By Brian Clowes PhD
Planned Parenthood’s 100th: Cause for Celebration or Sorrow?
This Sunday, the glitterati will celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Senate Democrats have introduced a resolution honoring PPFA. One hundred Hollywood stars have signed a congratulatory letter to the organization. Hillary Clinton herself has spoken repeatedly about how much she adores the abortion business’s founder, eugenicist Margaret Sanger. And, of course, we see in the media hundreds of fawning editorials singing the praises of the most corrupt business in the history of this nation.
If the proverbial Martian visited our planet right about now, he would assume from such coverage that Planned Parenthood is an organization composed entirely of saints whose lives are dedicated to the ideals of freedom, choice and human happiness while struggling valiantly against woman-hating terrorists.
However, if the Martian had the capacity for rational thought took the time to dig a little deeper, he would be horrified by what lies below the surface.
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger was not merely friendly to the idea of eugenics, she was a eugenicist to the core. She wrote that the mission of her organization was “To promote eugenic birth selection throughout the United States so that there may be more well‑born and fewer ill‑born children ― a stronger, healthier and more intelligent race.”[1] Sanger followed eugenic reasoning to its logical conclusion ― that charity is “dysgenic,” leading to a degradation of the human race:
We are now in a state where our charities, our compensation acts, our pensions, hospitals, and even our drainage and sanitary equipment all tend to keep alive the sickly and the weak, who are allowed to propagate and in turn produce a race of degenerates.[2]
Of course, then as now, if the lowly do not embrace the Utopian plans of the elite, they must be whipped into line by greater and greater degrees of coercion. Sanger herself said that “Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupidly cruel sentimentalism.”[3]
Contributors to Sanger’s The Birth Control Review especially loathed the Catholic Church, but they had plenty of contempt left over for minorities. Julian Huxley, founder of the World Wildlife Fund, commented in a BCR article that “There is, first, the mere question of quantity of population, quantity of Americans in the world versus the quantity of Englishmen, versus the quantity of Africans, versus the quantity of Chinese. If you have one race whose population is going down and another whose population is going up, there is always the possibility of race suicide ….”[4]
In an article entitled “God’s Chillun” in the special “Negro Number” of The Birth Control Review, Walter Terpenning wrote that “Many of the colored citizens are fine specimens of humanity. A good share of them, however, constitute a large percentage of Kalamazoo’s human scrap‑pile … The dissemination of the information of birth control should have begun with this [Negro] class rather than with the upper social and economic classes of white citizens.”[5]
At least we cannot accuse the contributors to The Birth Control Review of being inconsistent in their racism, because they held everyone in contempt who did not measure up to their Nordic ideal.
On Puerto Ricans: “He lives literally in chronic starvation, crowding his filthy scarecrow body into a hut where his female counterpart and their numberless wretched children almost always share at least one of his diseases.”[6]
On Italians: “Look over ‘Who’s Who in America’ for Italian names. They are conspicuous by their absence. …”[7]
On the Polish: “Polish men are often immoral because they have been born of too young mothers or preceded by many born before.”[8]
On Southerners: “The southern woman is fifty years behind the rest of the women in the country. She has no mind, no individuality, no initiative, and without question accepts all the absurd conventionalities that hedge her about and keep her a charming and useless dependent on her husband.”[9]
The result is inevitable: A staggering one-third of African Americans have been aborted.[10]
The American Birth Control League led the way in the 1920s, and its successor, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America leads the way now. The organization’s highest award is named for its founder, and they defend her legacy without qualification to this day.
Planned Parenthood Today
Planned Parenthood has never lost sight of Sanger’s vision, pursuing it with a single-minded fanaticism that boggles the imagination even if the organization’s targeting of minorities is no longer so overt. PPFA’s clinics and affiliates now perform one out of three abortions in the United States. Its abortionists have snuffed out the lives of 7.6 million unborn American babies, disproportionately those of poor and minority women. To give this some idea of scale, this is the fourth largest genocide in modern history, ranking behind only Hitler, Stalin and Mao. PP’s income since 1999 has been 20 billion dollars, much of which has been our involuntary contribution through our tax dollars.
