How Planned Parenthood Duped America
Orthodoxy Today
January 20, 1992 Citizen magazine
This article first appeared in the
January 20, 1992 edition of Citizen
magazine and can be found on the
LEARN website.
LEARN was officially established in
1993 at the African American Pro-Life
Planning Conference in Houston,
Texas. One of the primary goals of
LEARN is to facilitate a strong and
viable network of African American
and minority pro-life/pro-family
advocates.
L.E.A.R.N. Northeast is part of the
Life Education And Resource Network
(LEARN), a national network of
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advocates who are dedicated to
protecting the pre-born and promoting
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How Planned Parenthood Duped America
At a March 1925 international birth
control gathering in New York City, a
speaker warned of the menace posed by
the "black" and "yellow" peril. The
man was not a Nazi or Klansman; he
was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member
of Margaret Sanger's American Birth
Control League (ABCL), which along
with other groups eventually became
known as Planned Parenthood.
Sanger's other colleagues included
avowed and sophisticated racists.
One, Lothrop Stoddard, was a Harvard
graduate and the author of The Rising
Tide of Color against White
Supremacy. Stoddard was something of
a Nazi enthusiast who described the
eugenic practices of the Third Reich
as "scientific" and "humanitarian."
And Dr. Harry Laughlin, another
Sanger associate and board member for
her group, spoke of purifying
America's human "breeding stock" and
purging America's "bad strains."
These "strains" included the
"shiftless, ignorant, and worthless
class of antisocial whites of the
South."
Not to be outdone by her followers,
Margaret Sanger spoke of sterilizing
those she designated as "unfit," a
plan she said would be the "salvation
of American civilization.: And she
also spike of those who were
"irresponsible and reckless," among
whom she included those " whose
religious scruples prevent their
exercising control over their
numbers." She further contended that
"there is no doubt in the minds of
all thinking people that the
procreation of this group should be
stopped." That many Americans of
African origin constituted a segment
of Sanger considered "unfit" cannot
be easily refuted.
While Planned Parenthood's current
apologists try to place some distance
between the eugenics and birth
control movements, history
definitively says otherwise. The
eugenic theme figured prominently in
the Birth Control Review, which
Sanger founded in 1917. She published
such articles as "Some Moral Aspects
of Eugenics" (June 1920), "The
Eugenic Conscience" (February 1921),
"The purpose of Eugenics" (December
1924), "Birth Control and Positive
Eugenics" (July 1925), "Birth
Control: The True Eugenics" (August
1928), and many others.
These eugenic and racial origins are
hardly what most people associate
with the modern Planned Parenthood
Federation of America (PPFA), which
gave its Margaret Sanger award to the
late Dr. Martin Luther King in 1966,
and whose current president, Faye
Wattleton, is black, a former nurse,
and attractive.
Though once a social pariah group,
routinely castigated by religious and
government leaders, the PPFA is now
an established, high-profile, well-
funded organization with ample
organizational and ideological
support in high places of American
society and government. Its
statistics are accepted by major
media and public health officials as
"gospel"; its full-page ads appear in
major newspapers; its spokespeople
are called upon to give authoritative
analyses of what America's family
policies should be and to prescribe
official answers that congressmen,
state legislator and Supreme Court
justiices all accept as "social
orthodoxy."
Blaming families
Sanger's obsession with eugenics can
be traced back to her own family. One
of 11 children, she wrote in the
autobiographical book, My Fight for
Birth Control, that "I associated
poverty, toil, unemployment,
drunkenness, cruelty, quarreling,
fighting, debts, jails with large
families." Just as important was the
impression in her childhood of an
inferior family status, exacerbated
by the iconoclastic, "free-thinking"
views of her father, whose "anti-
Catholic attitudes did not make for
his popularity" in a predominantly
Irish community.
