights into the present, and how similar Stanton and Sanger’s arguments for autonomy to the modern political climate concerning women’s autonomy.