The recent media attention surrounding Planned Parenthood and accusations of racism have sparked a debate about the organization. Some people have accused Planned Parenthood of racism, and their historical perspective on this topic is troubling to say the least.
Are these accusations just? To answer that, let’s look first at the history of Planned Parenthood.
It is well known that Planned Parenthood’s founder and creator, Margaret Sanger was a white supremacist who believed that black people were “weeds” and needed extermination. She expressed this in her writings, stating that abortion was necessary to control the “mass of Negroes who breed disastrously from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit” [1].
Through the guise of Planned Parenthood clinics, Sanger specifically targeted predominantly black and minority neighborhoods with what she called the “Negro Project.” Although she spun it as a “caring project,” privately, Sanger said, “The most successful educational approach to the negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”
George Grant, a scholar of Sanger’s work, described the project as “a ruse, a manipulative attempt to get blacks to cooperate in their own elimination.”
In the early years, Planned Parenthood accomplished two objectives:
- Strategically placed clinics in poor, minority neighborhoods.
- Intentionally told them lies to get them to exterminate their own race.
Even Planned Parenthood admits it…
Finally forced to be honest about their racist roots, Margaret Sanger’s name was recently removed from a Planned Parenthood facility in Manhattan.
Planned Parenthood of California Central Coast recently stated:
“Planned Parenthood . . . is reckoning with racism in our history, and looking inward to address our historical inequities. . . . Margaret Sanger was a part of a eugenics movement that was rooted in ablest and racist ideals. . . . We cannot condone that behavior. And we cannot ignore how her behavior and associations have shaped Planned Parenthood today.”
But the past is in the past, right?
You might argue that just because Planned Parenthood has a troubling past, it does not necessarily make the organization racist today. They may seek to do good now, and not everyone needs to be defined by their history.
However, this argument falls apart upon closer inspection. Organizations can be fundamentally good or bad, and while a *good* organization may have committed some *bad* things, that is different from an organization that was inherently evil from the start. It is comparable to the Ku Klux Klan attempting to rebrand and do good work in the community.
Consider These Facts:
- Abortion clinics are still strategically located in predominantly African American and minority communities.
Eighty percent of Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinics are within easy walking distance of minority neighborhoods, and 60 percent are in minority zip codes. According to Planned Parenthood’s Guttmacher Institute, in the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women. Black women constitute 13 percent of the female population, but they are getting 36 percent of abortions. [2]
- Planned Parenthood targets poor and minority neighborhoods because they know it is where they will make the most profit.
Former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson states that she was pressured to aggressively market abortion in these neighborhoods because it was the most profitable.
Abby claims that she was trained to convince minority women that they were not strong enough to be single mothers and that having an abortion would help them. This manipulative tactic was used to convince vulnerable individuals to pay for the termination of their pregnancy under the guise of empowerment. [3]
Is Planned Parenthood different today from its historical roots?
- They still target minorities.
- They still use deceitful and manipulative tactics to sell abortion.
The abortion rate is so much higher among black people that, from another angle, you might call it genocide.
What is Planned Parenthood’s response to this? They would say that they are doing the opposite of harming – that they are helping these women. But are they?
Star Parker says, “No.”
A self-termed “black conservative,” Parker knew what it was like to grow up as a poor, single black woman in a low-income, minority neighborhood. She was vulnerable, dependent on welfare, and convinced that abortion was her only answer – a choice she now deeply regrets.
Star states: “Planned Parenthood has been true to its mission from day one, and its mission was to annihilate what Margaret Sanger believed was human weeds. She was a racist, she was a eugenicist, and she did not want this population of new freed former slaves growing in America. Planned Parenthood deliberately even today targets poor women in poor communities, which are disproportionately African American and Latino, to make sure that they do not produce children. Now they can spin it any way they want to but it is true to their mission.”
Star says that when minority women are more heavily pressured to get abortions, this is an example of outright racism.
Why? Doesn’t abortion keep single, minority women out of poverty? Wouldn’t it be worse if they had to raise those children?
Planned Parenthood’s aggressive campaign targeting poor, minority women, in reality, is insulting them. According to Star, what they are really saying is that poor minority women are:
- Incapable
- Have no control over their sexual impulses
- Are chronic victims
- Have no self-respect and cannot, therefore, demand marriage before giving sexual favors
- Cannot self-govern
- Always need an easy out
Planned Parenthood is giving impoverished minority women this message:
“You are not strong enough to handle a child; we’ll take that from you, sweetheart; you can’t handle a baby. We know what’s best for you.” These insulting assumptions are based on their race and economic levels.
The truth is that statistically, *children often have the opposite effect* – even on single, low-income women. There are countless stories of poor, single women, who faced unwanted pregnancies, decided against abortion, and now claim that their child saved them from a life of addiction and poverty. It gave them something to fight for and protect.
Despite protests from Planned Parenthood, their current practices are no different from Margaret Sanger’s strategies. While they may use different language and spin a different narrative, the fundamental principles and practices remain the same.
Just as Sanger targeted vulnerable populations and promoted eugenics, Planned Parenthood continues to market their services to poor and minority communities – encouraging abortion and only abortion. They offer very few caregiving services. They are in the business of making money, and they are making a lot of it.
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