In the realm of contentious social issues, few topics evoke as much debate and emotion as Euthanasia. Many historians are of the belief that the euthanasia debate as we know it was triggered by the works of 19th century British scientists Charles Darwin, Francis Galton and Herbert Spencer, the former lending his name to the scientific ideology known as Social Darwinism.
On the subject of abortion few figures loom as large as Margaret Sanger. Born Margaret Louise Higgins in 1879 to a large provincial family in Corning, New York, she rose to prominence by campaigning for greater access to birth control for women. However, beneath the surface of what many in the day already regarded as her controversial activities lay an even darker side that can be summed up by two words. Euthanasia and… Eugenics.