Leading anti-abortion activist dies in Mass. at 84

Source: Associated Press

BOSTON — Mildred Jefferson, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and a nationally recognized leader of the anti-abortion movement, has died at age 84.

Anne Fox, the president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, says Jefferson died Friday in Cambridge. She says Jefferson recently became ill.

Jefferson helped establish the National Right to Life Committee. Communications director Derrick Jones says she was its at-large director when she died.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7250475.html

However, my sympathies go out to her family and friends.

And seeing all the people she killed....

What a bunch of hypocrites these pro-life people are.

:hide:

"There's options!"

No longer BLP, RIP.

Other than that, I have no comment.

I hope her organization disintegrates without her.... but it won't.

Birth control and abortion once had strong ties to the US eugenics movement, where abortion and birth control were part of "solving the minority problem". If children weren't produced by minorities, because rich white people stepped in and gave them drugs and abortions, those population groups could be "kept in check".

Jefferson effectively stepped in and said "HELL NO", and made sure people knew that there was a racist motivation to birth control (at the time), and she was instrumental in forcing the missions of racists like those of Planned Parenthood (which has changed names and missions a few times since then) to be universal and non-discriminatory.

This message was brought to you by "Shit your teachers couldn't talk about in school, because it's radioactive."

....when being the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical seems something to be far more proud of.

I figured her initial opposition to Planned Parenthood had to do with the eugenics thing. Thanks for the info.

Black women still have abortions much higher in the US than the average for women in general.

typos fixed

"Black women still have abortions much higher in the US than the average for women in general."

And gosh, Josh, I wonder whether there might be reasons for that. Reasons that are real, problems African-American women have in US society, that are real.

But I guess considering the problems that racism and right-wingery in the US cause for African-American women isn't as much fun for the vile anti-choice brigade as retailing lies and smears about people who work in women's interests, from Margaret Sanger down to the present day.

I would guess that it is more likely due to more frequent poverty, social problems, relative lack of access to education or birth control advice, etc. Not eugenics at any rate.

when most women in the US who have abortions must pay for them themselves, and in particular the public health plan for low-income people does not cover abortion services.

Hardly looks like a social/political policy, does it? ;)

"Eugenic policies have been conceptually divided into two categories. Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning.<30> Negative eugenics is aimed at lowering fertility among the genetically disadvantaged. This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning.<30> Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive. Abortion by fit women was illegal in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union during Stalin's reign."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

Negative eugenics is aimed at lowering fertility among the genetically disadvantaged. This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning.

This was practised by THE STATE in the U.S. and other comparable countries: forced sterilization of "the unfit". Three generations of imbeciles is enough, to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes in Buck v. Bell.

Abortion by fit women was illegal in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union during Stalin's reign.

Whereas Margaret Sanger, and those who agree and agreed with her, argued consistently that only free women making free choices could achieve the outcome of alleviating the misery she was seeking to alleviate.

Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning.

And this has happened where, and been advocated by whom, outside of science fiction?

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I've heard numerous pro-choice people here and elsewhere condemn Sanger's beliefs, saying it has nothing to do with abortion or PP now (And I agree). So what is it here that is a lie?

Actually, I have NEVER seen any posts on DU by GENUINELY pro-choice people "condemn(ing) Sanger's beliefs".

However, EVERYTHING I have ever seen on the Internet that claims ANY kind of alleged "racism" or "genocide" being supported by Ms. Sanger, is a product of the forced-birth lie factory.

Anyone who has taken the time to genuinely research the life and works of Ms. Sanger, and research the eugenics movement as it existed at a certain time in history, would know that such claims are intellectually dishonest.

The forced-birth lie factory is, like the right-wing noise machine, skilled at speed-reading (NOT actual research) and cherry-picking quotes and flogging them completely out of context.

The only "race" to which Sanger ever referred was THE HUMAN RACE.

In her early days, no one knew the causes of many diseases and disorders that caused untold grief for the people who suffered from them, and their families. Mental illnesses, for which there were really no treatments, and intellectual disabilities were thought to be hereditary, and even something like epilepsy was untreatable and could be horrible for those with the problem.