The fact that the wealthy families in
her hometown of Corning, N.Y., had
relatively few children, Sanger took
as prima facie evidence of the
impoverishing effect of larger
families. The personal impact of this
belief was heightened 1899, at the
age of 48. Sanger was convinced that
the "ordeals of motherhood" had
caused the death of her mother. The
lingering consumption (tuberculosis)
that took her mother's life visited
Sanger at the birth of her own first
child on Nov. 18, 1905. The diagnosis
forced her to seek refuge in the
Adirondacks to strengthen her for the
impending birth. Despite the
precautions, the birth of baby Grant
was "agonizing," the mere memory of
which Sanger described as "mental
torture" more than 25 years later.
She once described the experience as
a factor "to be reckoned with" in her
zealous campaign for birth control.
From the beginning, Sanger advocacy
of sex education reflected her
interest in population control and
birth prevention among the "unfit."
Her first handbook, published for
adolescents in 1915 and entitled,
What Every Boy and Girl Should Know,
featured a jarring afterword:
It is a vicious cycle; ignorance
breeds poverty and poverty breeds
ignorance. There is only one cure for
both, and that is to stoop breeding
these things. Stop bringing to birth
children whose inheritance cannot be
one of health or intelligence. Stop
bringing into the world children
whose parents cannot provide for
them.
To Sanger, the ebbing away of moral
and religious codes over sexual
conduct was a natural consequence of
the worthlessness of such codes in
the individual's search for self-
fulfillment. "Instead of laying down
hard and fast rules of sexual
conduct," Sanger wrote in her 1922
book Pivot of Civilization, "sex can
be rendered effective and valuable
only as it meets and satisfies the
interests and demands of the pupil
himself." Her attitude is
appropriately described as
libertinism, but sex knowledge was
not the same as individual liberty,
as her writings on procreation
emphasized.
The second edition of Sanger's life
story, An Autobiography, appeared in
1938. There Sanger described her
first cross-country lecture tour in
1916. Her standard speech asserted
seven conditions of life that
"mandated" the use of birth control:
the third was "when parents, though
normal, had subnormal children"; the
fourth, "when husband and wife were
adolescent"; the fifth, "when the
earning capacity of the father was
inadequate." No right existed to
exercise sex knowledge to advance
procreation. Sanger described the
fact that "anyone, no matter how
ignorant, how diseased mentally or
physically, how lacking in all
knowledge of children, seemed to
consider he or she had the right to
become a parent."
Religious bigotry
In the 1910's and 1920's, the entire
social order–religion, law, politics,
medicine, and the media–was arrayed
against the idea and practice of
birth control. This opposition began
in 1873 when an overwhelmingly
Protestant Congress passed, and a
Protestant president signed into law,
a bill that became known as the
Comstock Law, named after its main
proponent, Anthony Comstock. The U.S.
Congress classified obscene writing,
along with drugs, and devices and
articles that prevented conception or
caused abortion, under the same net
of criminality and forbade their
importation or mailing.
Sanger set out to have such
legislation abolished or amended. Her
initial efforts were directed at the
Congress with the opening of a
Washington, D.C., office of her
American Birth Control League in
1926. Sanger wanted to amend section
211 of the U.S. criminal code to
allow the interstate shipment and
mailing of contraceptives among
physicians, druggists and drug
manufacturers.
During January and February of 1926,
Sanger and her co-workers personally
interviewed 40 senators and 14
representatives. None agreed to
introduce a bill to amend the
Comstock Act. Fresh from this
unanimous rejection, Sanger issued an
update to her followers: Everywhere
there is general acceptance of the
idea, except in religious circles. .
The National Catholic Welfare
Council [sic] (NCWC) has a special
legislative committee organized to
block and defeat our legislation.
They frankly state that they intend
to legislate for non-Catholics
according to the dictates of the
church.
There was no such committee. But 20
non-Catholic lay or religious
organizations joined NCWC in
opposition to amending the Comstock
Act. This was not the first time, nor
was it to be the last, that Sanger
sought to stir up sectarian strife by
blaming Catholics for her legislative
failures. Catholic-bashing was a
standard tactic (one that Planned
Parenthood still finds useful to this
day), although other Christian groups
now also come in for criticism.
Eight years later, in 1934, Sanger
went to Congress again. Reporting on
the first day of the hearings, the
New York Times noted:
... the almost solidly Catholic
opposition to the measure. This is
now, according to Margaret Sanger. .
the only organized opposition to
the proposal.
