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瑪格麗特‧桑格 (MARGARET SANGER) 人身的權利
The
Right to One's Body
一個婦女不能稱自己為自由人，除非她擁有和掌握自己的身體。 瑪格麗特‧桑格(1883一1966)因她為推廣節育作出堅韌不拔的鬥爭而成為國際知名人物。她出生於紐約科寧，在全家七個孩子中排行第六。桑格曾在貧困的紐約市下東區當護士，親眼目睹了當地母親和嬰兒高死亡率的悲慘情景。當時法律規定，提供節育知識是有罪的。桑格同這種法律規定進行了鬥爭。 l 914年桑格出版了叫作《婦女反叛者》的雜誌
(以後更名為《節育週刊》)，發表了一本標題為《家庭人口限制》的小冊子。因為當時印發或傳播這種資訊是非法的，所以她被指控郵寄違法材料，但此案法院未予受理。l
916年桑格在布魯克林創辦了全國第一家節育診所；她因「公妨罪」被捕，在感化院呆了三十天。
桑格周遊世界，宣傳節育的重要意義。隨著時間的推移，許多州對人們獲取節育知識放寬限制。1973年，最高法院在《羅對韋德》一書中抨擊了禁止節育的法律。但1989年最高法院又裁定，美國只在很窄的範圍內允許墮胎。 節育的問題直接產生於婦女掙脫束縛，爭取自由的努力。婦女以自己的生育能力造成了這種束縛，她們在使自己受到奴役的同時亦使世界受到奴役。需要解除的主要是婦女的肉體上的痛苦。她的愛情生活首先是因為生育過多而遭到損害，完全窒息。人類的未來取決於婦女自身──或成之或毀之全在她們。所有這些值得考慮的問題明白無誤地表明一個事實──掌握自由的手段既是婦女的特權，也是婦女的義務。不論男人可能做些什麼，婦女無法逃避此責任。長期以來，她們被剝奪了履行這種義務的機會。如今她們正從軟弱無能的狀況中挺身而出。甚至就如沒人能分擔操勞過度的婦女的痛苦一樣，沒有人能代替她們履行義務。別人可以助一臂之力，而只有婦女自己才能解放自己。 世界的基本自由是婦女的自由。一個自由的民族不可能由當奴隸的母親們生出。一個被鐵鏈鎖住的母親別無選擇。只能把這種束縛分給她的子女。一個婦女不能稱自己為自由人，除非她擁有和掌握自己的身體。一個婦女不能稱自己為自由人，除非她能自覺地決定是否將做個母親。 這並不能大大改變這種情況，即有些婦女因自食其力稱自己為自由人，而另一些婦女因蔑視兩性關係的傳統而自稱自由人。自立的婦女確實獲得了不應低估的自由，但這種自由除了不受限制地決定是否求偶、是否做母親，在質和量兩方面都不足掛齒。她們至少不必乞求自己的伴侶恩賜以維持生活，但自食其力並不能賦予她們自在性慾的發展，這種慾望比外在的表現更深刻、更強烈。為了求得這種發展，她們還是必須面對和解決當母親的問題。
對於在擇偶問題上無視傳統習俗的女性，她們的自由在很大程度上是個性格和勇氣的問題。即便她們能不受限制地擇偶，還是逃脫不出因自己的生育能力造成的受奴役的地位。實際上，比起有幸能與自己選擇的男人結婚的婦女，對於不合法結婚的婦女，法律和習俗的壓力更大，更使她們淪為奴隸。 不論你從哪種觀點看問題，提出什麼解決辦法，不論這觀點或解決辦法是因循守舊還是離經叛道，是法律允許的還是違抗法律的，歸根結底婦女仍處在原先的地位，除非她們能自己決定是否當母親，生幾個孩子，這一不容迴避的問題本身就足以使節育成為一個首先是婦女的問題。從表面上看，當母親應出於自願主要是婦女關切的事。 但是有人堅持認為，既然性愛表現為雙方的動作，控制其後果的責任便不該只歸婦女。有人發問：既然她們或許不如配偶強健，不論怎樣每月都來例假，難道保護她們的任務不該交給男人，反而該由婦女們完成嗎?
