Woodruff wrote:Words have meaning. Using them improperly simply to get an emotional reaction is a dishonest argument.
Words do have meanings. So given that, yield the floor to someone who says what they mean and means what they say:
The Truth About MARGRET SANGERAt 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.
So quit with the touchy feely shit Woodruff and stick to logic and facts. Margaret Sanger was a eugenist, one who wanted the unfit races EXTERMINATED. Unlike Hitler, she didn't have an army, so she worked towards that goal indirectly.
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 cum 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.
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.
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.
Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 5:23 pm
