Prolonged Eye Contact

“Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated.”

-Planned Parenthood founder and birth control activist, Margaret Sanger.

[Allegation] As early as 1914 Margaret Sanger was promoting abortion, not for white middle-class women, but against ‘inferior races’ — black people, poor people, Slavs, Latins, and Hebrews were ‘human weeds.’

This allegation about Margaret Sanger appears in an anonymous flyer, “Facts About Planned Parenthood,” that is circulated by anti family planning activists. Margaret Sanger, who passionately believed in a woman’s right to control her body, never “promoted” abortion because it was illegal and dangerous throughout her lifetime. She urged women to use contraceptives so that they would not be at risk for the dangers of illegal, backalley abortion. Sanger never described any ethnic community as an ‘inferior race’ or as ‘human weeds.’

In her lifetime, Sanger won the respect of international figures of all races, including the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Mahatma Gandhi; Shidzue Kato, the foremost family planning advocate in Japan; and Lady Dhanvanthi Rama Rau of India —all of whom were sensitive to issues of race.

Sanger, admittedly, said some fucked up things in her lifetime, but there’s really no excuse for lying and outright fabrication.

Feb

2012

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