{"id":232692,"date":"2020-10-13T18:20:23","date_gmt":"2020-10-13T23:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=232692"},"modified":"2020-10-13T19:04:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T00:04:00","slug":"smithsonian-girlhood-exhibit-eugenicist-sanger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/smithsonian-girlhood-exhibit-eugenicist-sanger\/","title":{"rendered":"New Smithsonian ‘Girlhood’ exhibit features eugenicist Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Friday, the Smithsonian Institution opened a new exhibition titled “Girlhood (It’s Complicated)” at its Natural Museum of American History. It was created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage “by exploring the concept of girlhood in the United States.” One issue: the suffragists<\/a> were pro-life yet the exhibit features Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger<\/a>, a known\u00a0eugenicist whose organization has become the largest abortion provider in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The motivation behind the exhibit was to show the ways girls have changed American history in the areas of politics, education, work, health, and fashion. Sanger’s portion of the exhibit is called “Girls as a Health Hazard, 1910s.” According to Breitbart<\/a>, the Smithsonian Institution makes the claim that girls have always been told what to do with their bodies and refers to Sanger as “a writer and nurse” who “advocated for girls to know and control their own bodies \u2014 but only certain girls.”<\/p>\n

While the exhibit features information about forced sterilization programs and a photo of Black women protesting those programs, according to Breitbart, the exhibit only notes that Sanger “believed that women who were poor or who had mental disabilities should not have children in order to promote a ‘healthy’ society.”<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Planned Parenthood has never been serious about \u2018reckoning\u2019 with its \u2018racist history\u2019<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Smithsonian Institute glosses over Sanger’s discrimination against underprivileged women and children, and blatantly ignores her organization’s racist history, which even Planned Parenthood recently admitted<\/a>. Instead, the exhibit excuses Sanger’s eugenic beliefs as “popular in Sanger’s time,” and refers to her as “complicated.” While America is in the midst of a growing push to end racism and to denounce any historical Americans who held racists ideas, the Smithsonian Institute seems to handle with kid gloves the woman whose ideas and plans led to the deaths of millions<\/em> of Black American children.<\/p>\n