Sanger wrote a letter to her
"Friends, Co-workers, and Endorsers"
that portrayed the opposing testimony
as the work of Catholics determined
... not to present facts to the
committee but to intimidate them by
showing a Catholic block of voters
who (though in the minority in the
United States) want to dictate to the
majority of non-Catholics as directed
from the Vatican in social and moral
legislation ... American men and
women, are we going to allow this
insulting arrogance to bluff the
American people?
For Sanger, the proper attitude
toward her religious critics featured
character assassination, personal
vilification and old-fashioned
bigotry. Her Birth Control Review
printed an article that noted: "Today
by the Roman Catholic clergy and
their allies . . . Public opinion in
America, I fear, is too willing to
condone in the officials of the Roman
Catholic Church what it condemns in
the Ku Klux Klan.
A favorite Catholic-baiter of
Sanger's was Norman E. Himes, who
contributed articles to Sanger's
journal. Himes claimed there were
genetic differences between Catholics
and non-Catholics.
Are Catholic stocks . . . genetically
inferior to such non-Catholic
libertarian stocks and Unitarians and
Universal . . . Freethinkers?
Inferior to non-Catholics in general?
. . my guess is that the answer
will someday be made in the
affirmative. . . and if the supposed
differentials in net productivity are
also genuine, the situation is anti-
social, perhaps gravely so.
Sanger sought to isolate Catholics by
creating a schism between them and
Protestants, who had held parallel
views of birth control and abortion
for centuries. She welcomed a report
from a majority of the Committee on
Marriage and the Home of the General
Council of Churches (later the
National Council of Churches)
advocating birth control. This
committee was composed largely of
social elite Protestants, including
Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. A
number of Protestant church bodies
publicly repudiated the committee's
endorsement.
The Rev. Worth Tippy, council
executive secretary and author of the
report, told Sanger in April 1931
that: ... the statement on Moral
Aspects of Birth Control has aroused
more opposition within the Protestant
churches than we expected. Under the
circumstances, and since we plan to
carry on a steady work for
liberalizing laws and to stimulate
the establishment of clinics, it is
necessary that we make good these
losses and also increase our
resources.Could you help me quietly
by giving me the names of people of
means who are interested in the birth
control movement and might help us if
I wrote them.
Sanger immediately wrote Tippy that
she would be "glad to select names of
persons from our lists whom I think
might be able to subscribe." Tippy
replied to Sanger a week later,
offering to give her some names for
fund raising and thanking her for the
offer of "names of people who are
able to contribute to generous causes
and who are favorable to birth
control." He also related that they
had expected some reaction from the
"fundamentalist groups," but nothing
like what had happened.
Protestants repeatedly stated their
unity with Catholics in opposing
Planned Parenthood's initiatives.
During Sanger's attempts to reform
New York state law, another
Protestant stood with Catholics. The
Rev. John R. Straton, Pastor of the
Calvary Baptist Church of New York
City, said: "This bill is subversive
of the human family . . . It is
revolting, monstrous, against God's
word and contradicts American
traditions."
Sanger's attack on Catholics appeared
to be an attempt to divert attention
from the class politics of Planned
Parenthood. The Rev. John A. Ryan
wrote: ... their main objective is to
increase the practice of birth-
prevention among the poor . . . It is
said that the present birth-
prevention movement is to some extent
financed by wealthy, albeit
philanthropic persons. As far as I am
aware , none of these is conspicuous
in the movement for economic justice.
None of them is crying out for a
scale of wages which would enable
workers to take care of a normal
number of children.
Sanger's sexual license was another
motivation for her Anti-Catholic
sniping. A Sanger biographer, David
M. Kennedy, said her primary goal was
to "increase the quantity and quality
of sexual relationships." The birth
control movement, she said, freed the
mind from "sexual prejudice and
taboo, by demanding the frankest and
most unflinching re-examination of
sex in its relation to human nature
and the basis of human society.
