Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger

For the record this is my first post, please forgive any mistakes that go against the established etiquette.

First of most people do not know who Margaret Sanger is. She is the founder of The American Birth Control League which has since changed its name and become Planned Parenthood.

She was a Racist

(Note the following are her words from a letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble. I apologize for the racist words she uses. I despise her and her statements.)

"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
Margaret Sanger's December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255 Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.

Further Evidence

Margret Sanger proposed a "population congress" which would force "dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization"

Her general theory involved forcing anyone she deemed "unfit" or "inferior" to be sterilized. She was a believer in Malthusian eugenics which was formed out the Robert Malthus' flawed ideas quoted in...

"An Essay on the Principle of Population- Robert Malthus"

"All children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room is made for them by the deaths of grown persons. We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality."

In other words Malthus believed that efforts should be made to hasten the death of those with illnesses "the operations of nature" rather than prevent death.

Her beliefs in Malthusian eugenics show she was a eugenicist.

"Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need ... We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock."
Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review.

"Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives."

Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying ... demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism ... [Philanthropists] encourage the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant ... We are paying for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all."

Margaret Sanger. The Pivot of Civilization, 1922. Chapter on "The Cruelty of Charity," pages 116, 122, and 189. Swarthmore College Library edition

"Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to
diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils
that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest
sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and is perpetuating
constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and
dependents. My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the "failure" of
philanthropy, but rather at its success."

Another quote from "The Pivot of Civilization" which can be attained for free at www.Gutenberg.org

Your claims offend me.

Why not include a link of reference?

Even then, I would guess that in many places in the US, more white girls take advantage of the birth control services at Planned Parenthood than any other minority.

Seriously, claims like these just offend me. I know this was probably not your intent.

Birth Control is available to everyone.... Not just certain minority groups for the purpose of wiping them out. Really, Planned Parenthood provides more services of other kinds, than abortions(including "education").

I've tried uncounted times to tell some of my liberal zealot friends the history and motives of planned parenthood, but they refuse to even accept the documents in the original writers hand. Most go on to deny that the eugenics movement led to the forced sterilization of more than 65,000 Americans by 1979----notice "forced" not "voluntary" sterilization of those deemed "unfit" or "feeble minded". None will admit how well Hitler understood the eugenics program, even using some of the American and British proponents work in his "studies", going as far as to publicly laud their efforts and help.
Point your liberal friends to Alex Jones' "End Game".
Free to watch on youtube and "Media@AboveTopSecret".
A good piece on eugenics in that movie.

Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent "dysgenic" children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and dismissed "positive eugenics" (which promoted greater fertility for the "fitter" upper classes) as impractical. Though many leaders in the eugenics movement were calling for active euthanasia of the "unfit," Sanger spoke out against such methods. She believed that women with the power and knowledge of birth control were in the best position to produce "fit" children. She rejected any type of eugenics that would take control out of the hands of those actually giving birth.

also...

Sanger remains a controversial figure. While she is widely credited as a leader of the modern birth control movement, and remains an iconic figure for the American reproductive rights movements, pro-life groups condemn Sanger's views, attributing her efforts to promote birth control to a desire to "purify" the human race through eugenics, and even to eliminate minority races by placing birth control clinics in minority neighborhoods.[28] Despite allegations of racism, Sanger's work with minorities earned the respect of civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr.[29] In their biographical article about Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood notes:

In 1930, Sanger opened a family planning clinic in Harlem that sought to enlist support for contraceptive use and to bring the benefits of family planning to women who were denied access to their city's health and social services. Staffed by a black physician and black social worker, the clinic was endorsed by The Amsterdam News (the powerful local newspaper), the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the Urban League, and the black community's elder statesman, W.E.B. DuBois.

en.wikipedia.org...

Hey! I wrote a paper on Sanger a few years ago for my Intro to Women's Studies class.

I should look for my copy sometime...

I seriously don't even know where to start....

Planned Parenthood offers only 'voluntary' services. I am HARDLY liberal, and agree 100% with a person's right to choose. To either terminate an unwanted pregnancy, or to choose birth control to keep pregnancy from happening until one is ready.

That said, no. Nothing in paper or a person's right to choose, forces only people of certain races to put off having children until they are ready.

Honestly, I don't think people are using birth control NEARLY enough -- MOST races. I am willing to bet you won't see Mexicans crossing the border to take advantage of birth control services.

reply to post by LostNemesis

Ok, I'll bite.
How about a list of some of her most "Interesting" quotes, along with the references they came from?
NOW you should be offended.

www.dianedew.com...

