{"id":227121,"date":"2020-07-12T13:22:18","date_gmt":"2020-07-12T18:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=227121"},"modified":"2021-07-14T22:04:44","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T03:04:44","slug":"planned-parenthood-falsely-dismisses-abortion-black-genocide-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/planned-parenthood-falsely-dismisses-abortion-black-genocide-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Planned Parenthood says idea that ‘abortion is Black genocide’ is offensive… but there is good reason to believe it"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Last week, Kanye West lashed out at Planned Parenthood in a Forbes interview<\/a>, stating his belief that\u00a0\u201cPlanned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil\u2019s work.\u201d Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s director of Black Leadership and Engagement Nia Martin-Robinson<\/a>\u00a0responded swiftly, claiming<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cAny insinuation that abortion is Black genocide is offensive and infantilizing. The real threat to Black communities’ safety, health, and lives stems from lack of access to quality, affordable health care, police violence and the criminalization of reproductive health care by anti-abortion opposition.”<\/p>\n

But the charge that abortion is a tool of Black genocide is not new, and has been made by influential Black organizations and civil rights leaders for years.\u00a0The Black community’s suspicions are not unreasonable<\/a>. Planned Parenthood founder<\/a> Margaret Sanger used Black ministers and doctors to spread her eugenic agenda through her so-called “Negro Project.” According to author and researcher\u00a0Robert G. Weisbord<\/a>, “the charge that birth control and abortion are integral elements of a white genocidal conspiracy directed at African-Americans has been heard with increasing frequency and stridency in Black communities\u2026 [and can be] traced back approximately fifty years.”<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood has hired Black leaders to thwart the idea of “Black genocide”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood has been aware of this belief for decades and has worked to thwart it. In 1968, Planned Parenthood\u2019s national director of community relations, Douglas Stewart, acknowledged how Black women were suspicious of Black-focused family planning efforts. Stewart told\u00a0Ebony Magazine<\/a>, \u201cMany Negro women have told our workers, there are two kinds of pills \u2013 one for white women and one for us\u2026 and the one for us causes sterilization.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an attempt to save face, Planned Parenthood added individuals from the Black community to its board to help further its agenda, and Naomi Gray was strategically selected<\/a>\u00a0to become the first woman to serve as the vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Gray\u00a0told<\/a> the New York Times, \u201cIt could then legitimately be said that some white interests are more concerned with causing certain Black babies not to get born than they are with the survival of those already born.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gray had full grasp of the Black community’s fears and acknowledged it in a\u00a0statement<\/a> to the US Commission on Population Growth and the American Future. “In order to examine the history to the charge of genocide, it is necessary to discuss the attitudes towards birth control prior to the present emphasis on population… What happened with birth control is a testimonial to the effects of operating a racist society,” she said. “… Contrary to many beliefs, the charge of “genocide” is not a recent phenomenon… There are some hard realities which have caused birth control to be viewed with suspicion and fear by Black individuals….”<\/p>\n

Gray pointed to forced sterilization policies, noting that “[m]any of these people belong to misguided ‘eugenics’ groups which opt for some abberation [sic] of the concept of the survival of the fittest…”\u00a0\u2014an interesting statement given Planned Parenthood’s own eugenic roots, even beyond<\/a>\u00a0Sanger.<\/p>\n