Sanger's gamble
It was in 1939 that Sanger's larger
vision for dealing with the
reproductive practices of black
Americans emerged. After the January
1939 merger of her Clinical Research
Bureau and the ABCL to form the Birth
Control Federation of America, Dr.
Clarence J. Gamble was selected to
become the BCFA regional director for
the South. Dr. Gamble, of the soap-
manufacturing Procter and Gamble
company, was no newcomer to Sanger's
organization. He had previously
served as director at large to the
predecessor ABCL.
Gamble lost no time and drew up a
memorandum in November 1939 entitled
"Suggestion for Negro Project."
Acknowledging that black leaders
might regard birth control as an
extermination plot, he suggested that
black leaders be place in positions
where it would appear that they were
in chargeÑas it was at an Atlanta
conference.
It is evident from the rest of the
memo that Gamble conceived the
project almost as a traveling road
show. A charismatic black minister
was to start a revival, with
"contributions" to come from other
local cooperating ministers. A
"colored nurse" would follow,
supported by a subsidized "colored
doctor." Gamble even suggested that
music might be a useful lure to bring
the prospects to a meeting.
Sanger answered Gamble on Dec. 10.
1939, agreeing with the assessment.
She wrote: "We do not want the word
to go out that we want to exterminate
the Negro population, and the
minister is the man who can
straighten that idea out if it ever
occurs to any of their more
rebellious members." In 1940, money
for two "Negro Project" demonstration
programs in southern states was
donated by advertising magnate Albert
D. Lasker and his wife, Mary.
Birth control was presented both as
an economic betterment vehicle and as
a health measure that could lower the
incidence of infant mortality. At the
1942 BCFA annual meeting, BCFA Negro
Council board member Dr. Dorothy B.
Ferebee–a ***** laude graduate of Tufts
and also president of Alpha Kappa
Alpha, the nation's largest black
sorority–addressed the delegates
regarding Planned Parenthood's
minority outreach efforts : With the
Negro group some of the most
difficult obstacles . . . to overcome
are: (1) the concept that when birth
control is proposed to them, it is
motivated by a clever bit of
machination to persuade them to
commit race suicide; (2) the so-
called "husband rejection" . . . (3)
the fact that birth control is
confused with abortion, and (4) the
belief that is inherently immoral.
However, as formidable as these
objections may seem, when thrown
against the total picture of the
awareness on the part of the Negro
leaders of the improved condition
under Planned Parenthood, or the
genuine interest and eagerness of the
families themselves to secure the
services which will give them a fair
chance for health and happiness, the
obstacles to the program are greatly
outweighed.Birth control as an
economic improvement measure had some
appeal to those lowest on the income
ladder. In the black Chicago Defender
for Jan. 10, 1942, a long three-
column women's interest article
discussed the endorsement of the
Sanger program by prominent black
women. There were at lease six
express references, such as the
following example, to birth control
as a remedy for economic woes:" . . .
it raises the standard of living by
enabling parents to adjust the family
size to the family income." Readers
were also told that birth control" .
. is no operation. It is no
abortion. Abortion kills life after
it has begun. . . Birth Control is
neither harmful nor immoral."
But the moral stumbling block could
only be surmounted by Afro-American
religious leaders, so black ministers
were solicited. Florence Rose, long-
time Sanger secretary, prepared an
activities report during March 1942
detailing the progress of the "Negro
Project." She recounted a recent
meeting with a Planned Parenthood
Negro Division board member, Bishop
David H. Sims (African Methodist
Episcopal Church), who appreciated
Planned Parenthood's recognition of
the extent of black opposition to
birth control and its efforts to
build up support among black leaders.
He offered whatever assistance he
could give.
Bishop Sims offered to begin the
"softening process" among the
representatives of different Negro
denominations attending the monthly
meetings of the Federal Council of
Churches and its Division of Race
Relations.
These and other efforts paid off
handsomely after World War II. By
1949, virtually the entire black
leadership network of religious,
social, professional, and academic
organizations had endorsed Planned
Parenthood's program.
National scandal
More than a decade later, Planned
Parenthood continued targeting
minority communities, but without
much success.
