Woman and the New Race

Woman and the New Race is a book by birth control advocate Margaret Sanger published in 1920. It advocates contraception as the only reasonable means to prevent overpopulation. The book discusses Dr. Thomas Robert Malthus's advocacy of celibacy until middle age to avoid overpopulation, but criticizes the idea as harmful, and also suggests that karezza, also called coitus reservatus, is harmful. She states in the book that a few men and women can channel their sexual impulses into a non-sexual direction, but that this will not work for most people, and that those people need sex and if celibate will be harm physically and mentally by their celibacy and therefore should be able to use birth control.

Eugenics and birth control were intertwined topics in the 1920s. Sanger's advocacy of eugenics is evident in Woman and the New Race. She uses the word "defectives" to describe some groups of people. Racism was pervasive in her work.