{"id":179574,"date":"2018-02-26T14:37:58","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T19:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=179574"},"modified":"2018-02-28T15:56:37","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T20:56:37","slug":"planned-parenthood-suspicion-black-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/planned-parenthood-suspicion-black-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Planned Parenthood appoint Black leaders to quell suspicion of Black genocide?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Despite the fact that Planned Parenthood’s<\/a> founder Margaret Sanger promoted eugenics, it was actually under another eugenicist leader<\/a>, Alan F. Guttmacher, that Planned Parenthood began referring for and eventually committing abortions<\/a>.\u00a0At the exact same time that abortion was being pushed publicly, the organization elected a Black chairman to roll out this agenda. All of this transpired in the late 1960s, a time when America was in conflict over the struggle for the civil rights of Black Americans.<\/p>\n

During this time frame, many of the organization’s leaders were concerned about overpopulation. The organization’s history is steeped<\/a> in eugenics, and this ideology manifested itself in many ways, including the forced sterilization<\/a> of many Black citizens. As laws about these eugenics courts began to be challenged, a new tool of eugenics was making its way across the land: abortion.<\/p>\n

Even though many within Planned Parenthood’s organization and other population control groups thought coercion<\/a> would be needed to stem the growth of people groups they deemed “unfit,” Guttmacher, by now a Planned Parenthood president, was able to convince his friends that abortion, at first in perhaps a voluntary way, would be a better solution. However, there was a slight problem, because Black citizens and other minority groups were already suspicious of birth control efforts aimed at them. How would they feel about abortion?<\/p>\n

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Blacks Charge Genocide from abortion<\/p><\/div>\n

The solution for Planned Parenthood was to bring Black leaders to the organization’s board, in an effort to convince Black Americans that Planned Parenthood’s efforts were not genocidal. This strategy was not a new one; Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger — who gave a talk for the Ku Klux Klan — had already implemented the so-called “Negro Project<\/a>” to accomplish the exact same thing. Memos between Planned Parenthood staffers and leadership indicated a great concern over how the Black community viewed their efforts. In response, Planned Parenthood’s public relations machine also reached out to Black publications, as they had already done with push for birth control.<\/p>\n

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Alan Guttmacher Birth Control Article (Image: Ebony Mag April 1962)<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1967,\u00a0 the Pittsburgh Branch of the NAACP had criticized<\/a>\u00a0the swarming of Planned Parenthood facilities into minority neighborhoods. Other leaders like H. Rap Brown and Fannie Lou Hamer<\/a> had called abortion “Black genocide.” And, as late as 1973, a study published by the American Journal of Public Health,”Fears of Genocide Among Black Americans as Related to Age, Sex, and Region<\/a>,” found that Black men and women had a level of unease about “family planning.” Researchers Castellano Turner, Ph.D., and William A. Darity, Ph.D., concluded that Blacks were more suspicious when “family planning” was under the control of Whites. “It is noteworthy that the greatest degree of agreement is found where the issue of black control of family planning (as against white control) is at issue,” they said.<\/p>\n

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Fears of Genocide Among Black Americans 1973 study Castellano Turner, Ph.D. and William A. Darity, Ph.D.<\/p><\/div>\n

After dialoguing internally about the unease of the Black community, the suggestion was made to add Black members to Planned Parenthood’s board; this took place at the same time that Planned Parenthood was calling<\/a> for the decriminalization of abortion. According to a\u00a0New York Times article<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0November 14, 1968, the first time that Planned Parenthood went on record calling for abortion, they also elected their very first Black board chairman to roll out the new agenda — Dr. Jerome H. Holland, who, according to media reports, \u201cpledged his support for the group\u2019s program saying that those who call birth control a form of genocide are ‘not aware of the real meaning of family planning and its uses.’\u201d<\/p>\n

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First Black Chairman of Board elected by Planned Parenthood 1968<\/p><\/div>\n

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Holland was no stranger to Planned Parenthood. He had been on the general board of directors<\/a> for some time, serving on the executive committee of Planned Parenthood-World Population by 1963. He served as vice-chairman in 1967, where he presented Planned Parenthood’s infamous Margaret Sanger award to John D. Rockefeller III, also a population control advocate.<\/p>\n