In 1940, nonwhite women aged 18 to 19
experienced 61 births per 1,000
unmarried women. In 1968, the
corresponding figure was 112 per
1,000, a 100 percent jump. What other
factor could account for the
increased rate of sexual activity
than wider access to birth control,
w
th its promise of sex without tears
and consequences?
Alan Guttmacher, then president of
Planned Parenthood, was desperate to
show policy-makers that birth control
would produce a situation whereby
"minority groups who constantly
outbreed the majority will no longer
persist in doing so. . . "
Despite claims that racial or ethnic
groups were not being "targeted,"
American blacks, among whose ranks a
greater proportion of the poor were
numbered, received a high priority in
Planned Parenthood's nationwide
efforts. Donald B. Strauss, chairman
of Planned ParenthoodÑWorld
Population, urged the 1964 Democratic
national Convention to liberalize the
party's stated policies on birth
control, and to adopt domestic and
foreign policy platform resolutions
to conform with long-sought San
gerite goals: [While almost one-
fourth of nonwhite parents have four
or more children under 18 living with
them, only 8% of the white couples
have that many children living at
home. For the Negro parent in
particular, the denial of access to
family planning professional guidance
forecloses one more avenue to family
advancement and well-being..
Unwanted children would not get the
job training and educational skills
they needed to compete in a shrinking
labor market; moreover, unwanted
children are a product and a cause of
poverty.
Surveying the "successes" of tax-
subsidized birth control programs,
Guttmacher noted in 1970 that "[Birth
control services are proliferating in
areas adjacent to concentrations of
black population." (In the 1980's,
targeting the inner-city black
communities for school based sex
clinics became more sensitive than
expected.)
Guttmacher thought that as long as
the birth rate continued to fall or
remained at a low level, Planned
Parenthood should certainly be
introduced before family size by
coercion is attempted."
Reaching this goal, he thought, would
best be accomplished by having groups
other than the PPFA preach the
doctrine of a normative 2.1-child
family, as doing this would offend
Planned Parenthood's minority
clients. He suggested that family
size would decrease if abortion were
liberalized nationwide and received
government support. In this
prediction he was right on target.
But Guttmacher did not completely
reject forced population control:
Predicting 20 critical years ahead in
the struggle to control the
population explosion, Dr. Alan
Guttmacher, president of Planned
parenthoodÑWorld Population,
continues to urge the use of all
voluntary means to hold down on the
world birthrate. But he foresees the
possibility that eventual coercion
may become necessary, particularly in
areas where the pressure is greatest,
possibly India and China. "Each
country," he says, "will have to
decide its own form of coercion, and
determine when and how it should be
employed. At Present, the means are
compulsory sterilization and
compulsory abortion. Perhaps some day
a way of enforcing compulsory birth
control will be feasible.
Coerced abortion is already practiced
in China, with the International
Planned Parenthood Federation's
approval.
Extreme irony
Despite its past, Planned Parenthood
has managed to present the image of
toleration and minority participation
through the vehicle of its divorced,
telegenic, African American
president, Ms. Faye Wattleton,
appointed titular head of the PPFA in
1978, a post she still holds. Though
paid in the six-figure range, she has
impeccable minority credentials that
would have fit the public relations
criteria for both Margaret Sanger and
Dr. Clarence Gamble.
Wattleton's PPFA biography touts her
as a friend of the "Poor and the
young"; a nurse at Harlem Hospital;
and the recipient of the 1989
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
Humanitarian Award and the World
Institute of Black Communicators'
1986 Excellence in Black
Communications Award. It further
states she was featured in a national
photography exhibit, "I Dream A
World: Portraits of Black Women Who
Changed America"; interviewed in
Ebony; and was the cover story in
Black Enterprise magazine. (Time
published a profile of Wattleton in
1990 entitled "Nothing Less Than
Perfect.")
Her ideological orientation has
received certification in the form of
the Better World Society's 1989
Population Model, the 1986 American
Humanist Award, and others. But
surely, the spectacle of the
Congressional Black Caucus awarding
its humanitarian award to the black
woman who presides over the
organization that has hastened and
justified the death of almost eight
million black children since 1973 and
facilitates the demise of the black
family is ironic in the extreme.