"Eugenics" evolved from a desire to alleviate that pain, not a desire to commit genocide.

There were also little facts like the life expectancy of the 7th or 8th or 12th infant born to a family (very low indeed), and the negative effects of all those pregnancies on women, and thus their families.

It's unbelievable what crap some people will believe, or pretend to believe for public consumption.

Generally speaking, the identity of the messenger will make it pretty clear how reliable the message is, I find.

The only sources advocating and practising "eugenics" in most of the world, including the states of the U.S.A, were governments. It wasn't until this century that some forced-sterilization statutes in the U.S. were repealed.

I find reading this decision of the US Supreme Court -- per Oliver Wendell Holmes himself -- salutary:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=274&invol=200

U.S. Supreme Court
BUCK v. BELL, 274 U.S. 200 (1927)
274 U.S. 200

BUCK
v.
BELL, Superintendent of State Colony Epileptics and Feeble Minded.
No. 292.

Argued April 22, 1927.
Decided May 2, 1927.

Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

... Carrie Buck is a feeble-minded white woman who was committed to the State Colony above mentioned in due form. She is the daughter of a feeble- minded mother in the same institution, and the mother of an illegitimate feeble-minded child. She was eighteen years old at the time of the trial of her case in the Circuit Court in the latter part of 1924. An Act of Virginia approved March 20, 1924 (Laws 1924, c. 394) recites that the health of the patient and the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by the sterilization of mental defectives, under careful safeguard, etc.; that the sterilization may be effected in males by vasectomy and in females by salpingectomy, without serious pain or substantial danger to life; that the Commonwealth is supporting in various institutions many defective persons who if now discharged would become <274 U.S. 200, 206> a menace but if incapable of procreating might be discharged with safety and become self-supporting with benefit to themselves and to society; and that experience has shown that heredity plays an important part in the transmission of insanity, imbecility, etc. The statute then enacts that whenever the superintendent of certain institutions including the abovenamed State Colony shall be of opinion that it is for the best interest of the patients and of society that an inmate under his care should be sexually sterilized, he may have the operation performed upon any patient afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity, imbecility, etc., on complying with the very careful provisions by which the act protects the patients from possible abuse.

... The judgment finds the facts that have been recited and that Carrie Buck 'is the probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring, likewise afflicted, that she may be sexually sterilized without detriment to her general health and that her welfare and that of society will be promoted by her sterilization,' and thereupon makes the order. In view of the general declarations of the Legislature and the specific findings of the Court obviously we cannot say as matter of law that the grounds do not exist, and if they exist they justify the result. We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 , 25 S. Ct. 358, 3 Ann. Cas. 765. Three generations of imbeciles are enough. ...

Anybody looking for the hand of Margaret Sanger or Planned Parenthood in that will be looking for a long time.

"The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics.... We are convinced that racial regeneration, like individual regeneration, must come 'from within.' That is, it must be autonomous, self-directive, and not imposed from without."

From:
"The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda", full source at:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=238946.xml

What are you pretending that Sanger meant when she said that?

I stated that when Sanger used the word RACE she was referring to THE HUMAN RACE.

Do you have any reason to dispute that, and any grounds on which to dispute it?

If you are not disputing that fact, what is your point in reproducing that passage?

Shall I guess?

That is, in my eyes, an early 20th century form of racism.

Her concept of race, regardless of whether you will admit it or not, was THE HUMAN RACE, and it had not one thing to do with the "race" referred to in the term racism. Not one thing.

The "idealized concept" that the human race would be improved by reducing the incidence of genetic (or what were thought at the time to be genetic) disorders -- conditions that caused untold suffering for the individuals affected, and serious problems for their families and the society -- has NOTHING TO DO WITH "RACE".

It may not be something we agree with today (although genetic counselling for prospective parents and prenatal genetic testing would suggest otherwise), but it still has nothing to do with "race".

It is NOT a form of "racism". At best, you are equivocating -- pretending that "racism" refers somehow to "the human race", which doesn't even make sense.

