In this issue:
- New book shows Sanger used the term "human weeds"
- Sanger's account of her talk to the Ku Klux Klan
- The numbers don't lie; Planned Parenthood's in the abortion business
- Bush AIDS initiative needs improvement: No condoms; no money to abortion providers
- RU-486: A dead issue?
- Bishop Barbarito endorses ad condemning deaths by Planned Parenthood
- STOPP bringing the message against Planned Parenthood all across the country
New book shows Sanger used the term "human weeds"
In the April 1924 issue of the Birth Control Review there is an article on pages 110-111 by Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger. Entitled, "The Meaning of Radio Birth Control," it is the text of a broadcast by Sanger on WFAB radio in Syracuse, N.Y., on February 29, 1924. On page 111, under a heading of "A Garden of Children," Sanger discusses gardening, plants, live stock and a farmer then says:
How are we to breed a race of human thoroughbreds unless we follow the same plan? We must make this country into a garden for children instead of a disorderly back lot overrun with human weeds.
STOPP found this article recently republished in a new book entitled, "The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger," (University of Illinois Press, 2003). Esther Katz who is the director and editor of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project and is an adjunct associate professor of history at New York University edited the book. STOPP also contacted Brian Clowes of Human Life International, which has a set of Sanger's Birth Control Review. He graciously made a copy of this article and sent it to STOPP so we could verify the accuracy of the reprint in Katz's book on pages 384-387.
Katz notes on page 387 that Margaret Sanger "often used the analogy of society as a garden in which the strong and fecund weeds (the 'feeble-minded' or 'unfit') are ignored, frequently quoting Luther Burbank, a plant expert and eugenicist." As back-up for this Katz cites, "Is Race Suicide Probable?' Colliers, August 15, 1925 and "A Better Race through Birth Control," Thinker, November 1923.
Indeed, in Sanger's own book, Woman and the New Race, (Eugenics Publishing Company, 1923) Sanger summed up the relationship between eugenics and birth control on page 229 saying:
Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.
Rather than seeing the image and likeness of God in every human being, Planned Parenthood's founder viewed some people as human weeds. Is it any wonder that since 1973 Planned Parenthood has treated over 3 million innocent unborn babies as weeds by uprooting them from their mother's wombs and killing them via abortion?
Sanger's account of her talk to the Ku Klux Klan
Given Margaret Sanger's preoccupation with race (see previous article), it should come as no surprise to anyone that Sanger would accept an invitation to give a speech to an organization that also has a preoccupation with race - the Ku Klux Klan. Not only did Sanger accept the invitation, but the excerpt below from her own 1938 autobiography indicates the she got along quite well with members of a New Jersey branch of the Ku Klux Klan, eventually getting a "dozen invitations to speak to similar groups."
Perhaps this is because the KKK's ideas and Margaret Sanger's ideas concerning race are so similar. No doubt the KKK must have been happy with Sanger's "Negro Project" which was designed to cut down on the number of black babies being born. In a December 10, 1939 letter, Margaret Sanger wrote to Dr. Clarence Gamble about her "Negro Project," saying, "We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten that idea out if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." (See Blessed Are The Barren The Social Policy of Planned Parenthood by Robert Marshall and Charles Donovan, Ignatius Press, 1991, pages 17-18.)
Here is Sanger's account of her trip to talk to the Ku Klux Klan from pages 366-367 of Margaret Sanger An Autobiography (1971 reprint by Dover Publications, Inc. of the 1938 original published by W.W. Norton & Company).
All the world over, in Penang and Skagway, in El Paso and Helsingfors, I have found women's psychology in the matter of childbearing essentially the same, no matter what the class, religion, or economic status. Always to me any aroused group was a good group, and therefore I accepted an invitation to talk to the women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing.
My letter of instruction told me what train to take, to walk from the station two blocks straight ahead, then two to the left. I would see a sedan parked in front of a restaurant. If I wished I could have ten minutes for a cup of coffee or bite to eat, because no supper would be served later.
