Students from UCLA have been involved with a quarterly pro-life magazine, The Advocate, in an ongoing effort to expose inherent racism in Planned Parenthood have placed several calls to centers around the country.
According to the transcripts released by The Advocate, back in July someone claiming to be a donor contacted Planned Parenthood in Idaho and inquired if their donation could be put specifically towards helping minority women, specifically blacks, to obtain abortions. The called also voiced their concern about affirmative action and said this was a way of helping to make sure their child would not have to compete against as many minority applicants. The caller went so far as to at one point say the “less black kids out there the better.”
The fundraising employee who was taking the call responded to this by saying the callers’ concerns were understandable and that she was excited to take this donation, which was the first of its kind she had encountered.
This stunt by The Advocate is being used as part of their investigation into the racism of Planned Parenthood. Rebecca Poedy, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Idaho, responded to the exposure of The Advocate, which released their story and the transcripts of their call in their winter issue, with a written statement saying, “While the actions of our staff member were unacceptable, it’s also unacceptable for opponents of abortion to use racist, deceptive tactics to smear Planned Parenthood.” She then went on to say, “The race-baiting tactics on display in this case are not news ‘exposes,’ but rather the product of the most cynical form of politicking.” At least the left is finally coming out against race-baiting.
Now Poedy may have a point - The Advocate could probably have gone about their article in a different way. But their tactics notwithstanding, The Advocate is raising a point that is suppressed by pro-abortion activists and the Planned Parenthood organization.
The racist foundation of Planned Parenthood should be looked at and taken into consideration when people consider what this organization stands for today.
Margaret Sanger was, ironically, the proverbial mother of Planned Parenthood. She stood as the honorary chairman at the organization’s founding. In 1917 she was jailed for handing out contraception. After abandoning her husband and three children Sanger turned her attention to ensuring that those she saw as “unfit” were not allowed to procreate. Among those who were deemed unfit by Sanger were immigrants or as she put it “human weeds,” whom she saw as lowering the nation’s IQ and its strength.
Sanger worried that the “increasing race of morons” who had already immigrated to America had damaged the United States significantly. Sanger was an all-out advocate of eugenics. She saw Jews and Italians as filling the insane asylums, the hospitals and other institutions for the feeble minded, as she once told the New York State Assembly. She went as far as to propose and advocate a five-year moratorium on birth in the United States. Sanger saw welfare as simply maintaining and perpetuating the undesirables that already existed in her society. She believed that taxpayers should not have to support the multiplication of the unfit and that government money should be reserved to be spend on “geniuses.”
Today Sanger’s tradition is carried on by those who push for abortion at any time and for any reason. With the increases in medical technology that allow birth defects and diseases to be diagnosed prenatally, Sanger’s attempts to engineer a society purged of undesirables may just be close to reality. Sanger wanted to engineer society to purge it free from those who held it back.
Today, defenders of Sanger usually do one of two things. They either deny that she supported eugenics, in the face of countless publications, speeches and items of public record, or they dismiss her advocacy as a fad of the times. I’ll bet you didn’t know eugenics was the Ugg boots of the 1920s. Some however stand proudly by Sanger’s side - former Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt announced that she did so and that she was proud to lead “the organization that carries on Sanger’s legacy.”Feldt and her cohorts at organizations like Planned Parenthood certainly do work to carry on what Sanger started, however they betray her in one area.