Killer angel
In his book, "Killer Angel," George
Grant says: "Myths, according to
theologian J. l. packer, are Ôstories
made up to sanctify social patterns.'
They are lies, carefully designed to
reinforce a particular philosophy or
morality within a culture. They are
instruments of manipulation and
control.
Killer Angel tells the real story
behind one of the biggest myths that
controls our culture todayÑthe life
and legacy of Margaret Sanger,
founder of Planned Parenthood. Grant
exposes "the Big Lie" perpetuated by
Sanger's followers and the
organization she started.
Through detailed research and concise
writing, Grant unveils Sanger's true
character and ideology, which
included blatant racism,
revolutionary socialism, sexual
perversion and insatiable avarice.
Grant includes direct quotes from
sources such as Sanger's Birth
Control Review to support his
findings. His biography spans
Sanger's disturbed and unhappy
upbringingÑwhich Sanger said
contributed to her agitation and
bitterness later in lifeÑto her
eventual fixation with drugs, alcohol
and the occult.
Particularly shocking was Sanger's
involvement in the Eugenics movement.
Grant says: "[Sanger] was thoroughly
convinced that the Ôinferior races'
were in fact Ôhuman weeds' and a
Ômenace to civilization.' . . . [S]he
was a true believer, not simply
someone who assimilated the jargon of
the timesÑas Planned Parenthood
officials would have us believe."
Sanger died September 6, 1966, a week
before her eighty-seventh birthday.
Grant says: "[She] had nearly
fulfilled her early boast that she
would spend every last penny of
Slee's [her second husband] fortune.
In the process, though, she had lost
everything else: love, happiness,
satisfaction, fulfillment, family,
and friends. In the end, her struggle
was her naught."
The truth uncovered in grant's book
has proven to be a threat to those
who follow the cult of :Planned
Parenthood. In fact, Killer Angel was
recently banned from a public library
in Toledo, Ohio. A library manager
stated in a letter that, "The
author's political and social agenda,
which is strongly expoused throughout
the book, is not appropriate even in
a critical biography of its subject."
In response, Grant pointed out that
"The question at hand is whether
librarians should be making
subjective judgments about my
political beliefs and the beliefs of
other authors."
By censoring Killer Angel, the
library appears to be violating its
own policies, which state that, "the
Library collection shall include
representative materials of all races
and nationalities, and all political,
religious, economic and social
views." Except Christian views,
apparently.
While the Toledo public library may
not be interested in the information
put forth in Grant's book, pro-lifers
will find this biography useful and
enlightening. It serves as a powerful
tool in dispelling the myths
surrounding a womanÑconsidered a
heroine by manyÑwho began an
organization that is responsible for
the deaths of millions of unborn
children.
Grant states that, "Margaret
SangerÑand her heirs at Planned
Parenthood . . . have thus far been
able to parlay the deception into a
substantial empire. But now the truth
must be told. The illusion must be
exposed." Killer Angel does an
outstanding job in doing that.
Sanger's legacy is reproductive
freedom and racism
Despite Margaret Sanger's
contributions to birth control and
hence women's freedom and
empowerment, her legacy is diminished
by her sympathies with eugenics. This
writer says that, like many modern
feminists, Sanger ignored class and
race.
(WOMENSENEWS)--Margaret Sanger opened
the nation's first birth control
clinic in 1916. For the rest of her
life she worked to establish a
woman's right to control her body and
to decide when or whether to have a
child. In 1921, she founded the
American Birth Control league, the
forerunner of Planned Parenthood.
Her impact on contemporary society is
tremendous. Enabling women to control
their fertility and giving them
access to contraception, as advocated
by Sanger, makes it possible for
women to have a broader set of life
options, especially in the areas of
education and employment, than if
their lives are dominated by
unrelieved childbearing.
A recent reminder of Sanger's impact
on our society came when the Equal
employment Opportunity Commission
found that it is illegal sex
discrimination to exclude
prescription contraceptives from an
otherwise comprehensive health
benefits plan. Sanger's efforts to
provide access to contraception are
at the foundation of decisions to
provide equal access to prescription
contraceptives and other
prescriptions.
