June is Abortion Awareness Month in the African American Community. It is a tragic and curious fact that just over 30% of the abortions in this country are performed on African American women. But the African American community is only 12% of the US population. This means of course that the Black population is strongly over-represented in terms of abortion deaths. Hence the need for an abortion awareness month in the Black Community. Recent statistics from the Guttmacher institute indicate that 1784 Black children are killed by abortion every day in the USA.
Why are African American children five times more likely to die by abortion than white children? Like all sociological phenomena, one simple explanation is not enough. Surely the breakdown of the Black family structure is a factor. High poverty rates must also be influential. Others explain that women in poverty often have less access to contraceptives and other “health-care” that might help prevent “unwanted” pregnancies. But others also note that the Black community was historically targeted by Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. Currently 78% of Planned parenthood clinics are located in minority neighborhoods. I would like to take a brief look at this historical phenomenon.
Margaret Sanger’s “Negro Project” – I do not propose to give a complete description of the origins of Planned Parenthood. You can read a more through description of that history here: Margaret Sanger and the “Negro Project” and here: The Pivot of Civilization . But fundamentally Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger was a believer in Eugenics. This was a theory that held that certain races of the human family were inherently inferior and that they should be eliminated from the gene pool through the use of contraceptives, sterilization and even abortion. Doing this would help “purify” the human race of undesirable traits (negative eugenics).
Where were these undesirable traits found in the human gene pool that Eugenicists sought to minimize or remove? You guessed it, darker skinned peoples such as African Americans, Gypsies, and various indigenous peoples had these “undesirable” traits, tended to live in poverty and were targeted for reduction and elimination by the eugenics movement. The movement became quite widespread by the 1930s and influenced Adolf Hitler in his genocidal programs.
Here in America a chief proponent of eugenics was Margaret Sanger. In 1922 Sanger wrote against outreach to the poor since it caused them merely to become more numerous:
The most serious charge that can be brought against modern “benevolence” is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression (from page 108 of her book The Pivot of Civilization).
In 1926 she began to propose sterilization for those who were “unfit”:
It now remains for the U.S. government to set a sensible example to the world by offering a bonus or yearly pension to all obviously unfit parents who allow themselves to be sterilized by harmless and scientific means. In this way the moron and the diseased would have no posterity to inherit their unhappy condition. The number of the feeble-minded would decrease and a heavy burden would be lifted from the shoulders of the fit (in the Birth Control Review Oct. 1926).
The Eugenics movement used the word “moron” to describe those caught in the cycle of poverty and attributed their inability to escape that cycle as evidence of their inferior genes and poorer mental capacity. By 1929 she chose to target African Americans especially for her “benevolent” outreach establishing her first clinic in Harlem. By 1939 she began her “Negro Project” establishing clinics and locating them especially in poorer neighborhoods to “encourage” Blacks and other poor people to reproduce less. The distribution of contraceptives was her primary strategy. She saw Black ministers as “useful” in her campaign and rather infamously wrote to her Regional Director Dr. Clarence Gamble:
The minister’s work is also important and he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members (Letter to Gamble, Dec 10, 1939).
After World War II the Eugenics movement was discredited so Margaret Sanger adjusted her rhetoric and spoke of trying to “help the poor” and of “promoting better health” but the method, the plan and the targeted groups remained the same. Today it is instructive to note that the usual location of Planned Parenthood Clinics remains largely poor Black and Latino neighborhoods. After 1973 Planned Parenthood added to its arsenal by becoming the largest provider of abortions in this country.
Was Sanger successful? Well, as noted, African Americans are 12% of the American Population. But just over 30% of abortions are performed on Black women. Some conclude to moral problems in the Black Community. Others conclude that the Black Community has been targeted. You decide. Today as noted, 78% of Planned Parenthood clinics are located in minority neighborhoods.
In an interesting twist of fate, Whites and Northern Europeans (races that Sanger and the Eugenics movement would have considered most “fit”) bought into contraception in a big way after 1965 and now themselves face a kind of demographic implosion. Meanwhile many “Third World” races and nations (considered by Sanger and the Eugenics movement as “inferior”) are now set to demographically dominate the world. I have written of the demographic implosion of Europe here: Contraception is Suicide
As stated above, the high rate of abortion in the Black Community is likely complicated and surely cannot be reduced to one thing. But the targeting of the Black Community cannot be dismissed as a factor. The quotes from the distant past might be dismissed by some. But the current location of most Abortion “Clinics” in Black and Latino neighborhoods cannot be so easily dismissed.
The trailer is below and features a series of quotes from proponents of Eugenics (Sanger among them) in the early half of the 20th Century. Make sure you have a strong stomach before you watch since the quotes are ugly and horrible examples of racism that has thankfully and hopefully has abated to a large degree.
Here is another video that effectively addresses abortion using a hip hop format:
Dear Msgr. Pope,
THANK YOU for giving credible voice to what I have believed and said to many of my Abortion-Believing-“Catholic” friends and some who sit on my Parish Advisory Council.