我們必須從兩個角度──理想以及實現理想的條件──來審視婦女問題的這個側面。在一個理想社會中，節育無疑將成為男人和婦女共同關切的事。我們今天所面臨的嚴酷而無法逃避的事實是，男人不僅拒絕承認這類責任，而且獨自或聯合起來力圖阻止婦女為自己承擔此責任而獲取知識。今天她們仍處於從屬的地位，因為她們的配偶拒絕撇開自己的需要把她們看作獨立的個人。她們仍是受束縛的，因為過去她們已把解決這問題的主動權交給了男人，從而發現，她們除了已取得的祈求、哄勸、欺騙的特權，別無其他權利。既然讓男人來解決這問題，婦女便按他們的慾望受到利用、驅使和奴役。
誠然，這種情況結果使男人遭受很多不幸，但婦女的痛苦深重得多。誠然，應該讓男人醒悟，弄清這些痛苦的起因，但我們知道，他們每天回家都對女人拳打腳踢。是婦女經年累月肩負著懷孕、生育、培養多餘子女的重擔。……看著畸形、瘦弱、營養不良、勞累過度的孩子，是婦女的心最先、最多、最深地受到刺痛。因為害怕再次懷孕，是她們的愛情生活最先窒息。是她們的自我表現機會因此最先喪失。
是條件而不是理論，是事實而不是夢想決定這一問題的解決方式。它們把它壓在婦女肩上。她們已懂得，不論在這方面男人的道德責任是什麼，他們不履行該責任。她們已懂得，不論某一個別丈夫會多麼溫柔體貼，婦女從男人的總體休想得到什麼，因為制訂法律、頒佈規章的是男人。她們知道，不論現實應當是怎樣，嚴峻的，不容迴避的事實是，婦女將永遠不得自由，除非她們為自己奪取自由。 婦女已經有了很多認識，但還有她們應該明白的事情。婦女們總是傾向於步男人的後塵，模仿男人的思維方式，竭力用男人的方法去解決生活的一般問題。倘若獲得自由之後，婦女接受了政府、工業、藝術、道德和宗教領域的現狀，那麼她們將只是從男人的書上撕下的一頁而已。婦女無須做男人的工作，無須有男人的思想。即使幾乎普遍佔統治地位的男性的頭腦無法再照料自己了，婦女也無須害怕。婦女們的使命不是去增強男性的精神，而是表達女性的心聲；她們的使命不是去維持一個男人創造的世界，而是通過將女性的成分注入社會的一切活動創造一個人類世界。
婦女不應接受，而應挑戰。她們不應被周圍的一切既成事實所嚇倒，而應尊重自身爭取表現的力量。她們的眼睛應少盯著現實，多注視奮鬥目標。對男人社會已成教條的那些觀點，她們不應聽信，而應抱坦率的懷疑態度。當她們選擇自己新的、自由的行動方向時，應根據自己的觀點──自己的直覺。只有這樣，她們才能充分發揚女性的精神。只有這樣，她們才能把配偶從束縛中解放出來，這種束縛是男人強加在她們身上的同時套在自己身上的。只有這樣，她們才能讓男人恢復在限制她們的同時自己身上所喪失的品格。只有這樣，她們才能重建世界。…… The problem of birth control has arisen directly from the effort of the feminine spirit to free itself from bondage. Woman herself has wrought that bondage through her reproductive powers and while enslaving herself has enslaved the world. The physical suffering to be relieved is chiefly woman's. Hers, too, is the love life that dies first under the blight of too prolific breeding. Within her is wrapped up the future of the race－it is hers to make or mar. All of these considerations point unmistakably to one fact－ it is woman's duty as well as her privilege to lay hold of the means of freedom. Whatever men may do, she cannot escape the responsibility. For ages she has been deprived of the opportunity to meet this obligation. She is now emerging from her helplessness. Even as no one can share the suffering of the overburdened mother, so no one can do this work for her. Others may help, but she and she alone can free herself. The basic freedom of the world is woman's freedom. A free race cannot be born of slave mothers. A woman enchained cannot choose but give a measure of that bondage to her sons and daughters. No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother. It does not greatly alter the case that some women call themselves free because they earn their own livings, while others profess freedom because they defy the conventions of sex relationship. She who earns her own living gains a sort of freedom that is not to be undervalued, but in quality and in quantity it is of little account beside the untrammeled choice of mating or not mating, or being a mother or not being a mother. She gains food and clothing and shelter, at least, without submitting to the charity of her companion, but the earning of her own living does not give her the development of her inner sex urge, far deeper and more powerful in its outworkings than any of these externals. In order to have that development, she must still meet and solve the problem of motherhood. With the so-called "free" woman, who chooses a mate in defiance of convention, freedom is largely a question of character and audacity. If she does attain to an unrestricted choice of a mate, she is still in a position to be enslaved through her reproductive powers. Indeed, the pressure of law and custom upon the woman not legally married is likely to make her more of a slave than the woman fortunate enough to marry the man of her choice. Look at it from any standpoint you will, suggest any solution you will, conventional or un- conventional, sanctioned by law or in defiance of law, woman is in the same position, fundamentally, until she is able to determine for herself whether she will be a mother and to fix the number of her offspring. This unavoidable situation is alone enough to make birth control, first of all, a woman's problem. On the very