What you're really doing is quite obvious.

Guess who was deciding what was, and wasn't, "disorders"?

Guess which groups were the targets?

I have no need to guess. I know.

Have you ever read Buck v. Bell?

The answer, in the U.S., is:

- state governments, with the vociferous approval of the U.S. Supreme Court;
- the mentally "defective", in large part, many of whom were undoubtedly otherwise disadvantaged as well.
(See below re North Carolina, as an example, for elaboration)

Margaret Sanger opposed such policies. We are talking about Margaret Sanger, aren't we?

Carrie Bell was white, did you notice?

You like wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell

On 2 May 1927, in an 8-1 decision, the Court accepted that she, her mother and her daughter were "feeble-minded" and "promiscuous," and that it was in the state's interest to have her sterilized. The ruling legitimized Virginia's sterilization procedures until they were repealed in 1974.

Full articles are accessible here; nutshells:

http://extras.journalnow.com/againsttheirwill/parts/epilogue/index.html

<North Carolina>

April 18, 2003
Easley repeals eugenics statute
More than 30 years after Elaine Riddick Jessie and Nial Cox Ramirez were sterilized by state officials they never met, the law that authorized the irreversible operations was officially repealed.

April 11, 2003
Class played a role in eugenics sterilizations, researcher says
People were targeted by the state's eugenics program because of their class and gender as much as their race, a professor of women's studies told a group at Wake Forest University yesterday. "Racism was part of the problem but not the whole problem," said Johanna Schoen, whose doctoral work on the Eugenics Board of North Carolina played a key role in "Against Their Will," the Winston-Salem Journal's series about sterilization.

November 4, 2003 - FOLLOW-UP REPORT
WFU medical school apologizes again for role
After 10 months of study, Wake Forest University School of Medicine issued a report yesterday about its role in North Carolina's eugenic sterilization program, and repeated its apologies for its involvement.

Can we agree to that, at least?

In fact, I don't think we agree on anything at all. Perhaps the time of day, or whether it's raining in Glasgow ...

I know we don't agree that there are principles that must be adhered to in engaging in public discussion of public issues, and that one of them is that each party must be scrupulously honest both in the assertions they make and in their representation of what their interlocutor says.

...there was a thread (probably started by a RW plant) on here about Abortion and Eugenics and the "Rascism of Abortion" and so on about a year ago and there were a lot of people who were clearly strongly pro-choice tripping over themselves to say "No one cares about Sanger or still considers her a legitimate source". I was legit curious. I don't know a lot about Eugenics having not done much research other than it's seemingly considered as bad a word as "Holocaust" or "Ethnic Cleansing".

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Part of the rather odd dust-up I seemed to have started is *because* people are taking a complex issue, and viewing it rather simplistically.

Perhaps that's my fault, though, for tossing out a rather simple post on a complex topic.

Much more on Sanger and Eugenics here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Eugenics_and_euthanasia

A wiki is a brief synopsis.

You went to some lengths to dig up the dirt in your "rather simple post".

Would that you had gone to at least those lengths to research the life of Ms. Sanger and the actual history of the eugenics movement.

I didn't have to go far to dig up dirt, I'm one of the editors who works on the stickier ethics issues of the early 20th century... so I've been over this ground before.

As I think I posted already:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/search.php
...is a great starting point for Sanger's personal views. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics has a good overview with 153 additional references for reading. http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/ is done in more of a "virtual museum" style, done by Cold Spring.

from the era, and I can tell you there is NOTHING in it about race, as in, ethnicity.

The drunkard, the feeble-minded, and the constitutionally infirm are discussed. But race/ethnicity is completely absent.

...but they were already measuring skulls.

"they were already measuring skulls"

-- and what does this have to do with the subject of this thread and of your posts about Margaret Sanger?

I'll tell you: NOTHING.

Nothing that Margaret Sanger said or wrote about "eugenics" IN THE SENSE IN WHICH IT WAS MEANT AND UNDERSTOOD AT THE TIME had anything to do with "race". Period.

