How to Refute Standard Objections by Planned Parenthood Defenders

by Brian Clowes, PhD

When confronted with the  material in Margaret Sangers’ Birth Control Review, pro-abortionists (particularly Planned Parenthood workers) will invariably respond with objections such as those listed below. The following paragraphs show how to refute these objections.

#1—“The Material is Taken Out of Context.”  The Birth Control Review enjoyed a 24-year run and accounted for about 4,500 pages of text. If HLI had reviewed all of this material and  found only two, three  or even a dozen offensive quotes, PP defenders would have a point in stating that “the material was taken out of context.” However, this document contains well over 1,000 objectionable quotes.  The “out of context” defense is grossly unpersuasive because the many repugnant ideas in this document are the context.

#2—“Most of This Material Was Not Written By Margaret Sanger.”  Margaret Sanger wrote perhaps 2% of the information in the Birth Control Review. However, her quotes are offensive in the extreme. For example, there are 23 lengthy quotes by Sanger supporting negative eugenics alone, including her infamous “Plan for Peace.”
To address the above objection: If an American Nazi or known racist was allowed to print an article in a pro-life newsletter, the pro-aborts would never let us forget it. They would not only smear that pro-life organization, but they would tar and feather the entire pro-life movement as “Nazis” and “racists.”

HLI is merely holding Planned Parenthood to the same standard. The Birth Control Review is filled with articles written by such “luminaries” as Lothrop Stoddard, American Birth Control League board member and author of The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy; and Ernst Rudin, Adolf Hitler’s Director of Genetic Sterilization and founder of the Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene—the organization behind the plan to exterminate Jews during World War II.

We can thus say with certainty that Planned Parenthood honors a person (Sanger) who not only befriended authentic racists and Nazis, but gave them a widespread platform to spread their poison.

#3—“The Review Does Not Reflect Current Planned Parenthood Thinking.”  One typical reaction of Planned Parenthood defenders is to say that Sanger lived many years ago, and her thoughts are not representative of the philosophy of today’s “new, improved” Planned Parenthood.

But pro-lifers can say with authority that no Planned Parenthood spokesperson—at  any level—has ever disavowed Sanger. The furthest anyone has gone in this direction was Faye Wattleton’s (former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America) pathetic statement that, “No one can really interpret what Sanger meant because she’s dead” (New York City Tribune, 23 February 1988).

In fact, PPFA names its most prestigious projects and awards after Sanger: The Margaret Sanger Award is given annually to the person that PPFA perceives as most advancing the cause of “reproductive rights” during the previous year, and a PPFA national fundraising drive was named “Maggie’s Millions.”

Quotes from PP leaders/writers demonstrate that PPFA still embraces the Sangerian philosophy:  

“...[A]s we celebrate the 100th birthday of Margaret Sanger, our outrageous and our courageous leader, we will probably find a number of areas in which we may want to find more about Margaret Sanger than we thought we wanted to know ... we should be very proud of what we are and what our mission is. It is a very grand mission ... abortion is only the tip of the iceberg.” (Address given by Wattleton in St. Louis, Mo., 5 February 1979.)

“I intend to be out on the front lines of our issues.…With all her success, my grandmother left some unfinished business, and I intend to finish it.” (Sanger’s grandson, Alexander C. Sanger, president and chief executive officer of PP of New York City, quoted in The New York Times, 23 January 1991.)

Pro-Sanger articles are featured on PPFA’s website, including the article “Was Margaret Sanger a Racist?,” by Charles Valenza, and a second electronic article titled “The Truth About Margaret Sanger.” PPFA adores Sanger so much that their website even has a “photo album” devoted to her life.  An organization does not honor a person with photo albums, fawning articles and attempts at memorialization unless it embraces that person’s philosophies.

The above objections cannot hide the fact that Sanger’s philosophies were eugenics, anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant bigotry, and population control.  We must speak the truth and declare them as such.