I wish you would submit this to Catholic New York for publication.
I wonder if they would have the courage to run it in full; after all many NY “catholic” politicians running for or in office are avid supporters of abortion and have never been called out by NY AD clergy.
THANK YOU !!!!!
William Monti
Thank you. I have had a few of my posts published in Diocesan Papers across the country and am always happy to grant any pemissions required. I of course would not self – promote it but if you want to send a link to any one you are of course free to do so. If the paper would like to publish it that would be great.
Oh, this makes me cry … I didn’t realize so much about Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenhood until I read a couple of books by Dr. William Brennan last summer: When Word Games Take Lives and Confronting the Language Empowering the Culture of Death.
When I came to this country (age 14), I had no good concept of matters sexual and I learned the usual things in school, books and peers, but I did not have the ability to judge whether what was being taught was right (since I had already turned my back on God). Now it makes me physically ill to think I bought it all in the name of women’s rights, sexual freedom, reducing poverty, mercy, etc. etc.
Your article exposes yet another ugly truth. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing your experiences
Everyone – BUY the MAAFA 21 DVD and get the word out ! It is compelling and VERY Powerful and has already ahcnged many a pro-choicer. Get Maafa21 here: http://www.maafa21.com
Yes, it is very powerful
In an interesting twist of fate, Whites… .. It only shows that if the plan is of human origin and not according to God`s laws it is doomed to fail. Just like in the days of Moses when Pharaoh wanted to control the Hebrew population, God will assign someone to accomplish his plan. We can`t defeat God. Good day Monsignor
Amen
In July 2009, US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told the NY Times: “Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” An open admission that targeting is at the heart of Roe, but we still don’t believe it! Bravo, Monsignor, for daring to speak the name of this atrocity!
The second Hip Hop video has been removed by you tube.
Since blatant genocide is currently unfashionable it comes as no surprise to hear indications of a subtle form cunningly masked as “helping” groups to bring less children into poverty instead being resposable by educating their young people to rise above a poverty state of mind.
This reminds me of two poems which came to me while reciting the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary about a week and a half ago. I’ve spent most of my adult life as a non-denominational Christian which; in my case; mostly meant lack of committment – so learning the Rosary is one of the committments which I’ve undertaken lately to help me out of my spiritual rut. (Emotional and spiritual ruts are, in some cases, defined as a two sided grave.)
The first poem came to me while reciting the second Joyful Mystery, Visitation, and the second poem came to me while reciting the fourth Joyful Mystery, Presentation. It’s really the first poem which is somewhat pertinent to this topic but they came as a pair so I feel obliged to keep them together. In each case I was tempted to pause on my recitation but, each time, a powerful and benevolent feeling assured me that I would not lose the thread of inspiration and that both would be safely waiting for me until the last Amen. The second poem refers to the way the human fetus goes through an appearance of stages of development resembling different orders of animal life. The best which I can describe the entire experience would be as introspectively ecstatic and, unlike my usual literary inspiration.
From the Second Joyful Mystery
A traveller on the road of life
Was given a challenge which looked like strife
And when the father who guided this, his child,
Sent a companion who was meek and mild
The traveller saw this as another burden piled
Onto the challenges which were already there
So, killed the companion to be free from care
And, accepting only ease that the father brought,
Said that it was murder – not!
Another child on the road of life
Felt a new one within her whom she judged to be strife
So, accepting only ease which her Father had brought,
Killed the new life and said it was murder – not!
From the Fourth Joyful Mystery
With miracles God created each beast
Then created man to rule and work and feast
The first creations over what we had dominion
In a way that was responsable to our best opinion
So, with miracles in each human womb He creates each beast
Which transforms into man like bread rising with its yeast
That scientists found – so they invented a story
Of evolution to replace God’s glory.
Monsignore, Thank you for exposing the fact that Margaret Sanger was a Nazi.
That is the short-term for someone who “believes in eugenics”.
Margaret Sanger was a Nazi, and etablished a profitable death-machine that is still running today.
As such it seems that Planned Parenthood is nothing but “Auswitch For Kids”.
Thank you for exposing this fact.
And once again, thank you for the long standing commitment to justice.
The Catholic Church decleared war on Nazism in 1938 with the document “Mit Brander Sorge”.
You are upholding the proud catholic tradition of warfare against the Beast.
Thank you.
Please purchase or preview our latest book”Between the Rhetoric and Reality” Lauriat Press; Simpkins&Simpkins.2009.. the book details the elements which are destroying the Black family and community, including the horrendous Black abortion rate..
It should be known that there have been many phases to aide in the attempted deletion/extermination of the Original Human w/the new gun laws as the latest plot. europeans have been groomed to meet Us w/aggression, to them we are hostel, and murdering one of us could easily be justified w/in the scope of their laws here in this region of Earth…