But these numbers, as stunning as they are, do not even begin to properly describe the true legacy of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Its legacy is reflected in the desperate face of the teenage girl whose PP-supplied birth control failed her, an unfortunately common occurrence that, if many former PP employees are to believed, was part of a strategy to create abortion clients. It is in the face of the sex-addict furtively glancing both ways before opening the door of a run-down, tawdry “adult book and novelty shop.” It is in the face of the poor single mother who has embraced the Planned Parenthood gospel of free (but “responsible”) sex, who has had several abortions of children conceived by different men who abandoned her, and yet has not achieved “empowerment.” It is in the face of the homosexual man dying of AIDS at the age of forty because he took PP’s advice to “have as much sex as you want, but have it ‘responsibly.’”
It is no exaggeration to say that the “free sex” mantra of Planned Parenthood has destroyed and stunted millions of lives.
This, then, is the legacy of Planned Parenthood — not freedom for women, but slavery. Not happiness, but sorrow and guilt. Not choice, but coercion.
It has covered up for sex slavery. Its `counselors’ have told child molesters how to avoid detection. It has sold the body parts of its victims for profit. It has even produced a cartoon that shows pro-lifers being blown up, drowned and decapitated.[11]
The fact that Planned Parenthood is turning 100 is an indictment against our nation, not cause for celebration. Though babies, minorities, and women have been targeted most directly by its unrelenting assault on life, we have all been harmed by its being allowed to grow its grisly business funded by our tax dollars and allowed by our indifference. Let this anniversary be a reminder to all of us to increase our efforts in prayer and peaceful activism to end Planned Parenthood’s reign of destruction.
Endnotes
[1] Advertisement in the Birth Control Review, Volume I, Number 1 (New Series, October 1933), page 8. Another advertisement in this vein said that “THE AMERICAN BIRTH CONTROL LEAGUE. Its Aim: To promote eugenic birth selection throughout the United States so that there may be more well‑born and fewer ill‑born children ― a stronger, healthier, more intelligent race … and in order that those who are physically and mentally unsound may use birth control to have fewer or no children” [Membership advertisement for the American Birth Control League. Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 12 (December 1932), page 319].
[2] Margaret Sanger. “Birth Control and Women’s Health.” Birth Control Review, Volume I, Number 12 (December 1917), page 7.
[3] Margaret Sanger. “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.” Birth Control Review, Volume V, Number 10 (October 1921), page 5.
[4] Julian Huxley. “Towards a Higher Civilization.” Birth Control Review, Volume XIV, Number 12 (December 1930), pages 342 to 345.
[5] Walter Terpenning. “God’s Chillun.” Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 6 (June 1932, the “Negro Number”), pages 171 and 172.
[6] “Puerto Rico: Old Woman in a Shoe.” Birth Control Review, Volume IV, Number 5 (New Series, January 1937), page 6.
[7] Edward M. East. “The Fascisti on Birth Control; An Italian Problem: Reply to Count Cippico.” Birth Control Review, Volume IX, Number 9 (September 1925), pages 245 and 246.
[8] Rev. T.V. Jakimowitz. “A Priest on Birth Control.” Birth Control Review, Volume IV, Number 3 (March 1920), page 12.
[9] Bianca Van Beuren. “The Women of the South.” Birth Control Review, Volume II, Numbers 2 and 3 (February‑March 1918), page 7.
[10] For references and calculations, e-mail Brian Clowes at bclowes@hli.org and ask for Excel spreadsheet F-19-04.XLS, “Analysis of United States Abortion Statistics, 1967-2013.”
[11] See “A Superhero for Choice,” available on YouTube.
