{"id":227828,"date":"2020-07-24T08:22:57","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T13:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=227828"},"modified":"2024-09-20T12:19:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T17:19:11","slug":"politifact-planned-parenthood-margaret-sanger-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/politifact-planned-parenthood-margaret-sanger-racist\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Politifact fact check itself after claiming Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wasn’t racist?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Over the years, the left-leaning fact-checking website Politifact has denied<\/a> that Planned Parenthood is an abortion business, has\u00a0claimed<\/a> abortion survivors are adequately protected, and has done nothing to hide its pro-abortion bias<\/a>. In the most recent example, days after Planned Parenthood of Greater New York officially disavowed founder Margaret Sanger’s history of racism and eugenics, Politifact has yet to retract its previous fact check labeling reports of Sanger’s racist beliefs as “false.”<\/p>\n

In 2015, Politifact fact checked<\/a> to Ben Carson’s statement, “Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist. She believed that people like me [Black Americans] should be eliminated, or kept under control.” Not only did Politifact rate this claim as “false,” but also tried to make the argument that Sanger’s eugenic beliefs were fashionable and mostly harmless.<\/p>\n

“Sanger was indeed a believer in eugenics, but the basic concept that humanity could be improved by selective breeding was an article of faith for many in the years before World War II,” Politifact asserted, adding that numerous influential people were also eugenicists. “It\u2019s a far cry to equate eugenics with advocating the elimination of black people.”<\/p>\n

Politifact claimed Sanger was not racist and portrayed her as a valiant crusader for public health. “Sanger was indeed a birth control activist, which means that she wanted women to be able to avoid unwanted pregnancies,” the fact checker said. “She worked for women of all classes and races to have that choice, which she believed to be a right.”<\/p>\n

Now, five years later, at least one Planned Parenthood affiliate is acknowledging its own founder’s racism<\/a>, and how her legacy has harmed people of color.<\/p>\n