I obeyed orders implicitly, walked the blocks, saw the car, found the restaurant, went in and ordered some cocoa, stayed my allotted ten minutes, then approached the car hesitatingly and spoke to the driver. I received no reply. She might have been totally deaf as far as I was 1 concerned. Mustering up my courage, I climbed in and settled back. Without a turn of the head, a smile, or a word to let me know I was right, she stepped on the self-starter. For fifteen minutes we wound around the streets. It must have been towards six in the afternoon. We took this lonely lane and that through the woods, and an hour later pulled up in a vacant space near a body of water beside a large, unpainted, barnish building.
My driver got out, talked with several other women, then said to me severely, "Wait here. We will come for you." She disappeared. More cars buzzed up the dusty road into the parking place. Occasionally men dropped wives who walked hurriedly and silently within. This went on mystically until night closed down and I was alone in the dark. A few gleams came through chinks in the window curtains. Even though it was May, I grew chillier and chillier.
After three hours I was summoned at last and entered a bright corridor filled with wraps. As someone came out of the hall I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses. I waited another twenty minutes. It was warmer and I did not mind so much. Eventually the lights were switched on, the audience seated itself, and I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak.
Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand.
In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally through it was too late to return to New York. Under a curfew law everything in Silver Lake shut at nine o'clock. I could not even send a telegram to let my family know whether I had been thrown in the river or was being held incommunicado. It was nearly one before I reached Trenton, and I spent the night in a hotel.
The numbers don't lie; Planned Parenthood's in the abortion business
109 abortions per 1 adoption referral to an outside agency
For the fifth straight year, Planned Parenthood's adoption referrals have declined while its abortion numbers have increased. It is plain to see that what Planned Parenthood cares about is making big bucks by aborting babies, not humane alternatives like adoption.
According to Planned Parenthood Federation of America's recently released Annual Report for 2001-2002, its adoption referrals to other agencies in 2001 were 1,951, while its abortion procedures that same year were 213,026. Compared to the year 2000, that is a 21.5 % decrease in adoption referrals and an 8.1 % increase in abortion procedures. In 2001, Planned Parenthood referred one pregnant woman to an outside adoption agency for every 109 babies Planned Parenthood aborted. Planned Parenthood's actions have spoken louder than its empty words. Planned Parenthood is primarily interested in promoting one option to pregnant women: abortion, whether that be by surgical or chemical means.
In its report, Planned Parenthood lists the adoption referrals to give the appearance that they offer 'other' options to women, but the fact is that a referral is not the same thing as an adoption. The women are simply given information about some other group or agency that handles adoptions. On the other hand, Planned Parenthood provides those same women with direct and detailed counseling on the 'option' of abortion-because Planned Parenthood makes a lot of money on the abortions. Americans need to realize that Planned Parenthood is funded, in large part (35 %), by their tax dollars-nearly a quarter of a billion dollars for Planned Parenthood's fiscal year 2002 ($240.9 million). People should contact their elected officials immediately to demand that they stop tax dollars from going to Planned Parenthood.
Bush AIDS initiative needs improvement: No condoms; no money to abortion providers
The following report was typical of those that recently shocked members of the pro-life community who thought they had a friend in George Bush.
"In a major policy shift, President Bush has decided to allow social service agencies in Africa and the Caribbean to receive U.S. funds under his $15 billion emergency AIDS relief plan even if they promote family planning and provide abortions, White House officials said." (Los Angeles Times
February 16, 2003).
This is an outrage! Bush's decision will certainly make Planned Parenthood happy. In fact it came in the midst of Planned Parenthood's National Condom Week (February 14-21) while Planned Parenthood was asking its supporters to send a condom to Africa in the president's name via its web site. Planned Parenthood's claim on that website that Bush is anti-condom certainly does not seem to apply to Bush's AIDS initiative. Reports indicate that it will include condoms as well as antiretroviral drugs and abstinence promotion. See, for example, "Bush's AIDS plan to include abortion restrictions" and "Condom-pushing abortion groups may benefit from AIDS plan."
It is imperative that pro-lifers mount an immediate campaign aimed at trying to get President Bush to rework his $15 billion AIDS initiative so it does not allow U.S. tax dollars to fund condom promotion or groups that promote promiscuity or abortion such as International Planned Parenthood Federation.
The first step in this process would be to remove the abortion exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother from the Mexico City Policy while expanding the policy to include any recipient of any U.S. foreign aid. (The current policy applies only to non-governmental organizations getting our so-called 'family planning' dollars.) This improved Mexico City Policy would then apply to any groups getting money from the AIDS initiative. No one should get our tax dollars if they perform or promote abortion, no exceptions.