When Sanger's own words plainly denounce any considerations of race or ethnicity in any effort to "improve the human race", and you persist in attempting to smear her with these vague and unparsable allegations, your own motivations just become clearer every time.

"The Mismeasure of Man", by Gould.

The "they" were the scientists and social advocates trying to improve the human race.

They were trying to remove "undesirable" features.

Not surprisingly, "non-whites", "immigrants", (etc.) "somehow" had a lot of these features.

As far as your contention about Sanger and eugenics "IN THE SENSE IN WHICH IT WAS MEANT AND UNDERSTOOD AT THE TIME had anything to do with "race"."... well, I have no idea where you got that idea.

That's like claiming that Christianity has nothing to do with Jesus, and I'm at a loss for your possible meaning(s).

As far as your contention about Sanger and eugenics "IN THE SENSE IN WHICH IT WAS MEANT AND UNDERSTOOD AT THE TIME had anything to do with "race"."... well, I have no idea where you got that idea.

That's like claiming that Christianity has nothing to do with Jesus, and I'm at a loss for your possible meaning(s).


I never understand why anyone would want to portray themself as being this thick.

My actual meaning is quite clear.

Sanger's eugenics had nothing to do with "race", the construct that divides the human species by skin colour and other physical attributes.

If you want to persist in insinuating that it did, you need to come up with evidence.

I would think that if you had any, you would have presented it by now.


The African-American population at the time (and this has already been established in this thread) did not have access to even the minimal social services and health care that their white counterparts had. Sanger's efforts, in collaboration with leaders in the African-American community, were directed to providing women with access to the family planning services that she and others (myself included) regard as essential to both women's autonomy and community development.

If you wish to say otherwise, prove your allegation.

Sanger's eugenics had nothing to do with "race", the construct that divides the human species by skin colour and other physical attributes.

So, you're saying the construct which divides people by genetic attributes (racism)... has nothing to do with intentionally altering people's genetic attributes (eugenics)?

...

This is kind of like the KKK saying "they're not racist, they're just trying to improve humanity".

You have no intention of engaging in civil discourse?

Your use of that deceitful and disgusting little turn of phrase, so beloved of the deceitful and disgusting right wing, to misrepresent what your interlocutor says, makes that plain. As if it already weren't.

illiterate grammatical error fixed

You having now told us what a knowledgeable expert you are, can we look forward to you retracting the utterly false statements you made in your first post?

An explanation and apology for what you said in it would be nice, but a retraction will do.

I don't expect that to happen.

Birth control and abortion once had strong ties to the US eugenics movement, where abortion and birth control were part of "solving the minority problem". If children weren't produced by minorities, because rich white people stepped in and gave them drugs and abortions, those population groups could be "kept in check".

-- which you followed with, and clearly intended association with, material about Margaret Sanger.

Your allegation is: "the US eugenics movement, where abortion and birth control were part of 'solving the minority problem'."

For the love of fuck, abortion was ILLEGAL throughout Sanger's lifetime. How could the eugenics movement with which Sanger was associated have advocated abortion for any purpoes? IT DIDN'T. That's how.


Your claim was NOT that birth control is "positive Eugenics".

Sanger herself advocated birth control for more than one reason:
- to give women autonomy
- to reduce the incidence of what were believed to be genetic disorders
- to reduce the incidence of poverty and the accompanying miseries of all sorts

She believed, and said repeatedly, that giving women autonomy was the only way to accomplish the other goals.

Your claim was as quoted at the beginning of this post. For you to assert that you will withdraw some claim you did not make and to which I was not referring, in response to my query as to whether you would retract the claim that you did make and to which I was referring ... well, words almost fail in the face of such despicable demagoguery and deceit.

Uhm, no. Serious history (and Sanger knowledge) fail.

I suggest you read "Women and the New Race", written by Sanger in 1920, specifically the chapter titled "Contraceptives or Abortion?", where she lays out her views (at the time).

Here, read the chapter for yourself:
http://www.bartleby.com/1013/10.html

It reads pretty pro-lifer, in today's context... no birth control or abortion after egg fertilization. She would have personally rejected "the pill" as an abortion, as I read it.