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Planned Parenthood’s 100th Anniversary: Cause for Celebration or Sorrow?
By Brian Clowes PhD
This Sunday, the glitterati will celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Senate Democrats have introduced a resolution honoring PPFA. One hundred Hollywood stars have signed a congratulatory letter to the organization. Hillary Clinton herself has spoken repeatedly about how much she adores the abortion business’s founder, eugenicist Margaret Sanger. And, of course, we see in the media hundreds of fawning editorials singing the praises of the most corrupt business in the history of this nation.
If the proverbial Martian visited our planet right about now, he would assume from such coverage that Planned Parenthood is an organization composed entirely of saints whose lives are dedicated to the ideals of freedom, choice and human happiness while struggling valiantly against woman-hating terrorists.
However, if the Martian had the capacity for rational thought took the time to dig a little deeper, he would be horrified by what lies below the surface.
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger was not merely friendly to the idea of eugenics, she was a eugenicist to the core. She wrote that the mission of her organization was “To promote eugenic birth selection throughout the United States so that there may be more well‑born and fewer ill‑born children ― a stronger, healthier and more intelligent race.”[1] Sanger followed eugenic reasoning to its logical conclusion ― that charity is “dysgenic,” leading to a degradation of the human race:
We are now in a state where our charities, our compensation acts, our pensions, hospitals, and even our drainage and sanitary equipment all tend to keep alive the sickly and the weak, who are allowed to propagate and in turn produce a race of degenerates.[2]
Of course, then as now, if the lowly do not embrace the Utopian plans of the elite, they must be whipped into line by greater and greater degrees of coercion. Sanger herself said that “Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupidly cruel sentimentalism.”[3]
Contributors to Sanger’s The Birth Control Review especially loathed the Catholic Church, but they had plenty of contempt left over for minorities. Julian Huxley, founder of the World Wildlife Fund, commented in a BCR article that “There is, first, the mere question of quantity of population, quantity of Americans in the world versus the quantity of Englishmen, versus the quantity of Africans, versus the quantity of Chinese. If you have one race whose population is going down and another whose population is going up, there is always the possibility of race suicide ….”[4]
In an article entitled “God’s Chillun” in the special “Negro Number” of The Birth Control Review, Walter Terpenning wrote that “Many of the colored citizens are fine specimens of humanity. A good share of them, however, constitute a large percentage of Kalamazoo’s human scrap‑pile … The dissemination of the information of birth control should have begun with this [Negro] class rather than with the upper social and economic classes of white citizens.”[5]
At least we cannot accuse the contributors to The Birth Control Review of being inconsistent in their racism, because they held everyone in contempt who did not measure up to their Nordic ideal.
On Puerto Ricans: “He lives literally in chronic starvation, crowding his filthy scarecrow body into a hut where his female counterpart and their numberless wretched children almost always share at least one of his diseases.”[6]
On Italians: “Look over ‘Who’s Who in America’ for Italian names. They are conspicuous by their absence. …”[7]
On the Polish: “Polish men are often immoral because they have been born of too young mothers or preceded by many born before.”[8]
On Southerners: “The southern woman is fifty years behind the rest of the women in the country. She has no mind, no individuality, no initiative, and without question accepts all the absurd conventionalities that hedge her about and keep her a charming and useless dependent on her husband.”[9]
The result is inevitable: A staggering one-third of African Americans have been aborted.[10]
The American Birth Control League led the way in the 1920s, and its successor, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America leads the way now. The organization’s highest award is named for its founder, and they defend her legacy without qualification to this day.
Planned Parenthood Today
Planned Parenthood has never lost sight of Sanger’s vision, pursuing it with a single-minded fanaticism that boggles the imagination even if the organization’s targeting of minorities is no longer so overt. PPFA’s clinics and affiliates now perform one out of three abortions in the United States. Its abortionists have snuffed out the lives of 7.6 million unborn American babies, disproportionately those of poor and minority women. To give this some idea of scale, this is the fourth largest genocide in modern history, ranking behind only Hitler, Stalin and Mao. PP’s income since 1999 has been 20 billion dollars, much of which has been our involuntary contribution through our tax dollars.