The next step in improving the Bush AIDS initiative is to insure that it will not provide or promote condoms or any other form of contraception. Furthermore, no money should be allotted to any entity that provides or promotes condoms or other forms of contraception. The money from this initiative should go toward providing antiretroviral drugs and promoting abstinence, not contraception.
Action Item: Please contact President Bush on this matter ASAP.
RU-486: A Dead Issue? Commentary from The Washington Dispatch by STOPP's National Director (1/31/03)
Recently published reports about the agenda of the new 108th Congress and the Bush Administration regarding life issues have lacked mention of any intention by either to do anything about the human pesticide RU-486, more properly referred to as mifepristone or by its brand name, Mifeprex. Is this a dead issue for the President and Congress? Have pro-lifers become complacent? Can anything be done?
Well, the 107th Congress failed to pass the "RU-486 Patient Health and Safety Protection Act," introduced by Sen. Hutchinson in the Senate and by Rep. Vitter in the House. The last major action on this act was in March of 2001. The legislation died in committee. While not making any effort to get Mifeprex off the market, this act would function to restrict its use by only those trained to perform surgical abortions. In addition, this act would require that such abortionists be certified for ultrasound dating of a pregnancy and detecting ectopic pregnancy and would require the abortionist to have admitting privileges at a hospital within an hour's travel time from the abortionist's office so he or she could handle complications resulting from an incomplete abortion or an ectopic pregnancy.
Incredibly, such modest protections are not required by the current FDA protocol for Mifeprex. Apparently, the FDA bowed to pressure by Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups not to include such common sense requirements. Planned Parenthood has clearly indicated that it sees Mifeprex as a means of countering the current shortage of abortion providers. The August 2002 issue of Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Report on Public Policy ("Mifepristone in the United States: Status and Future") says it is a problem that U.S. abortion services are largely confined to a relatively small group of clinic based providers that are located in only about 15% of U.S. counties. Planned Parenthood wants any doctor to be able to prescribe Mifeprex in order to expand abortion availability to the counties now without abortion services. The requirements proposed by Hutchinson and Vitter would restrict Mifeprex use to basically the same group of abortionists currently doing surgical abortions thus putting a crimp in the abortion movement's long range plans for Mifeprex.
The same Guttmacher Report article reveals that Planned Parenthood is currently flaunting the approved FDA protocol. The FDA approved Mifeprex use only up until a gestational age of 49 days, but Planned Parenthood says its medical standards allow it up until 63 days. The FDA approved a dosage of 600 mg of Mifeprex, but Planned Parenthood's medical standards allow using only 200 mg. Finally, the FDA approved regimen requires a women to return to the abortionist's office two days after taking Mifeprex to take another drug, misoprostol, which causes uterine contractions to expel the baby presumably killed previously by Mifeprex. Planned Parenthood says its standards allow the woman to take the misoprostol at home. This would seem to be highly dangerous given that Searle, the company that distributes misoprostol under the brand name of Cytotec, warned against giving misoprostol to pregnant women in an August 23, 2000 letter to health care providers which lists misoprostol's very serious side effects.
If the "RU-486 Patient Health and Safety Protection Act" is introduced in the 108th Congress, it should include a clause that mandates providers to follow the approved FDA protocol. As it is now, the only penalty the FDA lists on its website for those providers not following the approved protocol is that the distributor of Mifeprex, Danco, "may" discontinue distribution of the drug to the offending provider. (See the FDA's Mifepristone Questions and Answers.)
While the aforementioned legislation is worthy of another try, the Bush administration does not need to wait around for Congress to act. Bush has been handed a wonderful opportunity to take Mifeprex off the market in the form of a citizen's petition to the FDA which was filed on August 20, 2002 by the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Christian Medical Association, and Concerned Women for America. This 92-page petition carefully documents the threat to women's health from Mifeprex (including cases of death) as well as the numerous procedural violations that occurred during the FDA approval process. Bush needs to direct the FDA to repeal the approval of Mifeprex in response to this petition. Readers are strongly urged to visit www.ru486.cwfa.org to view this petition and/or its shorter executive summary. Then, by all means, contact President Bush and urge him to act immediately.
