{"id":87279,"date":"2016-03-14T01:59:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T05:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=87279"},"modified":"2016-04-19T23:46:45","modified_gmt":"2016-04-20T03:46:45","slug":"think-racists-dont-like-abortion-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/think-racists-dont-like-abortion-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Think racists don’t like abortion? Think again."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Part of my job involves answering arguments about abortion. That’s not always easy; there are days when refuting someone’s point can involve some serious effort. This isn\u2019t one of those days.<\/p>\n

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Jonah Goldberg has written extensively on\u00a0racism and eugenics in the progressive movement. Apparently Mother Jones <\/i>columnist Kevin Drum has read enough: last month<\/a>, he complained that \u201cthis sure is an odd thing to keep obsessing about.\u201d While acknowledging how progressives once \u201cbelieved in eugenics,\u201d Drum says that changed \u201cnearly a century ago,\u201d so it’s no longer relevant:<\/p>\n

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And no matter what you think of modern liberal views toward abortion or right-to-die laws, nobody can credibly argue that they’re rooted in anything but the opposite<\/i> of eugenics. Early 20th century progressives supported eugenics out of a belief that it would improve society. Contemporary liberals support abortion rights and right-to-die laws out of a belief in individual rights that flowered in the 60s.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now, I\u2019m not saying Mr. Drum isn’t a well informed individual, but there are definitely some gaps in his knowledge base. Because contrary to what he thinks, eugenics and racism were used to justify abortion in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

They still are today.<\/p>\n

Eugenicists said they could improve society by eliminating \u201cundesirable elements\u201d\u00a0which they\u00a0typically labeled minorities and the disabled. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger agreed with that approach. According to her<\/a>, \u201cdrastic immigration laws\u201d were a way to promote \u201crace betterment.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Sanger complained that \u201cwhile we close our gates,\u201d there was \u201cno attempt to discourage or cut down the rapid multiplication of the unfit and undesirable at home.\u201d Her desire to weed out \u201cthe unfit\u201d led Sanger to work with hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan (she attended a Klan event<\/a> 1926).<\/p>\n

Despite what Drum contents, those attitudes didn\u2019t disappear \u201cnearly a century ago.\u201d In 2009, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she had been surprised when, thirty years earlier, the Court had upheld a ban on Medicaid funding for abortions. Why? According to her<\/a>, \u00a0abortion could help reduce \u201cpopulations that we don\u2019t want to have too many of.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Nixon, under whom<\/a> federal funding for Planned Parenthood began, was more blunt. He favored aborting<\/a> mixed race children and cited abortion as a means \u201cto control the negro bastards<\/a>.\u201d That remains a popular sentiment on white supremacist websites like Erasing Us<\/a>. There, abortion is referred to as \u201cpro-active crime control\u201d and people leave comments like this:<\/p>\n

\"racist\"<\/p>\n

And America\u2019s largest abortion chain<\/a> isn\u2019t above taking money from them. In 2008, Planned Parenthood officials in multiple states were willing to accept donations from callers who said they were angry about affirmative action and wanted to see black children aborted<\/a>.<\/p>\n