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Jerome H Holland, First Black PPFA BOD 1968<\/p><\/div>\n

Holland was also added as\u00a0chairman<\/a> of the Board of Guttmacher’s newly formed Center for Family Planning, which would later be named the Guttmacher Institute and become a “special affiliate<\/a>” to Planned Parenthood.<\/p>\n

But Holland’s post as chairman of the board of Planned Parenthood was short lived.<\/p>\n

In 1970, Holland was named ambassador to Sweden by President Richard Nixon; however, the headlines of the first Black chairman of Planned Parenthood had seemingly done their job. Holland was openly endorsing abortion as a “health matter” between the woman and her doctor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jerome Holland lauds Planned Parenthood<\/p><\/div>\n

The same year Planned Parenthood elected its first Black chairman of the board, Frederick Osborn, a founding Eugenics Society officer connected to Planned Parenthood,\u00a0wrote<\/a>, \u201cEugenic goals are most likely to be attained under a name other than eugenics.\u201d Osborn\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0Margaret Sanger\u2019s \u201cCitizens Committee for Planned Parenthood,\u201d\u00a0published<\/a>\u00a0in her review in April of 1938. Some speculate that Planned Parenthood\u2019s infamous slogan \u201cEvery Child a Wanted Child\u201d may have\u00a0originated<\/a>\u00a0with Osborn.<\/p>\n

A few years later, a new Black leader would emerge to reinforce the push for abortion within Planned Parenthood: Faye Wattleton.<\/p>\n

After 62 years as an organization, why did Planned Parenthood wait until 1978 to elect the very first Black female as president? Like Holland,\u00a0\u00a0Wattleton was not a novice where abortion was concerned. She had been with Planned Parenthood for a while, serving as a volunteer in the early 1970s and eventually serving as director of the Dayton affiliate.<\/p>\n

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Faye Wattleton elected to Planned Parenthood board<\/p><\/div>\n

At a press conference held in February of 1978, then president-elect of Planned Parenthood Wattleton told<\/a> the media that she was \u201cputting the world on notice\u201d that the organization was going to be much more aggressive on abortion rights. \u201cWhat has happened is that we have allowed them [right-to-lifers] to have center stage,\u201d Wattelton said, \u201cI\u2019d like to say those days are over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wattleton then vowed to restore — \u201cto the poor\u201d — access of abortion under Medicaid.<\/p>\n

Wattleton was asked if her leadership of Planned Parenthood as a Black woman would alleviate suspicions within the Black community linking abortion and her organization to Black genocide.\u00a0Wattleton responded, \u201cI don\u2019t think a lot of people are yelling genocide anymore, because I\u2019m Black. I\u2019m in a watchdog position on these issues and no one should assume I\u2019ve been co-opted. What better way is there to guard against those types of abuses?\u201d<\/p>\n

Wattleton then said that the Black community should be more concerned about quality of life than \u201cincreasing our numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Faye Wattleton first Black president Planned Parenthood<\/p><\/div>\n

Wattleton served as president of the abortion corporation for 14 years, where, among other radical abortion advances, she helped to legalize the sale of the RU-486 abortion pill in the United States. Under Wattleton\u2019s leadership, Planned Parenthood\u2019s budget\u00a0grew<\/a>\u00a0from $90 million in 1978 to $384 million in 1990. For her service and dedication to the eugenics-minded organization, in 1992, Wattleton received Planned Parenthood\u2019s Margaret Sanger Award.\u00a0Despite Sanger’s known eugenics and Klan connections, Wattleton once referred to her as “[t]he great heroine of our time,” telling Hubbard News in 1979 that Sanger would be proud of Planned Parenthood’s progress.<\/p>\n

But the idea that Blacks would no longer be targeted for eugenics because a Black woman was at the helm of a eugenics organization was short-lived. During Wattleton’s tenure at Planned Parenthood, she stated that supporters of Planned Parenthood contributed to the abortion giant to “keep the Black population down.”\u00a0On CNN, in a debate with Bob Dornan, an outspoken pro-life member of the US House of Representatives, at that time, Wattleton, admitted, “As a matter of fact… we have received contributions from people who want to support us because they want all welfare mothers and all Black women to stop having children.”<\/p>\n