She later went on (in different works) to accept techniques that accepted fertilization (sperm meets egg) but prevents *implantation*, specifically the use of Quinine pills and douching with boric acid.

Is there another contention you have with: "the US eugenics movement, where abortion and birth control were part of 'solving the minority problem'."?

typos fixed


Sanger didn't die in the 1920s.

When I was a pre-teen, I think I was kind of down on abortion, too. Ick, you know.

The US Democratic Party was once the party of slavery, wasn't it?

Funny how things, and people, change.


Were you seriously saying that abortion was not illegal throughout Sanger's lifetime?

Surely you're not equivocating again, and pretending that I was referring to anything but elective abortion.


Is there another contention you have with: "the US eugenics movement, where abortion and birth control were part of 'solving the minority problem'."?

I'm at a loss to parse that one. "the US eugenics movement, where abortion and birth control were part of 'solving the minority problem'" is your contention. I'm requiring substantiation, and demonstration of relevance to your allegations about Margaret Sanger.

Sanger DISSOCIATED herself from the elements of the "eugenics movement" that advocated the use of "eugenic" practices against minorities. You're the Sanger expert; you tell us when that was, and quote her for us, 'k? When did she sever ties, for instance, with the American Birth Control League? It's right there in your favourite Wiki article.

Here's one for you.

http://eileen.250x.com//Main/7_R_Eile/Sanger_Answers.html

Enjoy, and refute if you can.

I wrote it several years ago in response to a young friend of mine in the US, and another friend posted it at her website.

In particular, the final part of it reproduces Planned Parenthood's rebuttal of the various falsehoods and smears you are spreading, and others.

For anyone who doesn't wish to bother clicking and reading, here are two germane bits from PP:

"We do not want word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population."

Sanger was aware of African-American concerns, passionately argued by Marcus Garvey in the 1920s, that birth control was a threat to the survival of the black race. This statement, which acknowledges those fears, is taken from a letter to Clarence J. Gamble, M.D., a champion of the birth control movement. In that letter, Sanger describes her strategy to allay such apprehensions. A larger portion of the letter makes Sanger's meaning clear:

It seems to me from my experience . . . in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas, that while the colored Negroes have great respect for white doctors, they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table. . . . They do not do this with the white people, and if we can train the Negro doctor at the clinic, he can go among them with enthusiasm and with knowledge, which, I believe, will have far-reaching results. . . . His work, in my opinion, should be entirely with the Negro profession and the nurses, hospital, social workers, as well as the County's white doctors. His success will depend upon his personality and his training by us. The minister's work is also important, and also 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 (1939).

I don't want word to get out that I eat kittens for breakfast, myself. Get it?

"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, back-alley 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 may well have opposed abortion for reasons other than the practical ones, at least at one time. I don't know or care, myself.

http://www.google.com/search?q=define:throughout

Were you seriously saying that abortion was not illegal throughout Sanger's lifetime?

Surely you're not equivocating again, and pretending that I was referring to anything but elective abortion.

Oh, I was using your words. Now you're modifying your words, but elective abortion was legal, if expensive, in her lifetime as well... hence, her discussing it.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is tying its shoelaces.

Here's a significant portion of what you linked to. I want you to direct me to what you were intending to be taken from these passages. Specifically, I want you to tell us what elements support your allegation that Margaret Sanger advocated what amounted to genocide against African-Americans.

I'm going to boldface the bits I would like you not to pretend not to have seen.

Eugenics and euthanasia

Sanger was a proponent of negative eugenics, a social philosophy which claims that human hereditary traits can be improved through social intervention. Sanger's eugenic policies ran to an exclusionary immigration policy, free access to birth control methods and full family-planning autonomy for the able-minded, and compulsory segregation or sterilization for the profoundly retarded. She expressly denounced euthanasia as a eugenics tool.

In A Plan for Peace (1932), for example, Sanger proposed a congressional department to:

Keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feebleminded, idiots, morons, insane, syphilitic, epileptic, criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred by the immigration laws of 1924.

And, following:

Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.

Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent "dysgenic" children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and dismissed "positive eugenics" (which promoted greater fertility for the "fitter" upper classes) as impractical. Though many leaders in the negative eugenics movement were calling for active euthanasia of the "unfit," Sanger spoke out against such methods. She believed that women with the power and knowledge of birth control were in the best position to produce "fit" children. She rejected any type of eugenics that would take control out of the hands of those actually giving birth.

Taking sharp issue in plain words with certain other eugenicists, however, Margaret Sanger completely rejected the idea of gassing the unfit. 'Nor do we believe,' wrote Sanger in Pivot of Civilization, 'that the community could or should send to the lethal chamber the defective progeny resulting from irresponsible and unintelligent breeding.'

Sanger's views thus broke from those proposing Nazi eugenics—an aggressive, and lethal, program. She wrote in a 1933 letter:

"All the news from Germany is sad & horrible, and to me more dangerous than any other war going on any where because it has so many good people who applaud the atrocities & claim its right. The sudden antagonism in Germany against the Jews & the vitriolic hatred of them is spreading underground here & is far more dangerous than the aggressive policy of the Japanese in Manchuria.."

Sanger believed the responsibility for birth control should remain in the hands of able-minded individual parents rather than the state, and that self-determining motherhood was the only unshakable foundation for racial betterment; she wrote:

"The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics.... We are convinced that racial regeneration, like individual regeneration, must come 'from within.' That is, it must be autonomous, self-directive, and not imposed from without."

We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother... Only upon a free, self-determining motherhood can rest any unshakable structure of racial betterment.

And of course:

In 1930, Sanger opened a family planning clinic in Harlem that sought to enlist support for contraceptive use and to bring the benefits of family planning to women who were denied access to their city's health and social services. Staffed by a black physician and black social worker, the clinic was endorsed by The Amsterdam News (the powerful local newspaper), the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the Urban League, and the black community's elder statesman, W. E. B. Du Bois.

But we can be sure that a bunch of fanatic right-wing misogyinists in the 21st century know way better than the contemporary African-American community and its leaders.

Sanger was a sexually free, outspoken woman. They hated her for her freedoms, and they still do.

Sanger was an accidental racist, not an intentional one. She meant well, but...

while I go puke quietly somewhere.

And Martin Luther King and W.E.B. Dubois and a whole lot of other truly valient African-Americans spin in their graves.

NO ONE who is "clearly strongly pro-choice" would say "No one cares about Sanger or still considers her a legitimate source".

EVERYONE who is "clearly strongly pro-choice" knows what an ENORMOUS debt we owe to Ms. Sanger for the freedom to access reproductive health care.

Dealing with complex figures like Sanger poses some challenges, especially when viewed without historical context... it's kind of like realizing that Lincoln was a racist, as was Jefferson, but both of them laid *massive* foundations for civil rights.

"... it's kind of like realizing that Lincoln was a racist, as was Jefferson, but both of them laid *massive* foundations for civil rights."

Margaret Sanger was not a racist, but hey, what a clever analogy.

I haven't yet seen you establish anything that Margaret Sanger was that would necessitate anyone disclaiming her or disassociating themself from her.

That being said, I think it's absurd to disclaim or advocate disassociating from a historical figure. She was a racist, in modern terms, but wasn't, for her time.

Hence the Lincoln and Jefferson comparisons.

Since DADT and DOMA are popular issues of the day, we can use that relative context. In 100 years, Obama will be known as a historical homophobe, who advanced the cause. At the current time (now), his perspective seems "reasonable" to many, but in many years from now, our children's children will be confused and shake their heads.

Sanger is similar, provided that you can put your mental space 100 years ago, without looking at how repulsive such perspectives are today.

To whom do you actually think you are speaking?

Perhaps there are some people who will see the words Again, see "The Negro Project" and think Oooh, The Negro Project! Well obviously, Sanger and Co. had a project to eliminate Negroes ...

Meet a lot of stupid and gullible people, do you?


Hence the Lincoln and Jefferson comparisons.

"Hence"? You mean, as in: Lincoln and Jefferson did terrible things to African-Americans, so we can compare Margaret Sanger to them, because she did too?

