In Parashat Vayeitzei, Jacob marries Rachel and Leah and conceives children with both women, along with their handmaidens, Zilphah and Bilhah. The middle of this Torah portion deals with the politics in Jacob’s family around fertility and childbearing in a way that modern readers might find immoral and dehumanizing. In America today, questions of birth control and family planning divide society. However, it is only because of the medical and social progress made possible in a liberal democracy that we are able to debate these questions of agency and bodily autonomy, as made clear in this 1918 address delivered by Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.
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