The leading cause of death for African-Americans since 1973 is abortion. (1973 was the year of the Roe v. Wade Supreme court ruling, which legalized abortion)

If you look up leading cause of death at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) abortion will not be listed, however the number of abortions by race performed are recorded by the CDC in their Abortion Surveillance Study started in 1986. Those statistics combined with the leading causes of death made the above graph.

CDC records can be found here

1998
www.cdc.gov...

"The abortion rate for black women (31 per 1,000 women) was 3.0 times the rate for white women (10 per 1,000 women)."



1999
www.cdc.gov...

"In addition, the abortion rate for black women (36 per 1,000 women) was 3.0 times the rate for white women (12 per 1,000 women)."


2001
www.cdc.gov...

"The abortion rate for black women (29 per 1,000 women) was 3.0 times the rate for white women (10 per 1,000)"

This is made all the more troubling because African-Americans are a minority. Yet they have higher abortion rates per 1,000 live births than whites. Nearly 80% of Planned Parenthood facilities are in minority communities and not necessarily poor communities. Margaret Sanger's plan to "exterminate the Negro population" (as she puts it) may have been in motion for decades now.

Some may disagree with me and say that African-Americans simply want to have more abortions than other groups however if current population trends continue the African American community will not be the largest minority in the United States thus eliminating voting power.

"From 1973 to 2004, approximately 15 million blacks have lost their lives to abortion in the United States!" CDC reports used by a third party source, Abort 73.com, to compile this. They do not give me a year by year breakdown.

"The 2002 census shows that the black population in the U.S. stands at approximately 36 million. That means that nearly 30% of the black population has been lost to abortion, more than one in four."- Abort 73.com

It is possible but unlikely that Planned Parenthood officials are oblivious to the damage they are causing. They may all be duped into believing that what they are doing is good, but fail to realize they are unwittingly part of a plot formed so many years ago.

Some may argue that the number of abortions has been declining however though this may be true Planned Parenthood is now carrying out more abortions than ever. Taking up an ever greater share of the number of abortions performed.

http:

I also know that many people feel that abortion is not wrong and that it is not murder but it is undeniable that it has an effect on the number of people.

To Explain

"Replacement fertility is the total fertility rate at which newborn girls would have an average of exactly one daughter over their lifetimes. In more familiar terms, women have just enough babies to replace themselves.

If there were no mortality in the female population until the end of the childbearing years. Then the replacement level of TFR would be very close to 2.0 (actually slightly higher because of the excess of boy over girl births in human populations). The replacement level is also affected by mortality, especially childhood mortality. The replacement fertility rate is roughly 2.1 births per woman for most industrialized countries but ranges from 2.5 to 3.3 in developing countries because of higher mortality rates." -Wikipedia


upload.wikimedia.org... " target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>

Many nations in the world are at or below 2.1 meaning their populations are shrinking.

[edit on 17-2-2009 by Studious]

Lost Nemesis I apologize for not posting links and for that I am deeply sorry, and no, of course it was not my intent to offend anyone with this post. I am merely attempting to put out facts that are not often seen.

However if you had taken the time to look the Quotes ARE CITED

They where published in the articles that I have written under the quote. Sometimes I had multiple quotes and then a citation such as the many quotes from the "Pivot of Civilization."

One of her books "The Pivot of Civilization" can be read through project Gutenberg. A free ebook site.

www.gutenberg.org...

I will attempt to search the internet to find these quotes, perhaps someone else has posted them from the original book and paper copies.

The Search Begins!

(By the way thank you gotrox for finding so many of them on the web already.)




[edit on 17-2-2009 by Studious]

[edit on 17-2-2009 by Studious]

As to your questions: A. Where the present need of financial support is most needed, and B. What the present prospects are in contraceptive research. I will answer B. first because I consider that the world and almost our civilization for the next twenty-five years, is going to depend upon a simple, cheap, safe contraceptive to be used in poverty stricken slums, jungles, and among the most ignorant people. Even this will not be sufficient, because I believe that now, immediately, there should be national sterilization for certain dysgenic types of our population who are being encouraged to breed and would die out were the government not feeding them.

Oh, they know what they are trying to do.
In her own hand from Smith college collection.
source:
www.pbs.org...

reply to post by gotrox


I can refute many of those quotes, with things like

"Yeah, the 'unfit' should not have children. Anyone who cannot afford children, should not have them." blah blah

"In the context the quotes are supposedly being used, they can be taken many ways... Like couples applying for a permit to have children. I'd have to agree. Only people capable of raising good members of society should have kids."

And more like

"Yeah, maybe illegal immigrants should voluntarily be sterilized.. so that our welfare system does not pay people for breeding"

But you would probably see my views as being just as cruel as the person being quoted in the link you provided.