You mean: that lie?


Sanger is similar, provided that you can put your mental space 100 years ago, without looking at how repulsive such perspectives are today.

If only anything you have said about Sanger and race weren't filthy falsehood, you'd have a point.

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typo fixed


I'm not disputing your own personal familiarity with the topics at hand.

I'm doubting your integrity.

http://www.blackgenocide.org ??

You are seriously directing me to a website operated by THIS individual???

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=119226

Yup, that's WorldNetDaily, all right.

WND Exclusive DOCTOR'S ORDERS
Minister: Obamacare kills African-American babies
Charges president has become 'the face of black genocide in America today'
Posted: December 17, 2009

A black minister who founded a website called BlackGenocide.org charges the Obama administration's health-care-reform legislation is designed to increase the number of abortions in the African-American community.

"It's sinister, but President Obama has become the face of black genocide in America today," said Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr., senior pastor of the New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, N.J.

For a few years, a friend of mine rented my next-door apartment. I'd got her a stray cat, who conveniently showed up just before she returned from Japan to move in. She used to keep her door propped open so the cat could go in and out while she worked from her home office. Every day, she'd look up from her keyboard and find the cat from across the street looking at her from the office doorway. She would glare at him, and ask sternly, "Why are you here, McDuff?" She reports that he would look mightily confused by the question, and never had a good answer. (We knew it was for the catnip toys.)

Morals of stories are sometimes best left for the reader to discern.

And the site it links to, and my reply re that site.

Odd, isn't it??


(Oops, got the post number wrong. ;) )

Can someone offer some sort of PROOF that the things being said about Margaret Sanger in this thread are TRUE?

If not, I just can't figure out why characterizing them as FALSEHOOD -- after having proved that they are false -- is ground for deletion.

Once again: Neither I nor anyone else has called anyone a liar. A false statement is a false statement. What anyone's motivation for making it might be -- how would I know?

:shrug:

God, I think I need to smoke a cigarette..lol!!!

No one who has gone into the fine points of the history of feminism and early 20th century social movements (which not everyone has had the opportunity to do or felt the need to do), and who doesn't feel constantly under attack and on the defensive for advocating positions that respect women's fundamental rights (which every advocate of those positions does feel), would say "No one cares about Sanger or still considers her a legitimate source".

;)

And I linked to a reply dismissing Sanger, just to show you I'm not completely crazy. The only reason I recalled it was because I had never heard of Sanger until a week prior here, and then she came up again.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8261508&mesg_id=8262249

I am disagreeing with your interpretation of what was said:

112. what Sanger thought, however, is irrelevant

no one I know looks to Sanger for information about anything. rather, the issue is current law and how it is implemented and who is trying to undermine women in this nation by making hysterical claims.

but that's what the right wing does, again and again. it makes hysterical claims. obama is a socialist. health care is bad, when it was the McCain-Romney bill that passed.

this bullshit gets tiresome.

It was in reference to Sanger's early words about abortion, i.e. it was a reply to someone trying to use Sanger, as an icon of advocacy for women's reproductive rights and freedoms, to discredit modern women's advocacy of abortion choice.

What Sanger thought and said, nearly a century ago, is indeed irrelevant to what women today think and do.

Feminists today do not worship graven idols. We recognize and appreciate the enormous, crucial contributions made by Sanger and others like her. We don't form a cult dedicated to following the scripture according to Margaret Sanger.

I especially don't. I'm Canadian. And similarly, while I recognize and appreciate the contribution made by "The Famous Five" women who challenged our Supreme Court's ruling that women were not "persons" under the Constitution for the purposes of appointment to the Senate, in 1929 (my second cousin four times removed, on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, which had jurisdiction at the time, overturned that ruling and set the course for modern constitutional interpretation in Canada), I recognize that some of them were actuallly virulent racists. That fact does not negate the contribution they made to advancing women's rights, or mean that they should be simplistically vilified.

