A
scholarly look at Planned Parenthood and eugenics
By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent
“I want to talk to you tonight about two things that most people
don't think belong together, namely, Planned Parenthood and eugenics.”
Angela Franks, scholar and author of the new book, “Margaret Sanger’s
Eugenic Legacy: the Control of Female Fertility” (McFarland, 2005)
began her remarks with this intriguing statement during a recent appearance
at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Doylestown.
Sponsored by the Right to Life of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Franks’
book uses Sanger’s own writings to prove the case that the founder
of Planned Parenthood was immersed in eugenics.
“In addition to her own eugenic rhetoric, she’s a eugenicist
because of what she herself has said in both her public and private letters,”
said Franks. Sanger, who was a prolific writer, apparently left quite
a paper trail.
For instance, in a 1925 essay, Sanger bemoaned the existence of “scores
of people who are born, who live, who die, but who do absolutely nothing
to advance the race one iota. Their lives are hopeless repetitions. All
that they have said, has been said better. All that they have done has
been done better. Such human weeds clog up the patch, drain up the energy
and the resources of this little earth. We must clear the way for a better
world. We must cultivate our garden.”
The excerpt provides a chilling view into Sanger’s dark belief system.
“This kind of attitude says it all,” Franks said. “She’s
not talking about criminals here. She’s talking about people who,
in her view, are just mediocre. Probably every single person in this room
would qualify, according to her, as a human weed.”
Franks’ research found that throughout her life, Sanger’s
writings revealed a person who was comfortable with de-humanizing different
groups. She once called migrant farm workers “voracious insects”
and “human grasshoppers.” Human reproduction was always referred
to by the demeaning term “breeding.”
“The key to understanding Sanger is to understand that she believed
in the absolute necessity of controlling female fertility in order to
promote female liberation and on the other hand, societal progress,”
Franks said. “She thought women were oppressed not by societal pressures,
but by their own physiology. They had to be liberated from themselves.
She demonized female fertility.”
Sanger, who came from a poor family of 11 children, viewed birth control
as a “tool” society could use to limit the birth of those
suffering from disease, poverty or mediocrity.
“She believed birth control served a great purpose in limiting those
genes she believed should not be reproduced,” Franks said. This
is the eugenic mind-set — the view of the human being as a set of
good or bad genes rather than as a person with an innate value.
“Contemporary Planned Parenthood workers argue that she was not
a eugenicist,” Franks said, “but their argument is based on
a flawed understanding of what eugenics really is. The evidence clearly
indicates that Sanger was a committed eugenicist, but she advocated only
negative — or preventive eugenics — not positive eugencics.”
The distinction was actually created by eugenicists. Positive eugenics
encourages those who are “fit” to reproduce; negative eugenics
discourages the “unfit” from reproducing.
“Sanger was definitely a negative eugenicist and what Planned Parenthood
will do is pull some of her quotes out of context where she’s criticizing
positive eugenics and say ‘See? She’s disagreeing with eugenics.’
However, its very clear from her writings that she endorsed negative eugenics.”
Does all this mean that the people who work at Planned Parenthood are
eugenicists? “Of course not,” Franks said. “Hardly any
of them even know this history.”
However, Sanger’s eugenic vision has been institutionalized in Planned
Parenthood, Franks said, and spread throughout the world by means of population
control programs.
“I believe that the Planned Parenthood Federation of American and
the International Planned Parenthood Federation have Sanger’s eugenic
ideology woven within the fabric of the organization,” Franks said,
“even though they don’t know what they’re advocating.”
There’s convincing evidence that Sanger’s ideology is still
at work today. For instance, Sanger opened her first birth control clinic
in a poor neighborhood in Brownsville, New York in 1916. Almost a century
later, 75 percent of Planned Parenthood’s clientele live at or below
the poverty line with most of the organization’s clinics located
in low-income areas.
“In 1997, Planned Parenthood admitted that its core clients are
young women, low-income women and women of color,” Franks said.
She believes this is one of the reasons abortion rates for African-American
women are three times higher than the rate for white women.
“Planned Parenthood claims it is not a racist organization, but
the effects of its policies disproportionately harm racial minorities,”
Franks said. “In my book I argue that this has everything to do
with its eugenic bias, which is part of the very fiber of the organization.”
The organization also continues to reflect Sanger’s attitude toward
persons with disabilities. Planned Parenthood has been a big supporter
of amniocentesis and other prenatal testing in order to allow women to
abort babies with disabilities.
Although Planned Parenthood has been enormously successful in painting
itself as a benevolent organization that cares about womens’ rights,
there’s actually much more to their story.
“Sanger did want the liberation of women, but the way she understood
the liberation of women was such that it meant the liberation of the few,
of the fit, of the Margaret Sangers and those like her,” Franks
said. “Choice indeed.”
Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615