I do not see abortion as being 'murder' OR a 'leading cause of death'. Again, it seems to be ignored that nobody is being FORCED to abort. And instead, I would suggest that perhaps black families are more accepting of the idea that children at too young of an age, will destroy someone's chances at accomplishing what they want in life. Especially in states where it is mandatory that a teen have parental signature before they can attain birth control or abortions.

I cannot help but wonder how many peoples' parents are like some of the anti-abortion people, and would force their daughter to become a parent just to 'teach her a lesson' in responsibility or to 'save a life'.
Nobody ever considers the life of the young girl that is only a child herself, and her chances in life being RUINED by a child she does not want, and is not ready for.
--Maybe this is especially true for young black girls, because of social stigma and more being expected of them from parents -- being successful in life, with a career and college education and all that. Believe it or not, I can see where social stigma can cause people to strive to overcome stereotypes and accomplish more.

Again, back to the point.... Margaret Sanger failed miserably, because family planning is completely voluntary, and the services are used by people of all races -- except maybe the Mexican ones...

EDIT: Typo... +

[edit on 17-2-2009 by LostNemesis]

reply to post by Studious

You bet. This is an argument I am well prepared for, and have had numerous times. I am not an opponent to any kind of birth control, nor abortion, in any philosophical sense, but the origins and practices of some of the people and organizations involved, both past and present, are sinister in intent and implementation..

reply to post by LostNemesis

No problem----but it is pretty hard to take the post above this that I am replying to "out of context".
It's very clear in plain english, in her own hand.
And the source material is there for you to read, as well as many of her works in full context for free online.
I am not against birth control or abortion, or eugenics, necessarily, but am against the planned parenthood image of some warm and fuzzy social program.
It is not, and they should be true to their doctrine and not try to hide what they do and why they do it.

Why is it that everyone believes children ruin lives?

We were all children once. Did we ruin our parents lives?

Perhaps you will argue that only financially stable parents that wanted a child should have children.

But we miss a very important point the TFR, Total Fertility rate. It is a very important tool for measuring how many people need to be born in order for the human species to continue.

See my 2nd post to see the paraphrased article from wikipedia on the more dictionary definition of this.

The TFR is very simple math.

Lets take a hypothetical world with just 1 male and 1 female.

These 2 parents if they have 1 child in their entire lifetimes. Will represent a net loss of 1. How?

Because 2+1 (having a child) -2 (the death of the parents) = 1

Since in this hypothetical world that child would be the last human they would grow old and die unable to reproduce.


Lets make the population of this hypothetical world 4. 2 Males and 2 Females.

If they pair up and have 1 child each in their entire lifetimes. Meaning they only have 1 child before they die. The math would look like the following.

4+2 (children from both couples.) -4 (the eventual death of the parents) = 2

Now with only two people left, if these children just happened to be 1 Male and 1 Female and they also only had one child it would end exactly like the first scenario. With a very lonely man or woman dying of old age unable to have children.

What I am trying to say here is that countries that drop below this required 2.0 percent are shrinking. (which is increased because of deaths and uneven numbers of Males and Females to 2.1 and sometimes even higher in developing countries where mortaility rates are higher.) They can grow due to immigration but if the whole world drops below that 2.0 threshold then the population of all humans begins to decrease. Yes we are having a population crisis, a depopulation crisis.

en.wikipedia.org...


I always thought the rallying cry was "We will make the world better for future generations." or the now used somewhat comically "what about the children?" Apparently now the rallying cry is "ME..ME...ME...ME." and "What about me?" And who could forget "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha" (Note: This is NOT a personal attack on anyone, I am saying this comment from personal experiences with many people over the course many, many years. It is more social commentary than personal attack. I apologize in advance if it sounds offensive to anyone who may read this. Including anyone named Jan )


Countries in Blue in the following graph are actually shrinking, (sometimes immigration counteracts this however.) If most of the world drops below this 2.0 barrier the human population will begin to decrease. Less humans is less chance for survival of the species. (One of the reasons why bunnies and cockroaches will never be extinct, barring end of the world scenarios of course....for the bunnies anyway.) We may pass into the night of history because we did not want our lives "ruined" by future generations.




You know, I have been thinking about this and I have not heard one reason how children ruin life. Sure they can be annoying and expensive, sure they can make you want to pull your hair out sometimes, but to me anyway family makes life worth living.

The fertility rate has been dropping for at least 2 generations now, and nobody is quite sure why. Is it mother natures way of saying "too many people" or is it the result of a planned or unplanned program, contamination, radiation, inoculations, plastics?
I sometimes worry that someones answer to Jihad or financial meltdown will be to drastically reduce the population.
Planned Parenthood could soon see a reversal in roles, actually planning parenthood instead of unplanning it.