{"id":229612,"date":"2020-09-10T10:43:20","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T15:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=229612"},"modified":"2024-08-28T23:30:39","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T04:30:39","slug":"journalist-planned-parenthood-sanger-canceled-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/journalist-planned-parenthood-sanger-canceled-propaganda\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalist awarded by Planned Parenthood says Margaret Sanger is being ‘canceled’ due to ‘anti-choice propaganda’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Katha Pollitt,<\/strong>\u00a0a feminist writer and contributor to The Nation, has criticized<\/a>\u00a0Planned Parenthood New York’s decision to essentially “cancel Margaret Sanger” \u2014\u00a0its own founder \u2014 by removing<\/a> her name from a place of prominence on its flagship facility in the state.\u00a0For over a century, Planned Parenthood has defended Sanger, a eugenicist who believed citizens should have “licenses to breed<\/a>,” and who admitted to meeting with members of the Ku Klux Klan. More recently, hundreds of Planned Parenthood staffers came forward to expose<\/a> the corporation,\u00a0stating<\/a> that it “has a history and a present steeped in white supremacy.”<\/p>\n

In her article<\/a> entitled, “Canceling Margaret Sanger Only Helps Abortion Opponents,”\u00a0Pollitt failed to\u00a0call out Planned Parenthood’s systemic racism<\/a>, instead criticizing the corporation for buying into “anti-choice propaganda” about its own founder.<\/p>\n

Pollitt seems to deny reality to reach some of her conclusions.<\/p>\n

Claim: Sanger helped American women more than anyone in the 20th century… and she “was not a racist”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The feminist writer acknowledged she took Planned Parenthood’s mea culpa about Sanger “personally,” and proceeded to defend her, declaring emphatically, “For the record, Margaret Sanger was not a racist…. Sanger was, yes, a eugenicist.”<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ll just come right out and say it: Margaret Sanger did more good for American women than any other individual in the entire 20th century,” she added.<\/p>\n

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Canceling Margaret Sanger by Katha Pollitt in the Nation<\/p><\/div>\n

Pollitt questioned Planned Parenthood’s erasing of Sanger as simply an “olive branch to Black staffers or part of a deeper self-investigation” but she bemoaned that, “there\u2019s no question that the main winners here are abortion opponents.”<\/p>\n

“For decades,” she wrote, “they\u2019ve claimed that Sanger was a racist bent on Black genocide and that Planned Parenthood is carrying out that mission today.\u00a0In 2016<\/a>, Planned Parenthood released a historically accurate, fair, and complex statement refuting that absurd claim, but why would anyone pay attention to that now?”<\/p>\n

Pollitt is correct about one thing: it has been pro-life advocates \u2014 not<\/strong> journalists like herself \u2014 who have repeatedly exposed<\/a>\u00a0Planned Parenthood’s eugenic and discriminatory roots. Only in the face of civil and racial unrest, where the ugly facts became undeniable, did Planned Parenthood falsely claim<\/a> that it needed to “reckon” with its racist past.<\/p>\n

Live Action News has\u00a0documented<\/a>\u00a0for years how Sanger promoted the idea of forced\u00a0sterilization<\/a>\u00a0yet failed in her goal of\u00a0merging<\/a>\u00a0her American Birth Control League (later Planned Parenthood) with the American Eugenics Society. Many of Sanger\u2019s American Birth Control League board members<\/a>\u00a0were also eugenicists. Among them were\u00a0Lothrop Stoddard<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 Exalted Cyclops of the Massachusetts\u00a0chapter of the Ku Klux Klan<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and Planned Parenthood\u2019s first physician president,\u00a0Alan F. Guttmacher<\/a>. Planned Parenthood’s aims<\/a> and goals were shared<\/a> with the pro-eugenics community. The two went hand in hand<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of Sanger\u2019s financiers, Proctor and Gamble heir\u00a0Clarence Gamble<\/a>, also served on Sanger’s ABCL\u00a0board<\/a>\u00a0(as well as<\/a>\u00a0Planned Parenthood’s)<\/a>. Gamble was a staunch\u00a0advocate<\/a>\u00a0of eugenics, and it was to him that Sanger\u00a0penned her famous words<\/a>\u00a0about her plan to\u00a0use<\/a>\u00a0Black ministers and physicians to further her eugenic agenda in the Black community<\/a>\u00a0(the Negro Project). Years later, because of a eugenics program influenced heavily by Gamble, Black men and women like\u00a0Elaine Riddick<\/a>\u00a0were targeted for\u00a0forced sterilization<\/a>.<\/p>\n