History and Practice of Eugenics PT 6

History and Practice of Eugenics

Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood

Some of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood's history needs to be covered, because her organization has branched out all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations and with the blessing and aid of the US Government. She was also associated with the American Eugenics Society.

Margaret Sanger was jailed many times for promoting birth control. She opened the first birth control clinic in 1916 for which she was jailed. In an interview, Mike Wallace reported that her first marriage ended in divorce because of her crusade. During the interview, he said that her Catholic mother died young after eleven pregnancies. Her father was an atheist, who suffered financially because of it. The people in the village she lived in called her and her siblings, "children of the Devil." But she denied having any antagonism toward the Catholic church as a reason for her work. She stated that she was a born humanitarian and that as a nurse she had seen a great deal of suffering and cruelty that were unnecessary. She said that besides alleviating the suffering of women, that the population problem was also a concern. She said that population needed to be kept at a static level until the level of available resources picked up, and when asked which was more important, controlling population or picking up the level of resources, she said that there is just so much you could do to pick up the level of resources.

She disagreed and took issue with the Catholic church's opinion that the natural purpose of marriage is to beget children. She said that many people had happy marriage without having several children. And said that the priests were celibate and really knew nothing about marriage. She said that she had read in the papers put out by the Catholic church that they had out-bred the protestants in Boston and other cities and speculated that their reasoning for being against birth control was because they wanted more Catholics, which would give the church more power. She denied having said that she believed that it should be illegal for the clergy of any religion to forbid birth control.

Toward the end of the interview, Mike Wallace asked her if she believed that sin existed, She said that "the greatest sin in the world was bringing children into the world that had diseases from their parents, that had no chance in the world, to be a human being, delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things, just marked when they are born. That to me is the greatest sin people can commit."

(http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/sanger_margaret_t.htmlhttp://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/sanger_margaret_t.html)

But whether or not she admitted to any negative agenda on television, she has been quoted as saying things that are thinly veiled racism. Speaking about eugenics, she said, "On it's negative side it shows us we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all--that the wealth of individuals and of states is being diverted from the development and the progress of human expression and civilization."(Margaret Sanger, 1922)

As I stated before, it was during the early 20th century that eugenicists began to use code words and phrases, such as feeble-mindedness, and quality of life, meaning that under classes had no quality of life, so would be better off not being born. They were not talking about eliminating poverty, but eliminating those who live in impoverished conditions.

In the paper that the Birth Control League put out called Birth Control Review, Walter Terpenning had this to say, in 1932, "As among whites, there are cases of degenerate Negroes whose propagation will be checked only by sterilization or institutionalization, but the practice of birth control among the majority of colored people would probably be more eugenic than among their white compatriots. The dissemination of the information of birth control should have begun with this class rather than with the upper social and economic classes of white citizens."

While the worst of that statement is directed at black people, he is also referring to eugenics being applied to lower class whites.

Newell L. Sims also said in the Birth Control Review in 1932, "In virtually every community where Negroes dwell one finds them in fat times and lean alike contributing a disproportionate number to the rolls of dependents and delinquents. They make excessive demands on the white man's charity and overtax his patience with the delinquencies."

T. Lothrop Stoddard was a member of the American Eugenics Society, Director of The American Birth Control League and wrote for the Birth Control Review. He wrote a book called The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy. The book The Dragon And The Cross says that he was the Exalted Cyclops of the Massachusetts chapter of the KKK.

"Non-white races must be excluded from America...The red and black races if left to themselves revert to a savage or semi-savage state in a short time."(Lothrop Stoddard)

He supposedly met personally with Heinrich Himler and Adolf Hitler on 19 December 1939, during a four month visit to Germany. When Halle University began to teach courses on race, Doctor Kuertner, told students that the course followed "American pathfinders Madison Grant and Lathrop Stoddard."

Stoddard wrote in his book The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy, "the white race divides into three main sub-species--the Nordics, the Alpines, and the Mediterraneans. All three are good stocks, ranking in genetic worth well above the various colored races. However, there seems to be no question that the Nordic is far and away the most valuable type..."

What you need to take from that statement is that whites can be racists against other classes of whites. Eugenics is not just a problem for persons of color. If they succeed at eliminating colored people, they will learn from the process, and be more practiced and efficient at eliminating whomever they deem to be the next group in their way.

As you can see, Margaret Sanger, may not have been willing to say what her true racist opinions were when she was interviewed by Mike Wallace, but she was aligned with men who had no qualms about it. She has claimed that the Birth Control League was never associated with eugenics. But at least until 1956, The American Eugenics Society listed her as a member. Many of the members of either group were members of both groups. She even at one point proposed merging both groups, or at least combining their publications, but the members of the American Eugenics Society were against it.