Sanger, however was NOT a racist, and as far as what she said in the early days about abortion, it's as relevant now as what she said about sterilizing the intellectually disabled.


edit to add:

Interesting to note that the same poster in that thread also said:

70. exactly. this is a propaganda campaign

trying to equate abortion with genocide or eugenics.

those who are doing this on this site are no better than Glenn Beck. worse, in fact, because they're claiming to care about those whose rights they want to erode.

Huh.

And I would disagree with Ms R Dog's assertion re Ms Sanger.

At the risk of offending Ms R Dog, I'd say that every feminist needs to "look to Sanger for information".

I'd also suggest that every feminist needs to look up the Comstock Act for her/his further edification on reproductive health care rights.

thank you.

Thank you!

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... hoping for some sort of response. ;)

Thanks for putting forth the energy to refute that crap.

:toast:

Care to explain "The Negro Project" to me? Are you familiar with it?

Here, I'll start:
Sanger didn't openly target peoples because of race. She targeted peoples who were poor, disabled, had bad health care, worked in criminalized professions (etc.) that BY SOME SUPER WEIRD COINCIDENCE happened to be predominately minorities.

"Attack posts lacking substance are not a priority for me."

And here you went to all that trouble to post it. How odd.


"Sanger didn't openly target peoples because of race. She targeted peoples who were poor, disabled, had bad health care, worked in criminalized professions (etc.) that BY SOME SUPER WEIRD COINCIDENCE happened to be predominately minorities."

And as Mark Twain once said: a lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth is still tying its shoelaces.

These misrepresentations of Sanger have been to Pluto and back a hundred times by now, I think.

Your statements really just don't refute history, y'know.

*shrug*

Start here:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/search.php

Type the word "eugenics". Start reading.

Unfortunately for you, you don't know me. As a result, you're making yourself look like a fool, when you say things to me like "start reading".

I was running a birth control information booth on my campus in my first year at university when I was 17. That was about four decades ago. Imagine what I've read and done since then.

I have read and read about Sanger quite extensively. In a couple of clicks of my mouse, I can take you to the sources that will rebut any crappy falsehood about Sanger that anybody might want to throw around. As I can most other crappy falsehoods retailed by the racist misogynist right wing.

Agreed. I sincerely wonder how much of life I lose because I cannot know enough people, and hear their opinions.

That said, I find it surprising that you do not recognize the racism of the left, but that might be because it is painful to confront. We treated former slaves in similar ways to the way we treated native americans.

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I thought I had ...

I find it surprising that you do not recognize the racism of the left ...

I find it surprising that you would make an insulting false allegation against me based on obvious ignorance and what I can only assume is personal animus, felt by you for reasons I can only surmise.

I'm not in the US, in case you haven't figured that out. But I have been on the left since quite possibly before you were born. I know a lot of things about it. If you had ASKED ME whether I "recognize the racism of the left" -- perhaps in a way that didn't load the question with the premise that the left is racist, even though it may be, just for the sake of civil discourse -- I could have answered you.

Since I had said nothing about the existence or non-existence of racism on the left, your surprise seems rather manufactured, to me.


... but that might be because it is painful to confront

But hey, while you're making unfounded allegations, why not invent motivations for your interlocutor's imagined opinions too?


Every trick in the book, eh?

I've been involved with the Pro-choice movement for 35 years. I used to hear her on radio talk shows. She was very arrogant and supercilious. She called women who get abortions, "poor, sad, deluded women", without taking in account the individual woman's circumstances.

Another "Queen Bee Syndrome" type, making it to the top, then kicking down other women.

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It sounded to me like the poster had contempt for someone who plainly held other women in contempt.

Was there something there in invisible ink that I missed?

If people criticize Condi Rice for her RW neocon views, should this be assumed to be all about her being a black woman?

Next...

that another anti-choice nut is gone.

:sarcasm:

employed twice earlier in a thread on NYC charter school diva Eva Moskowitz.

but to many here, the urge is tremendous for caling her the c word

to all the women you are apparently purporting to give a shit about.

:)

she helped turn the clock back on women's rights, and I'm sorry, but that is unforgivable.

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"God Hates Ivy Leaguers"? :shrug: