{"id":244043,"date":"2021-05-03T09:43:18","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T14:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=244043"},"modified":"2021-07-14T21:40:07","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T02:40:07","slug":"washpo-dishonestly-downplay-abortion-eugenics-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/washpo-dishonestly-downplay-abortion-eugenics-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"Ignorance or deception? WashPo op-ed tries to downplay undeniable link between abortion and eugenics"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Abortion is another form of racial injustice, due in part to its deep roots in the eugenics movement. Just as the racism of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood<\/a> was covered-up for decades, abortion defenders are now trying to rewrite and cover up the strong historical link between abortion and eugenics. A\u00a0Washington Post op-ed<\/a>\u00a0by New York University Law Professor Melissa Murray claimed that “[t]he association of abortion with eugenics and genocide” and by extension, Roe v. Wade<\/em>, are only “supposedly<\/em> rooted in and tainted by racial injustice” (emphasis added).\u00a0Murray then floated this false conspiracy (with zero evidence): “The effort to link abortion with eugenics and deracination is part of a longer-range strategy to destabilize and eventually overrule\u00a0Roe.”<\/i><\/p>\n

Murray wrote the piece as a response to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s\u00a0assertions<\/a>\u00a0that states\u00a0have a \u201ccompelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics.\u201d In his writing, Thomas accurately implicated Planned Parenthood\u2019s founder and leaders.<\/p>\n

Murray’s piece was published one day after Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson made a weak attempt to distance<\/a> her racist organization from its white supremacist, eugenicist founder Margaret Sanger.\u00a0Now that Sanger has finally become toxic to many pro-abortion groups, abortion defenders like Murray appear to be attempting to rescue legal abortion from being canceled along with Sanger.<\/p>\n

To do this, abortion advocates must attempt to untether abortion from eugenics… but the truth<\/a> always comes out.<\/p>\n

Margaret Sanger did not just “cite” eugenics – she was<\/em> a eugenicist<\/b><\/p>\n

Murray wrote, “Margaret Sanger spearheaded the birth control movement and, in the 1920s and 1930s, cited<\/em> eugenics theory to expand contraceptive access. However, Sanger did not favor abortion, which she viewed as distasteful” (emphasis added).<\/p>\n

This is only partly<\/em> true.<\/p>\n

It is well documented that Planned Parenthood’s founder was an avowed\u00a0eugenicist<\/a>\u00a0who even accepted an invitation to speak to the Ku Klux Klan, something Sanger\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0in her autobiography. She held such a strong belief in eugenics that she embedded eugenics proponents\u00a0deeply within her organization<\/a>.\u00a0The organizations Sanger founded (the American Birth Control League and Planned Parenthood) both\u00a0have ties to eugenics proponents<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 1919, Sanger\u00a0admitted<\/a>, “Before eugenists and others who are laboring for racial betterment can succeed, they must first clear the way for Birth Control\u2026.” Then, in\u00a01921, Sanger\u00a0proclaimed<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical in ideal with the final aim of eugenics<\/strong>.\u201d (emphasis added)<\/p>\n

In 1938, Sanger set up<\/a> a \u201cCommittee on Planned Parenthood.\u201d Her eugenic philosophy not only fed her work within Planned Parenthood and the birth control movement, but also her lesser known advocacy<\/a> of euthanasia.\u00a0She was more than just a passive observer where eugenics was concerned; she\u00a0was a member of the American Eugenics Society and tried to unite<\/a> her efforts and her publication with<\/a> the eugenics movement.<\/p>\n

But Murray is correct on one point: while Sanger preferred eugenic sterilization, she was not<\/em> an outspoken advocate of abortion.\u00a0Sanger, a nurse by trade, had witnessed the horrors of illegal abortion, and her\u00a0opposition<\/a> to abortion was due in part to the risks it posed to women’s lives. However, Sanger was not necessarily<\/a> opposed<\/em> to abortion, but instead focused on eugenic sterilization and birth control, which she saw as more effective at that time.<\/p>\n

It is not “misleading” to link abortion to eugenics – it is historical fact<\/strong><\/p>\n

Murray wrote:<\/p>\n

In Thomas\u2019s telling, the disproportionate incidence of abortion among Black women today is the contemporary residue of the early eugenic movement\u2019s efforts to target the Black community…<\/em><\/p>\n

…Thomas\u2019s linking of abortion to a racist history of eugenics, although misleading<\/strong>, lays the foundation for concluding that racial injustice provides that \u201cspecial justification\u201d for overruling\u00a0Roe.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Misleading”?<\/p>\n

The racist and eugenic agenda of abortion was not overlooked by Black leaders like Dick Gregory<\/a>, H. Rap Brown, and\u00a0Fannie Lou Hamer<\/a>, who all\u00a0labeled<\/a> abortion \u201cBlack genocide.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0Others in the Black community identified abortion as \u201cclass war against the poor,\u201d calling<\/a> abortion a form of \u201cnew slavery\u201d and “a racist weapon<\/a> of genocide against Black people\u201d to prune “the Black race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some denounced<\/a> taxpayer-funded abortion as being\u00a0\u201c[p]ut forth as a solution for the poor.\u201d Early abortion proponents had deep-rooted ties to eugenics.<\/p>\n

Between “positive” and “negative” eugenics, negative usually won out<\/strong><\/p>\n

Murray wrote:<\/p>\n

Indeed, as much as the campaign to expand birth control relied on eugenics, the 19th-century effort to criminalize and regulate abortion took a different tack, trading on nativist fears that abortion was suppressing the White birthrate and threatening the nation\u2019s racial character.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here, Murray glosses over the fact that eugenics was two-pronged: positive eugenics<\/em>\u00a0encouraged procreation from favored races and negative eugenics<\/em>\u00a0discouraged population increases among other races and people groups.<\/p>\n

This was explained by Dr. Woods Hutchinson\u00a0before<\/a>\u00a0a 1912 session of the American Public Health Association. “Eugenics has two divisions, prevention of the reproduction of defective, and encouragement of the production of the specially fit,” he said. Woods went on to suggest that the ‘unfit’ were to be segregated to “open-air farm colonies or sterilized.” This idea was reminiscent<\/a> of one advocated by Sanger.<\/p>\n

In his book “War Against the Weak,” writer Edwin Black made it clear that Planned Parenthood’s founder “preferred negative, coercive eugenics.” Black wrote, “Sanger’s solutions were mass sterilizations and mass segregation of the defective class.”<\/p>\n

In her book, the “Pivot of Civilization<\/a>,” Sanger noted this as well, writing in part:<\/p>\n

Eugenics is chiefly valuable in its negative aspects…. On its so-called positive or constructive side, it fails to awaken any permanent interest…. <\/em><\/p>\n

On its negative side it shows us that we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all\u2014that the wealth of individuals and of states is being diverted from the development and the progress of human expression and civilization.<\/em><\/p>\n

“The great eugenic advances of our time”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Murray claims, “Thomas conflates the history of birth control with that of abortion… Although abortion and contraception have converged under the rubric of reproductive rights, they have distinct histories.”<\/p>\n

Here, Murray attempts to disconnect abortion from eugenics, claiming their histories are not the same. This is a red herring; leaders in eugenics<\/a> were at the forefront in the push to legalize abortion.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Population Council<\/a>, a eugenics organization which brought the abortion pill (RU-486) to the United States, was founded<\/a>\u00a0in 1952 by John D. Rockefeller III who served as the organization\u2019s first president.\u00a0The organization’s<\/a> second president was\u00a0Frederick Osborn<\/a>,\u00a0a\u00a0founding member<\/a>\u00a0of the American Eugenics Society (AES) who\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0Margaret Sanger\u2019s “Citizens Committee for Planned Parenthood<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

American Eugenics Society member<\/a>\u00a0Frank W. Notestein followed Osborn as president\u00a0in 1959.\u00a0By 1970, Notestein was serving on the\u00a0Board of Directors<\/a>\u00a0of Planned Parenthood-World Population.<\/p>\n