Still, especially with the Bush
administration, activists will have
to fight to maintain access to
contraception and to abortion. In
April, the House of Representatives
passed legislation that would
establish criminal penalties for
harming a fetus during the commission
of a crime. While proponents of the
bill say it does not include
abortion, some see fetal protection
legislation as an attempt to
undermine abortion rights. The
passage of this legislation is a
reminder that the rights Margaret
Sanger worked so hard to establish
are tenuous rights that many would
challenge.
For all her positive influence, I see
Sanger as a tarnished heroine whose
embrace of the eugenics movement
showed racial insensitivity, at best.
From her associates, as well as from
some of the articles that were
published in Sanger's magazine, the
Birth Control review, it is possible
to conclude that "racially
insensitive" is too mild a
description. Indeed, some of her
statements, taken in or out of
context, are simply racist. And she
never rebuked eugenicists who
believed in improving the hereditary
qualities of a race or breed by
controlling mating in order to
eliminate "undesirable"
characteristics and promote
"desirable" traits.
Sanger: We must limit the over-
fertility of mentally, physically
defective
"Our failure to segregate morons who
are increasing and multiplying . . .
demonstrates our foolhardy and
extravagant sentimentalism," she
wrote in the recently republished
"The Pivot of Civilization." This
book, written in 1922, was published
at a time when scientific racism had
been used to assert black
inferiority. Who determines who is a
moron? How would these morons be
segregated? The ramifications of such
statements are bone chilling.
In a 1921 article in the Birth
Control Review, Sanger wrote, "The
most urgent problem today is how to
limit and discourage the over-
fertility of the mentally and
physically defective." Reviewers of
one of her 1919 articles interpreted
her objectives as "More children from
the fit, less from the unfit." Again,
the question of who decides fitness
is important, and it was an issue
that Sanger only partly addressed.
"The undeniably feebleminded should
indeed, not only be discouraged but
prevented from propagating their
kind," she wrote.
Sanger advocated the mandatory
sterilization of the insane and
feebleminded." Although this does not
diminish her legacy as the key force
in the birth control movement, it
raises questions much like those now
being raised about our nation's
slaveholding founders. How do we
judge historical figures? How are
their contributions placed in
context?
It is easy to see why there is some
antipathy toward Sanger among people
of color, considering that, given our
nation's history, we are the people
most frequently described as "unfit"
and "feebleminded."
Many African American women have been
subject to nonconsensual forced
sterilization. Some did not even know
that they were sterilized until they
tried, unsuccessfully, to have
children. In 1973, Essence Magazine
published an expose of forced
sterilization practices in the rural
South, where racist physicians felt
they were performing a service by
sterilizing black women without
telling them. While one cannot blame
Margaret Sanger for the actions of
these physician, one can certainly
see why Sanger's words are especially
repugnant in a racial context.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of
America has been protective of
Margaret Sanger's reputation and
defensive of allegations that she was
a racist. They correctly point out
that many of the attacks on Sanger
come from anti-choice activists who
have an interest in distorting both
Sanger's work and that of Planned
Parenthood. While it is
understandable that Planned
Parenthood would be protective of
their founder's reputation, it cannot
ignore the fact that Sanger edited
the Birth Control review from its
inception until 1929. Under her
leadership, the magazine featured
articles that embraced the eugenicist
position. If Sanger were as anti-
eugenics as Planned Parenthood says
she was, she would not have printed
as many articles sympathetic to
eugenics as she did.
Like many modern feminists, Sanger
ignored race and class
Would the NAACP's house organ, Crisis
Magazine, print articles by members
of the Ku Klux Klan? Would Planned
Parenthood publish articles penned by
fetal protectionist South Carolina
republican Lindsey Graham?
The articled published in the Birth
Control Review showed Sanger's
empathy with some eugenicist views.