face of the matter, voluntary motherhood is chiefly the concern of the woman. It is persistently urged, however, that since sex expression is the act of two, the responsibility of controlling the results should not be placed upon woman alone. Is it fair, it is asked, to give her, instead of the man, the task of protecting herself when she is, perhaps, less rugged in physique than her mate, and has, at all events, the normal, periodic inconveniences of her sex? We must examine this phase of her problem in two lights－ that of the ideal, and of the conditions working toward the ideal. In an ideal society, no doubt, birth control would become the concern of the man as well as the woman. The hard, inescapable fact which we encounter to-day is that man has not only refused any such responsibility, but has individually and collectively sought to prevent woman from obtaining knowledge by which she could assume this responsibility for herself. She is still in the position of a dependent to-day because her mate has refused to consider her as an individual apart from his needs. She is still bound because she has in the past left the solution of the problem to him. Having left it to him, she finds that instead of rights, she has only such privileges as she has gained by petitioning, coaxing and cozening. Having left it to him, she is exploited, driven and enslaved to his desires. While it is true that he suffers many evils as the consequence of this situation, she suffers vastly more. While it is true that he should be awakened to the cause of these evils, we know that they come home to her with crushing force every day. It is she who has the long burden of carrying, bearing and rearing the unwanted children. . . . It is her heart that the sight of the de- formed, the subnormal, the undernourished, the overworked child smites first and oftenest and hardest. It is her love life that dies first in the fear of undesired pregnancy. It is her opportunity for self expression that perishes first and most hopelessly because of it. Conditions, rather than theories, facts, rather than dreams, govern the problem. They place it squarely upon the shoulders of woman. She has learned that whatever the moral responsibility of the man in this direction may be, he does not discharge it. She has learned that, lovable and considerate as the individual husband may be, she has nothing to expect from men in the mass, when they make laws and decree customs. She knows that regardless of what ought to be, the brutal, unavoidable fact is that she will never receive her freedom until she takes it for herself. Having learned this much, she has yet something more to learn. Women are too much inclined to follow in the footsteps of men, to try to think as men think, to try to solve the general problems of life as men solve them. If after attaining their freedom, women accept conditions in the spheres of government, industry, art, morals and religion as they find them, they will be but taking a leaf out of man's book. The woman is not needed to do man's work. She is not needed to think man's thoughts. She need not fear that the masculine mind, almost universally dominant, will fail to take care of its own. Her mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities. Woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that within her which struggles for expression. Her eyes must be less upon what is and more clearly upon what should be. She must listen only with a frankly questioning attitude to the dogmatized opinions of man-made society. When she chooses her new, free course of action, it must be in the light of her own opinion － of her own intuition. Only so can she give play to the feminine spirit. Only thus can she free her mate from the bondage which he wrought for himself when he wrought hers. Only thus can she restore to him that of which he robbed himself in restricting her. Only thus can she remake the world. . . . |