In the summer of 2020, Planned Parenthood announced it would remove the name of Margaret Sanger, the organization’s founder, from its Manhattan Health Clinic for her statements in support of eugenics. But Planned Parenthood continues to advocate for eugenic practices.
Sanger & Eugenics
Sanger was a public health nurse active at the turn of the last century. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States. One of her prime reasons for advocating for birth control was from her experience of caring for women who were the victims of self-induced abortions.
Sanger, herself, was not a proponent of abortion rights, but fiercely advocated for women’s right to birth control. She also became a fierce advocate for eugenics.
The eugenics movement promoted what it considered healthy families, which more often than not also happened to be white families, and sought to limit the number of undesirables, as they so considered, which typically included non-whites and those with disabilities. Sanger campaigned for the use of birth control as a way of limiting those that eugenicists considered unwanted. In the case of those with intellectual disabilities, she supported involuntary sterilization.
In explaining the reason for removing Planned Parenthood’s founder’s name, Merle McGee, the New York chapter’s chief equity and engagement officer, explained:
The biggest concern with Margaret Sanger is her public support for the eugenics medical philosophy which was rooted in racism, ableism and classism.
Cancelling only in word, not in deed
The cancelling of Margaret Sanger by Planned Parenthood, however, is really just removing her name. Planned Parenthood continues to act in furtherance of the views it says is its “biggest concern” about Sanger, a eugenics outlook rooted in ableism.
While Sanger was not an advocate for abortion, her colleague, Alan F. Guttmacher expressly advocated abortion for eugenic purposes. Yet, while Planned Parenthood has removed Sanger’s name from its Manhattan clinic, there has been not even the whiff of suggestion that Planned Parenthood would remove Guttmacher’s name from the affiliated institute that bears it and is routinely cited for abortion statistics.
Moreover, Planned Parenthood is actively opposing legislation that seeks to ban eugenic abortions.
Several states have passed laws banning abortions for the selective purpose of choosing against sex, race, or disability. Headline writers describe these laws in shorthand as “Down syndrome abortions bans.” I have written about these laws in multiple posts.
In the spring of 2019, the Supreme Court denied review of a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding the injunction of Indiana’s law banning selective abortions. It did so out of standard practice that the Supreme Court rarely takes cases unless there is a split amongst the Circuit Courts.
Still, Justice Thomas wrote a lengthy concurring opinion detailing Sanger’s, Guttmacher’s, and, the organization they founded, Planned Parenthood’s support for eugenics. He noted:
This case highlights the fact that abortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation. From the beginning, birth control and abortion were promoted as means of effectuating eugenics.
Just a year after Justice Thomas’ opinion, Planned Parenthood would cancel Margaret Sanger for advocating for eugenics, but would continue its opposition to laws seeking to eliminate abortions used for eugenic purposes.
Planned Parenthood’s cancellation of Sanger is superficial. Its deeds continue to act on Sanger’s words in support of eugenics.
Postcript
Each year, I attend the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD), held in Washington, D.C. It has become an annual pilgrimage for my colleague Stephanie Meredith and me to visit the National Portrait Gallery to pay homage to the portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the founder of Special Olympics. Mrs. Shriver is surrounded by five participants in Special Olympics, three of whom are women. It was always jarring to me that just a few feet away, in a hall highlighting leaders for civil rights, the National Portrait Gallery displayed a bust of Margaret Sanger. It did so for her championing women’s reproductive rights. Sanger also championed eliminating the reproductive rights of those female Special Olympians for the express purpose of eliminating women like them from future generations.
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