Margaret Sanger worked closely with
W. E. B. DuBois on her "Negro
Project," an effort to expose
Southern black women to birth
control. Mary McLeod Bethune and Adam
Clayton Powell, Jr. were also
involved in the effort. Much later,
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted
an award from Planned Parenthood and
complimented the organization's
efforts. It is entirely possible that
Sanger Ôs views evolved over time.
Certainly, by the late 1940s, she
spoke about ways to solve the "Negro
problem" in the United States. This
evolution, however commendable, does
not eradicate the impact of her
earlier statements.
What then, is Sanger's legacy?
The Planned Parenthood Federation of
America has grown to an organization
with 129 affiliates. It operates 875
health centers and serves about 5
million women each year. Planned
Parenthood has been a leader in the
fight for women's right to choose and
in providing access to affordable
reproductive health care for a cross-
section of women. Planned Parenthood
has not supported forced
sterilization or restricted
immigration and has gently rejected
the most extreme of Sanger's views.
In many ways, Sanger is no different
from contemporary feminists who,
after making the customary
acknowledgement of issues dealing
with race and class, return to
analysis that focuses exclusively on
gender. These are the feminists who
feel that women should come together
around "women's issues" and battle
out our differences later. In failing
to acknowledge differences and the
differential impact of a set of
policies, these feminists make it
difficult for women to come together.
Sanger published the Birth Control
Review at the same time that black
men, returning from World War I, were
lynched in uniform. That she did not
see the harm in embracing
exclusionary jargon about
sterilization and immigration
suggests that she was, at best,
socially myopic.
That's reason enough to suggest that
her leadership was flawed and her
legacy crippled by her insensitivity.
LEARN was officially established in
1993 at the African American Pro-Life
Planning Conference in Houston,
Texas. One of the primary goals of
LEARN is to facilitate a strong and
viable network of African American
and minority pro-life/pro-family
advocates.
L.E.A.R.N. Northeast is part of the
Life Education And Resource Network
(LEARN), a national network of
Christian pro-life/pro-family
advocates who are dedicated to
protecting the pre-born and promoting
traditional family values
This article first appeared in the
January 20, 1992 edition of Citizen
magazine and can be found on the
LEARN website. Reprinted with
permission.
www.orthodoxytoday.org/articlesprint/LearnSangerP.htm
OrthodoxyToday.org
- - - - -
Posted on 1/11/04 by Liz
- - - - - - - - - - -
-To: Liz
The racist aims of Planned Murderhood
are very much still active. 40% of
the baby murders in abortuaries are
of "inferior black" children.
Posted on 1/11/04 by FormerACLUmember
- - - - - - - - - - -
-To: FormerACLUmember; mhking
In their first orgiastic abortion
spasms, they targeted Black babies
for annihilation but PP'hood was
forced to back off when pro-lifers
showed up with many pro-life Black
leaders--some were doctors--among
their ranks.
Posted on 1/11/04 by Liz
- - - - - - - - - - -
-To: Liz
..."shiftless, ignorant, and
worthless class of antisocial whites
of the South."
I'm not shiftless...
Posted on 1/11/04 by Libloather
- - - - - - - - - - -
-To: Liz;
STOPP Planned Parenthood
Posted on 1/11/04 by Coleus
- - - - - - - - - - -
-To: Liz
Preventing pregnancy by birth control
methods is one thing. Aborting
pregnancies is quite another and
Planned Parenthood is an awful name
for this pro-abortion disgrace.
Posted on 1/11/04 by onyx
- - - - - - - - - - -
-To: onyx
To Planned P'hood, abortion is
another form of contraception.
Posted on 1/11/04 by Liz
- - - - - - - - - - -
End of forwarded messages
Jai Maharaj
Creator of newsgroups alt.jyotish, alt.language.hindi, alt.religion.hindu
http://www.mantra.com/jyotish
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti
Panchaang for 20 Paush 5104, Sunday, January 11, 2004:
Shubhanu Nama Samvatsare Uttarayane Moksha Ritau
Dhanush Mase Krshn Pakshe Bhanu Vasara Yuktayam
Magh-Poorvaphalguni Nakshatr Saubhagya Yog
Balav-Kaulav Karan Chaturthi-Panchami Yam Tithau
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
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