Abortion - A Liberal Cause?
"And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the
Negro population" Therefore, she believed that the government
should actively encourage the sterilization of those who are unfit to
propagate the race, using as her motto: "More (children) from the fit,
less from the unfit."6
Jefferis Kent Peterson
410 Woodland Ave.
Grove City, PA 16127
412-458-4160
Abortion - A Liberal Cause?
Abortion has been numbered among the liberal causes of modern
politics. Abortion is identified with women's rights just as the Civil
Rights Movement was identified with equal rights for African
Americans and other minorities. But is abortion really a l
iberal cause? A careful examination of the history of the abortion
rights movement would shock even the most ardent defender of a
woman's right to choose. The founders of the movement were in fact
racists who despised the poor and who were searching f
or a way to prevent "colored" races from reproducing. Rather than
defending the rights of the poorest of the poor, which is the tradition
of liberalism, the founders advocated abortion as a means of
eliminating the poor; especially Blacks, Jews, Slavs
, and Italians. And rather than desiring to help the poor through
welfare programs, they wanted to eliminate all charities and
government aid. Today, most liberals would be shocked to know of
this racist heritage. Not only is the founding of the abort
ion rights movement anti-liberal, but it may have been an attempt to
promote racial genocide.
The modern day abortion rights movement began as the American
Birth Control League in 1921. Among its founding board members
were Margaret Sanger, Lothrup Stoddard, and C. C. Little. The latter
two people were known for their racist views, but Margar
et Sanger continually shows up in the company of other racists. In
fact, she was the guest speaker at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Silverlake, N.
J. in 1926.1 Not only did she not disassociate herself from these racist
views, her own writings leave little doubt as to her sympathies. In
implementing a plan called the "Negro Project," that was designed to
sterilize Blacks and reduce the number of Black children being born in
the south, Sanger wrote:
"(we propose to) 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. And we do not want 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." 2(emphasis added).
Sanger also viewed welfare as a detriment to society because it
increased the number of poor blacks and foreigners. "Organized
charity (modern welfare) is the symptom of a malignant social
diseaseI increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents, and
dependents. My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the 'failure' of
philanthropy, but rather at its success."3 The urban poor, and their
increasing numbers, she called, "an ever widening margin of biological
waste."4 Welfare, she believed, encouraged the breeding of the poor,
or "human waste," as she called them. She feared that welfare would
encourage the urban poor by having them give birth to those "stocks
that are the most detrimental to the future of the raceI"5 Therefore,
she believed that the government should actively encourage the
sterilization of those who are unfit to propagate the race, using as her
motto: "More (children) from the fit, less from the unfit."6
No modern day liberal would dare question the need for some form of
government aid to the poor. But Margaret Sanger wanted more for the
privileged and less for the poor. How did someone who was so
obviously biased and lacking in compassion become the heroine of
todays liberals? It is a strange reversal of political direction. It is as if
the Democratic Party suddenly turned around and supported David
Duke for Supreme Court Justice.Margaret Sanger also continued to
advocate for her racial prejudices in her magazine, Birth Control
Review. In six successive issues of that magazine, she advocated
limiting the racial quotas of immigration of "Slavs, Hebrews, and
Latins,"7 because of their lower intelligence! Although Ms. Sanger was
the editor of the magazine, she shared its pages with the racist co-
founders of the American Birth Control League. Board member
Lothrup Stoddard wrote the racist book The Rising Tide of Color
Against White World-Supremacy,8 which was reviewed favorably in
Birth Control Review..9 Co-founder and board member, C. C. Little,
was president of the Third Race Betterment Conference, and he
advocated preserving the purity of "Yankee stock" through limiting
the births of non-Whites.10
Margaret Sanger was also strongly anti-Semitic. She started a similar
birth control organization with a man named Henry Pratt Fairchild,
who wrote The Melting Pot Mistake, in which he accused "the Jews" of
diluting the true American stock.11 In his book, Race and Nationality,
(1947), Fairchild blamed anti-Semitism and the holocaust in part on
"the Jews."12.
Finally, Margaret Sanger and her organization began to be primary
sponsors of abortion rights during her lifetime. But because she had
associated herself with Adolph Hitler, praising him for his racial
politics of eugenics, she changed the name of American Birth Control
League to Planned Parenthood during WWII in order to disguise her
racist past.13 Today, her organization, Planned Parenthood, is still in
the forefront of advocating abortion as a means of eliminating the
unwanted and Runfit." Not only does the organization perform
thousands abortions each year, it also receives 100's of millions of tax
dollars each year through Federal and State Governments.14 And
rather than being in the forefront of a woman's right to choose,
International Planned Parenthood is a primary advocate for the
Chinese Government's policy of forcing women to have abortions
against their will, and it also advocates for the sterilization of Third
World non-Whites across the globe.15 It seems that PP is "pro-choice"
when trying to impress the U.S. media, but anti-choice in the actual
implementation of its world-wide agenda.
But has Planned Parenthood changed? It is significant to note that
Planned Parenthood has never distanced itself from the vision and
ideology of its founder. Successive presidents of the organization have
praised her work, including Faye Wattleton, who
said, "As we celebrate the 100th birthday of Margaret Sanger, our
courageous leaderI we should be very proud of what we are and what
our mission is. It is a very grand missionI abortion is only the tip of
the iceberg."16
One can only wonder how abortion rights came to be adopted by
liberals in the Democratic Party, or any other party. It is difficult to
image how it came to be identified with other liberal causes. Through
a slick media campaign and effective sloganeeri
ng, Planned Parenthood painted abortion as a compassionate and
caring alternative to child birth. Their motivation however may be
altogether different. It seems that abortion still today, rather than
being seen as a way of helping the poor and minorities, is considered
the easiest solution for our economic problems. Don't help the poor,
just eliminate them.
Footnotes:
1) Emily Taft Douglas, Margaret Sanger; Pioneer of the Future, Holt,
Rinehart & Winston, N.Y., 1970, p. 192. 2) Margaret Sanger, letter to
Clarence Gamble, Oct. 19,1939. - Sanger manuscripts, Sophia Smith
Collection, Smith College. 3)Margaret Sanger, T
he Pivot of Civilization, Brentano's, N.Y., 1922, p. 108. 4)Ibid., p.134.
5) Ibid., pp. 116-117. 6) Ibid., p.104 & 179. 7)Birth Control Review
article:"Racial Quotas in Immigration," Margaret Sanger, editor, Aug.
1920, pp. 9-10. Article continues in nex
t 5 issues. 8)Linda Gordon, Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social
History of Birth Control in America, Grossman,N.Y., 1976, p. 283. 9)
Birth Control Review, Margaret Sanger, editor, Oct. 1920. 10)Gordon,
Woman's Body, p. 283. 11) Fairchild, The Melti
ng Pot Mistake, 1926, pp. 212 ff. 12) Fairchild, Race and Nationality,
1947, pp. 137-161, esp. p. 147. 13) Gordon, Woman's Body, p. 347.
14) Based on 1984 figures compiled by the Alan Guttmacher
Institute, Issues in Brief, 4:1 (March, 1984). 15) Plan
ned Parenthood Review, 5:1 (Winter 1984/85) & 2:4 (Winter 1982), p.
16. Report of the Working Group on the Promotion of Family Planning
as a Basic Human Right, International Planned Parenthood Federation,
London, 1984, pp. 21-23. 16) Faye Wattleton, pre
sident Planned Parenthood Federation of America, speech, February
5, 1979.