She is known to have made earlier statements though that give insight into her true leanings. "The eugenic and civilization value of birth control is becoming apparent to the enlightened and the intelligent...the campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical in ideal with the final aim of eugenics."(Margaret Sanger, 1921)

She wrote a letter to Catherine Dexter McCormick, "I consider that the world and almost our civilization for the next twenty-five years, is going to depend upon a simple, cheap, safe contraceptive to be used in poverty stricken slums, jungles, and among the most ignorant people. Even this will not be sufficient, because I believe that now, immediately, there should be national sterilization for certain dysgenic types of our population who are being encouraged to breed and would die out were the government not feeding them."(Margaret Sanger,1950) Catherine McCormick was heiress to the International Harvester fortune, and funded the development of the birth control pill.

In 1926, according to her autobiography she gave a speech at a KKK meeting, in Silver Lake, New Jersey, afterward, she was invited by twelve other KKK chapters to give speeches for them.

In 1927 she organized the World Population Conference in Geneva Switzerland, which was covered in Birth Control Review. Dr. Eugen Fischer attended the conference. If you will remember he worked for the Nazis.

Harry Laughlin from the Eugenics Society was also a member of the Birth Control League. He had some pretty diabolical opinions. "Eugenical sterilization is for the one purpose of preventing reproduction of persons who according to the known facts of heredity, in high probability, produce degenerate offspring. Several of the eugenical sterilization statutes provide for sterilization for the "benefit of the individual and for the good of society" No sterilization law is needed for providing for sterilization for the therapeutic benefit of the individual. Existing surgical laws amply cover operations which incidentally might cause sexual sterility."

What he is saying is that according to the law a doctor can perform an operation which has the added benefit of sterilization. He seems to be saying that doctors could slide this procedure by the law by saying the surgery was for something else. But most likely he also meant that the surgery could be snuck by the patient as well. In fact, this actually happened in some instances. Young girls were told that they needed appendectomies and while the doctors had them on the table, they also sterilized them.

Ernst Ruden was President of The International Federation of Eugenics in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, which was also funded by the Carnegie Foundation. He was a German and in Birth Control Review, he called for racial purity in 1933. He wrote the eugenics laws for the Nazis. He helped in the round up and sterilization of 600 bi-racial people in Germany who were reportedly fathered by black men. The were referred to as Rheinland Bastards. After the war, he was identified as one of the doctors who experimented on the prisoners in the camps.

The Nazis may have gotten their idea for concentration camps from Americans. In 1932, Margaret Sanger called for the US government to set up farms and camps for the poor, illiterate, unemployable, morons, defectives and epileptics would be segregated from the rest of society. They should be forcibly kept there until they developed better moral conduct.

In Indiana they actually set up some of these camps, where they could send people who were feeble minded. The state could label as feeble-minded, someone who was shiftless, poor, or did not do well in school or had insufficient moral judgement. There are people who are not black who could be defined that way now.

In the 1920's Massachusetts a Eugenics Project proposed sterilization of girls who were defective. i.e. unwed mothers, poor, or a non specific category of socially undesirable. Young teenage boys could be castrated for having signs of kleptomania, or something called solitary behavior.

Hitler wrote, in 1934 a letter to compliment Leon Whitney, Executive Secretary of the American Eugenics Society, for a book he wrote on sterilization. His book was called, The Case For Sterilization. He wrote that the "If we could purge the country of our typical slum elements in city and country alike, what harm would be done" Why would it not be well worth while to include them in the group whom we are weeding out of the population garden? " His writings were also published in the Birth Control Review. Obviously, he was indicating that the list of undesirable people should be expanded to poor whites. He also wrote that, "...we should probably be disposing of the lowest fourth of our population,,, and that they were "too stupid to comprehend or carry out the simple methods of contraception...we should hardly miss them."

The President of the American Eugenics Society, Frederick Osborn, stated that "Eugenics goals are most likely attained under a name other than eugenics."

In 1942 due to negative associations with the Nazi's, The American Birth Control League, changed it's name to Planned Parenthood. The were seeking to distance themselves from terms like "population control" and "eugenics." The agenda didn't change, however.

In 1929, Samuel Holmes, American Birth Control League, stated that mandatory birth control should be used as a tool to eliminate the menace to the white race, i.e the increase in Negro population. He proposed that a quota system be instituted by the government, which would determine who had the right to have children, and determined by race.

1936, Julian Huxley, stated that genetically inferior classes could be made to have fewer children if they were denied easy access to welfare. He also thought that medical care should be restricted to those classes of people so that fewer of their children would survive. People who were unemployed for too long should be forcibly sterilized. He received honors from Planned Parenthood and spoke at one of their conventions.