But these numbers, as stunning as they are, do not even begin to properly describe the true legacy of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Its legacy is reflected in the desperate face of the teenage girl whose PP-supplied birth control failed her, an unfortunately common occurrence that, if many former PP employees are to believed, was part of a strategy to create abortion clients. It is in the face of the sex-addict furtively glancing both ways before opening the door of a run-down, tawdry “adult book and novelty shop.” It is in the face of the poor single mother who has embraced the Planned Parenthood gospel of free (but “responsible”) sex, who has had several abortions of children conceived by different men who abandoned her, and yet has not achieved “empowerment.” It is in the face of the homosexual man dying of AIDS at the age of forty because he took PP’s advice to “have as much sex as you want, but have it ‘responsibly.’”
It is no exaggeration to say that the “free sex” mantra of Planned Parenthood has destroyed and stunted millions of lives.
This, then, is the legacy of Planned Parenthood — not freedom for women, but slavery. Not happiness, but sorrow and guilt. Not choice, but coercion.
It has covered up for sex slavery. Its `counselors’ have told child molesters how to avoid detection. It has sold the body parts of its victims for profit. It has even produced a cartoon that shows pro-lifers being blown up, drowned and decapitated.[11]
The fact that Planned Parenthood is turning 100 is an indictment against our nation, not cause for celebration. Though babies, minorities, and women have been targeted most directly by its unrelenting assault on life, we have all been harmed by its being allowed to grow its grisly business funded by our tax dollars and allowed by our indifference. Let this anniversary be a reminder to all of us to increase our efforts in prayer and peaceful activism to end Planned Parenthood’s reign of destruction.
Endnotes
[1] Advertisement in the Birth Control Review, Volume I, Number 1 (New Series, October 1933), page 8. Another advertisement in this vein said that “THE AMERICAN BIRTH CONTROL LEAGUE. Its Aim: To promote eugenic birth selection throughout the United States so that there may be more well‑born and fewer ill‑born children ― a stronger, healthier, more intelligent race … and in order that those who are physically and mentally unsound may use birth control to have fewer or no children” [Membership advertisement for the American Birth Control League. Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 12 (December 1932), page 319].
[2] Margaret Sanger. “Birth Control and Women’s Health.” Birth Control Review, Volume I, Number 12 (December 1917), page 7.
[3] Margaret Sanger. “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.” Birth Control Review, Volume V, Number 10 (October 1921), page 5.
[4] Julian Huxley. “Towards a Higher Civilization.” Birth Control Review, Volume XIV, Number 12 (December 1930), pages 342 to 345.
[5] Walter Terpenning. “God’s Chillun.” Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 6 (June 1932, the “Negro Number”), pages 171 and 172.
[6] “Puerto Rico: Old Woman in a Shoe.” Birth Control Review, Volume IV, Number 5 (New Series, January 1937), page 6.
[7] Edward M. East. “The Fascisti on Birth Control; An Italian Problem: Reply to Count Cippico.” Birth Control Review, Volume IX, Number 9 (September 1925), pages 245 and 246.
[8] Rev. T.V. Jakimowitz. “A Priest on Birth Control.” Birth Control Review, Volume IV, Number 3 (March 1920), page 12.
[9] Bianca Van Beuren. “The Women of the South.” Birth Control Review, Volume II, Numbers 2 and 3 (February‑March 1918), page 7.
[10] For references and calculations, e-mail Brian Clowes at bclowes@hli.org and ask for Excel spreadsheet F-19-04.XLS, “Analysis of United States Abortion Statistics, 1967-2013.”
[11] See “A Superhero for Choice,” available on YouTube.
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 15th, 2016 at 6:20 pm and is filed under News & Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.