Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story
Encyclopedia
Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story (1995) is a TV-movie about the controversial nurse Margaret Sanger
who campaigned in the early 1900s in the United States for women's reproductive rights.
stars in this made-for-TV movie as Margaret Sanger
, a nurse who, in 1914, became a pioneering crusader for women's reproductive rights after she published a booklet on birth control techniques that flew in the face of a law established by Anthony Comstock (Rod Steiger
) forbidding the dissemination of information on contraception. Sanger later helped to establish America's first birth control clinic in 1916, and in 1925 was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood
."
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist. Sanger coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood...
who campaigned in the early 1900s in the United States for women's reproductive rights.
Plot
The New York Times wrote this summary overview: "Dana DelanyDana Delany
Dana Welles Delany is an American film, stage, and television actress, producer, host and health activist.After various roles in the early career, Delany garnered her first leading role in 1987 in the short-lived NBC sitcom Sweet Surrender and achieved wider fame in 1988–1991 as Colleen McMurphy...
stars in this made-for-TV movie as Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist. Sanger coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood...
, a nurse who, in 1914, became a pioneering crusader for women's reproductive rights after she published a booklet on birth control techniques that flew in the face of a law established by Anthony Comstock (Rod Steiger
Rod Steiger
Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
) forbidding the dissemination of information on contraception. Sanger later helped to establish America's first birth control clinic in 1916, and in 1925 was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America , commonly shortened to Planned Parenthood, is the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and one of its larger members. PPFA is a non-profit organization providing reproductive health and maternal and child health services. The...
."
Critical commentary
New York Times television critic John J. O'Connor wrote the movie describes an "extraordinary woman whose contraception crusade eventually led to the founding of Planned Parenthood", adding that the movie "camouflages its sketchiness with some fine performances."Cast
- Dana DelanyDana DelanyDana Welles Delany is an American film, stage, and television actress, producer, host and health activist.After various roles in the early career, Delany garnered her first leading role in 1987 in the short-lived NBC sitcom Sweet Surrender and achieved wider fame in 1988–1991 as Colleen McMurphy...
as Margaret Sanger - Henry CzernyHenry Czerny- Career :Czerny received formal training at the National Theatre School in Montreal. After graduating in 1982, he went on to perform onstage across Canada, from Ottawa's National Arts Centre to Edmonton's Citadel Theatre and the Stratford Festival. By the late 1980s, he had established himself as...
as Bill Sanger - Rod SteigerRod SteigerRodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
as Anthony Comstock - Julie Khaner as Anita Block
- Tom McCamusTom McCamusTom McCamus is an award-winning Canadian film and theatre actor who is most widely known for his work on the science-fiction television show Mutant X....
as Mr. Schlesinger - Wayne RobsonWayne RobsonWayne Robson was a Canadian television, film and stage actor best known for playing the part of Mike Hamar, an ex-convict and sometime thief, on the Canadian sitcom The Red Green Show from 1993 to 2006, as well as in the 2002 film Duct Tape Forever.Robson was born in Vancouver, British Columbia...
as Ed Cady - Yank AzmanYank Azman-Early life:Azman was born in a displaced persons camp in Bad Wörishofen, Germany to Cesia , a sales clerk and Kuba Zajfman, a tailor and furrier, Holocaust survivors from Chmielnik, Poland...
as Arnold Scopes - Jeff Pustil as Heller
- Kenneth WelshKenneth WelshKenneth Welsh, CM is a Canadian film and television actor . He is known to Twin Peaks fans as the multi-faceted villain Windom Earle, and has more recently played the father of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.In 1984 he was nominated for a Genie Award as Best Actor for his...
as Mr. Higgins - Jason PriestleyJason PriestleyJason Bradford Priestley is a Canadian-American actor and director. He is best known as the virtuous Brandon Walsh on the television series Beverly Hills, 90210, a role which catapulted him to recognition in the early 1990s....
as Narrator - Ron Hartman as Dr. Benjamin
- Catherine Barroll as Nan Higgins
- Nicu Branzea as Leo Krulic
- Patrick Galligan as D.A. Whitman
- Sandra Crljenica as Peggy Sanger
- Blake McGrathBlake McGrathBlake McGrath is a Canadian professional dancer, pop singer and choreographer, best known for being on the first season of So You Think You Can Dance in 2005, and MTV reality dance show, DanceLife.-Early career:...
as Stuart Sanger - Lachlan MurdochLachlan MurdochLachlan Keith Murdoch is the eldest son of Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his second wife Anna Torv. He resigned from his executive positions at News Corporation on 29 July 2005...
as Grant Sanger - Heidi von Paleske as Mabel Dodge
- Henriette IvanansHenriette IvanansHenriette Ivanans is a Canadian, American and British passport holding actress. She is of Latvian and Danish heritage; her father is from Riga, and her mother is from Copenhagen. She is a graduate of Ryerson Theatre School in Toronto, Canada which boasts Eric McCormack and David James Elliott as...
as Sadie Sachs - Dan LettDan LettDaniel Frederick Lett is a Canadian actor. He attended White Oaks Secondary School in nearby Oakville, Ontario. He has acted in films, theatre and television. His principal roles have been in the series F/X, The X-Files, E.N.G., Street Legal, and Wind at My Back.He has a brother and a sister...
as Reporter #2 - Maria VacratsisMaria VacratsisMaria Vacratsis is an actress. Among her appearances on TV is the role of Sheila the lunch lady on the Canadian television series Degrassi: The Next Generation and the Lebanese islamic overbearing mother of main character Yasir in "Mother in law" episode of Little Mosque on the Prairie.She also...
as Emma Goldman - Les Porter as Reporter #3
- Martin Julien as Jake Sachs
- John GilbertJohn GilbertJohn Gilbert may refer to:*John Gilbert , Bishop of Hereford, 1375–1389*John Gilbert , Archbishop of York*John Gilbert , land agent and engineer...
as Utermeyer - James B. Douglas as Judge McInery
- Addison Bell as Bailiff
- Peter SpencePeter SpencePeter Spence is an English journalist and writer. He is perhaps best known for creating and writing the British sitcom To the Manor Born.-Early life:...
as Driver at Port - Elva Mai Hoover as N.Y. Librarian
- Tony MunchTony MunchTony Munch is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his roles in Land of the Dead as Anchor and in the films Cube Zero, Shoot 'Em Up and .45.-Filmography:*Red Coat Justice as Cobb...
as Bohemian #1 - Michael DysonMichael DysonMichael Eric Dyson is an American academic, author, and radio host. He is a professor of sociology at Georgetown University. Described by Michael A. Fletcher as "a Princeton Ph.D. and a child of the streets who takes pains never to separate the two", Dyson has so far authored and edited 18 books...
as Bohemian #2