We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. – Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, 1939
I find it disturbing that Planned Parenthood was just caught on tape discussing selling organs of aborted babies. It’s also odd that Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, and those who emulate her emerged unscathed from the recent Confederate flag fracas. Admirers of Sanger and Planned Parenthood either have a case of genuine ignorance or selective amnesia. Unfortunately I suspect the latter.
Margaret Sanger’s racism and fondness of eugenics are common knowledge and have been for some time, though a refresher may be in order. As her career progressed in 1920s Brooklyn, she became a leading voice on population control, eugenics, and sterilization of the “unfit”, “idiots”, and “feeble minded”. Her publications included titles such as, “Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics” (1920), “The Eugenic Conscience” (1921), “The Purpose of Eugenics” (1924), and “Birth Control: The True Eugenics” (1928).
One might assume that a historical figure who openly purveyed racism and bigotry would receive the same social cleansing as the Stars and Bars, the tune “Dixie Land” and statues of Robert E. Lee. Not so. Sanger remains something of a patroness to leftist elites, getting a free pass on her despicable ideology, while Planned Parenthood continues to receive heaps of government cash for their sterilized savagery.
In one work titled, “A Plan for Peace”, she wrote:
“The main objects of the Population Congress would be to apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring[;] to give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization.” (“A Plan for Peace,” 1932)
One need not look far to determine exactly who she considered “tainted”; Sanger aggressively called for sterilization and abortion for ethnic groups, especially “negroes” often citing the need for a “cleaner race” (April 1932 Birth Control Review, pg. 108). She brought her views on racial cleansing and eugenics to several radical groups, including the Klu Klux Klan in 1926, who warmly welcomed her and her convictions.
In Pivot of Civilization (1922), she laid bare her views on racial responsibility:
Feeble-mindedness perpetuates itself from the ranks of those who are blandly indifferent to their racial responsibilities. And it is largely this type of humanity we are now drawing upon to populate our world for the generations to come. In this orgy of multiplying and replenishing the earth, this type is pari passu multiplying and perpetuating those direst evils in which we must, if civilization is to survive, extirpate by the very roots.
She was not shy about comparing other “inferior” races, such as the Australian Aborigines, to animals, as is clear in What Every Girl Should Know (1912):
In all fish and reptiles where there is no great brain development, there is also no conscious sexual control. The lower down in the scale of human development we go the less sexual control we find. It is said that the aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual satisfaction on the streets.
Despite the aforementioned credentials, Sanger holds court as an icon to American Left. She has been named one of Time magazine’s top 20 most influential American’s for her “brave” and “humane” work, while the New York Times has called for her mug to grace the $20 bill. Not to be outdone, Planned Parenthood offers the annual Margaret Sanger award to recognize “leadership” and “excellence”. Past winners have included Jane Fonda, Ted Turner, and Nancy Pelosi.
Perhaps the most notable Sanger Award winner, however, is 2016 hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, who gladly accepted the prize in 2008. Clinton’s admiration for the eugenicist is no secret. “I admire Margaret Sanger enormously,” Clinton said upon receiving the award, “her courage, her tenacity, her vision . . . And when I think about what she did all those years ago in Brooklyn… I am really in awe of her.” While the mainstream media deploys the Confederate flag litmus test on GOP candidates, one wonders whether admirers of Sanger, such as Clinton, will answer for their unwavering admiration of a true American racist and champion of eugenics.
We must not forget Sanger’s legacy of racism, nor the scandal of Planned Parenthood—the bitter fruit of Sanger’s twisted ideology—which aborts a disproportionate amount of African-Americans, sells fetal organs on the black market, covers up statutory rape, and instructs schoolchildren in sadomasochism and bondage. If we are to be whipped into a frenzied purge of anything remotely tied to racial prejudice, I suggest we look no further than Planned Parenthood and its bigoted founder.
As a Christian, the kind of mental gymnastics in this article makes me weary of how we are perceived in the media and represented in politics. You grasp for straws so desperately you end up sounding unprofessional and uneducated. I’m against abortions but not because some convoluted logic that the founder of pp was a racist in the 1920’s so therefore the organization is pure evil. Who really cares if she was racist, so were plenty of our founding fathers? This isn’t an eye for an eye with the left -“they took our flag down, now let’s demonize planned parenthood to get them back!” Yeah good luck with that buddy. Not to mention the selling organs part is not at all what they actually do (ie. Donate them for research and are reimbursed for the transport.). There are plenty of reasons abortions are reprehensible to our Lords will, but the ones you listed just make you sound like an illogical tin foil hat wearer.
Gabriel said,
” Not to mention the selling organs part is not at all what they actually do (ie. Donate them for research and are reimbursed for the transport.).”
Wake up! Are you in denial about what Planned Parenthood has been doing? It is pure evil!
Great article, Mr. LaFave.
The Catholic Church wasn’t much better at the time. At that time, Catholic Church pews were segregated by race in the south.
And the only Nazi ever excommunicated by the Catholic Church was Joseph Goebbels, and that was only done because he married a protestant.