Pro-lifers must not become complacent about this drug. The previously cited Guttmacher Report article stated that Danco reported that Mifeprex sales in the first quarter of 2002 were up 39 percent compared with the first quarter of 2001. Planned Parenthood is very determined to expand Mifeprex's use in the U.S. even further. Planned Parenthood published a comprehensive plan to do so in its January/February 2003 issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health in an article entitled, "Convincing New Providers to Offer Medical Abortion: What Will it Take?"
While the battle against RU-486/Mifeprex has been focused upon the threat it poses to women's health, we need to remember that the main reason this drug needs to be taken off the market is because it is used to kill innocent human beings. If the Bush Administration fails to act upon the aforementioned petition to the FDA to get Mifeprex off the market then, at least, the "RU-486 Patient Health and Safety Protection Act," which would limit Mifeprex use, should be passed and signed into law.
Read other commentary by American Life League staff in the Washington Dispatch
Bishop Barbarito endorses ad condemning deaths by Planned Parenthood
Most Rev. Gerald M. Barbarito, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg, NY was the first listed endorser included in a hard-hitting full-page paid advertisement condemning the death brought by Planned Parenthood which was published on page A-9 of the December 16, 2002 issue of the Press-Republican, a newspaper serving the Northeastern New York region. Joining Bishop Barbarito name in the ad where the names of about 540 other endorsers, including 44 reverends, 8 sisters and several churches or church related organizations. The ad was paid for by the submitted names and was sponsored by Champlain Valley Right to Life. STOPP thanks Bart Gaffney for bringing this ad to our attention and for his leadership in that region in the battle against Planned Parenthood.
Here's the text of the ad:
RIGHT and WRONG
WHEN SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENS TO PEOPLE AND NATIONS THERE IS A RIGHT AND WRONG RESPONSE,
RIGHT RESPONSE: When 3,000 innocent human beings are killed in a single day by operatives of one group, our government uses all the resources at its disposal to investigate the crime, seek out the individuals responsible, and bring those individuals to justice.
WRONG RESPONSE: When approximately 4,000 innocent human beings are put to death every week in facilities owned by one group, our government votes laws to protect access to those facilities, arrest those trying to prevent the deaths, and gives over $200 million of our taxes to the organization doing the killing.
The group known as Planned Parenthood operates 160 surgical abortions facilities across the United States; claims to have done 197,070 surgical abortions in 2000; and says it received $202.7 million in taxpayer funds, this is nearly one third of its income for that year. (Planned Parenthood Federation of America 2000/2001 Annual Report)
We, the undersigned, condemn the death brought by Planned Parenthood and ask our government (at all levels) to stop funding this organization and the citizens of our community to stop patronizing its programs and to pray for all of its workers and volunteers.
"Lord, we pray that you would show mercy and open our eyes to see the evil being done. We pray that you would bring about a change of heart and instill deep love in our nation for the most defenseless of your creations - children in the womb."
Action Item: Readers are urged to replicate this ad in their own regional newspapers. Find out how much the ad would cost and then ask the endorsers to donate to help defray the cost. Try to get your local bishop to endorse it and that will surely help you get a lot of others to do so as well. To send Bishop Barbarito a thank you for endorsing these ads please write to him at: PO Box 369, Ogdensburg, NY 13669. Email addresses for his office are at: http://www.dioogdensburg.org/page%208.htm
By the way, when you publish the ad you can update it with figures just recently released in the Planned Parenthood Federation of America 2001/2002 Annual Report. PPFA reported it did 213,026 abortion procedures in 2001. That's over 4,000 per week. PPFA also reported that it received $240.9 million from government grants and contracts in the one-year period ending on June 30, 2002. That money from the government comprised over one third of its income that year (35%).
STOPP bringing the message against Planned Parenthood all across the country
Since the beginning of the year, STOPP has been traveling extensively, talking in community after community with pro-lifers who are eager to fight Planned Parenthood. In every town we have found good pro-lifers who want to help bring a clear message to oppose the largest single provider of abortion in the nation. From January 1 through the end of February, STOPP has given talks from Florida to Alaska and many states in between.
If you would like a talk by either Ed or Jim in your community, just e-mail us at STOPP and we will be happy to begin making plans.