"We hope the restraint to population growth can come about through voluntary means. But if it does not, involuntary methods will be used."(Dr. Donald Menkler, 1972, President of the American Association of Planned Parenthood Physicians, and member of Board of Directors, Planned Parenthood Federation of America)

Garrett Hardin received the highest national award from Planned Parenthood in 1980. He was a Professor at UC. He called it insanity to rely on voluntarism to control population. He was a member of the American Eugenicists Society. He said that parents should be willing to give up their right to breed for the betterment of society.

Gunnar Merdal or Myrdal, wrote a book called, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem In Modern Democracy. He had a staff of 75 assistants,while writing this book, who were paid by the Carnegie Foundation. He and his wife also received money from the Kennedy Foundation and were connected with Swedish eugenics and the forcible sterilization of 66,000 people. Sweden was his and his wife's Alva's native country. A few quotes from the book, " There were about 17 times as many Negroes in the Unites States in 1940 as there were in 1790, when the first census was taken, but in the same period the

white population increased 37 times (Figure 1). Negroes were 19.3 per cent of the American population in 1790, but only 9.8 percent in 1940. (Chapter 7, pg.1) "Commonly it is considered a great misfortune to America that Negro slaves were ever imported. The presence of Negros in America is usually considered as a "plight" of the nation, and particularly of the South."(chapter 7, pg. 167) "All white Americans agree that, if the Negro is to be eliminated, he must be eliminated slowly so as to not hurt any living individual Negroes."(chapter 7, pg. 168") "The only way possible of decreasing Negro population is by means of controlling fertility."(pg. 170) "...birth control facilities could be extended relatively more to Negroes than to whites, since Negroes are more concentrated in the lower income and education classes..."(chapter 7, pg. 176)

The first quote shows that either they had already been fairly successful at lowering the growth rate of the Negro population, or that it was really the whites who were overpopulating.

Eventually, the eugenicists developed the birth control pill and other forms of contraception that were more acceptable to some than sterilization had been.

"There is a campaign to bombard the poor with pills and potions. If this movement continues, we soon may be accused of fighting poverty by eliminating the poor and overcoming hunger by removing the hungry." (Hugh Carey, Congressman, New York, 1966)

"Contraceptives will become a form of drug warfare against the helpless in this nation. Those whom we could not get rid of in the rice paddies of Viet-Nam we now propose to exterminate if necessary, eliminate if possible, in the OB wards and gynecology clinics of our urban hospitals." (Jesse Jackson, 1971)

"Under the cover of an alleged campaign to 'alleviate poverty,' white supremacist Americans and their dupes are pushing an all-out drive to put rigid birth control measures into every black home. No such drive exists within the white American world."(Black Unity Party, 1068)

"Birth control and sterilization in the wrong hands would be more deadly to Negroes than all the tanks, riot guns, cattle prods, billy clubs and shackles we have overcome in the past." (Dr Leroy Swift, OB/GYN, 1968)

"Black people are the target of birth control not because the ruling politicians like them and care about their economic equality, but because they had them and can no longer use them in plantations and other cheap-labor conditions." (Muhammad Speaks, Black Muslim Newspaper, 1970)

In 1958 black people in the Caribbean began to protest birth control that was targeted at blacks. At the same time, whites were being encouraged to have children.

Newspapers have reported that in South Africa, under Apartheid, birth control was one of the main chief weapons being used against blacks.

Once they figured out that birth control was being used to eliminate overpopulation of Blacks, African American people began to resist. So eugenicists began to call for chemicals to be added to the water supply of urban areas. In 1969, it was considered during a UN meeting. If the plan had been implemented, couples would have to apply to the government to become parents, and they would be given an antidote to the chemicals that had been added to their food and water.

In a letter to Clarence Gamble from 1939, Margaret Sanger wrote, "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 to any of their more rebellious members." He was an heir to the Proctor and Gamble fortune and a backer financially of Margaret Sanger. He himself said, "For every one man or woman who has been sterilized, there are 40 others who can continue to pour defective genes into the State's blood..."

Clarence Gamble was the heir to the Proctor and Gamble fortune, and he founded Pathfinder International in 1957. This organization focuses on reproductive health, family planning, HIV/AIDS prevention and care. Pathfinder operates family planning and reproductive health programs in more than 25 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America In 1996, Pathfinder received the UN Population Award. In 1928, he opened a women's clinic in Cincinnati, OH. He worked closely with Margaret Sanger, in order to gain acceptance of the birth control movement in the United States. In addition to being a millionaire, he was a Harvard trained doctor. During the 1930's, he was president and delegate-at-large of the Pennsylvania Birth Control Federation; state delegate, one of five vice-presidents, and member of the Executive Committee of the Board of the American Birth Control League; medical field director of Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau; and treasurer and member of the board of Robert Dickinson’s National Committee on Maternal Health.

They began to recruit ministers to push the Planned Parenthood agenda and gave them sermons to preach. They did things like hold contests for the minister who could write the best pro-eugenics sermon.