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Planned Parenthood now denouncing Margaret Sanger — a bit late maybe

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Maybe she’s like an old queen bee who, having done her work, gets killed or kicked out:

Black pro-life leaders condemned Planned Parenthood’s “hollow” denunciation of Margaret Sanger after Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson distanced the organization from Sanger’s “association with white supremacist groups and eugenics.”

Human Coalition vice president Benjamin Watson, a former NFL athlete, said Sunday that Planned Parenthood’s denunciation of its founder rang “hollow” in light of the organization’s current work…

“I am glad that Alexis McGill Johnson is finally acknowledging what many black leaders have said for decades — Margaret Sanger harbored racist and eugenicist views,” Human Coalition Action Executive Director Rev. Dean Nelson said in a statement. “The problem with Margaret Sanger is more than just her ‘association’ with white supremacist groups and eugenics, it’s the implementation of those views in creating the largest abortion provider in America targeting people of color.”

Mary Margaret Olohan, “Planned Parenthood’s Denunciation of Founder Rings ‘Hollow’ to These Black Pro-Life Leaders” at The Stream

Some relevant facts about Planned Parenthood and Black Americans:

“According to recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) statistics, while African-Americans constitute 32.2 percent of Georgia’s population, 62.4 percent of abortions in Georgia are performed on African-American women. By contrast, whites constitute 60.8 percent of the Georgia population, but only 24.7 percent of abortions were performed on white women. Even pro-abortion groups like the Guttmacher Institute admit that “black women are more than 5 times as likely as white women to have an abortion.” – Arthur Goldberg, “Abortion’s Devastating Impact Upon Black Americans” at Witherspoon Institute (February 11, 2019)

Abortion is also made easy for Black American women: “Eighty percent of Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinics are within easy walking distance of minority neighborhoods and 60 percent are in minority zip codes.” – Carol M. Swain, First Things, (February 5, 2021)

News, “Is there bias in terms of which babies are aborted?” at Mind Matters News

Some, like Politico’s Bill Scher, hope to explain it away using “isms”/“-ists”:

He waves off her embrace of eugenics (quoting historian Thomas C. Leonard) because it was “mainstream; it was popular to the point of faddishness; it was supported by leading figures in the still-emerging science of genetics; it appealed to an extraordinary range of political ideologies, not least to the progressives.” So, yes she was “ableist,” but not racist!

Wesley J. Smith, “Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger Boosted Racism by Embracing Racists” at National Review

Such defenses are not consistent with the things Sanger actually said and did. But never mind. In a Woke environment, Sanger’s guilt or innocent will not be decided on conventional grounds anyway. The question is, would it be better for Woke politics to dump or defend her? Dump won, it seems.

Smith puts it like this: “Sanger enabled racists. Sanger gave them respectability. Sanger befriended them. Sanger viewed them as valued colleagues. Her wicked social Darwinism would have had a devastating and disproportionate impact on minority communities.”

The situation is strikingly similar to what we find with Darwin’s racism. Darwin and his colleagues and followers made racism “scientific” and, in turn, they have always been largely exempted from the current pushback. But now, if it’s not working for Sanger, maybe the magic dust on others is also wearing thin…

Note: Cancel Culture is basically fascism, tweeted. But the way Darwinism and Social Darwinism sponsored racism — because in that scheme of things, someone always needs to be the lesser human — should have been dealt with a long time ago. There are certainly plenty of other reasons for doubting Darwin and denouncing Sanger today.

See also: American Humanist Association underbuses Richard Dawkins. As a reader puts it: From anti-God hero to trans-racist zero… But the thing is, who cares about the American Humanist Association without people like Dawkins?

Comments
So is Planned Parenthood going to denounce abortion too? Just kidding.EDTA
April 28, 2021
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Margaret Sanger never stopped believing in sterilization. She had nothing but high praise for the eugenicist courts set up to force sterilization. She dislike abortion, since abortion was not permanent. She was one of the reasons California law had eugenics and forced sterilization, which the Nazis, when looking at eugenicists laws of other countries and states to find something they could use to justify their actions, used the California law as their guide. Even after the horrors of the Nazis were known, Sanger never stopped being a eugenicist. Hillary Clinton received the Margaret Sanger Award, the highest award given by Planned Parenthood, in 2009. She had glowing praise for Sanger when she received it. The Washington Examiner has a quote from when she received the award: Now, I have to tell you that it was a great privilege when I was told that I would receive this award. I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision ... And when I think about what she did all those years ago in Brooklyn, taking on archetypes, taking on attitudes and accusations flowing from all directions, I am really in awe of her. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/sec-clinton-stands-by-her-praise-of-eugenicist-margaret-sanger Sanger's vision was the advancement of eugenics, which included sterilization and segregation.BobRyan
April 28, 2021
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Seversky It has nothing to do with acknowledging limitations of people of the past, but the complete rewriting of history. Lincoln is no longer revered as the man who fought to get the 13th Amendment passed, which ended slavery in the United States, because Wokeness has nothing to do with what happened, but perceived to have happened. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Lincoln-statue-at-SF-City-Hall-defaced-amid-15832280.php https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/nov/29/spokanes-lincoln-statue-vandalism-is-getting-inter/ https://idahonews.com/news/local/boises-seated-lincoln-statue-vandalized-with-paint-feces-and-signs It isn't just in America where abolitionists who managed to end slavery are attacked. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/monument-honoring-abolition-slavery-vandalized-france-71198953 https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/slave-abolition-statue-martiniqueBobRyan
April 28, 2021
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On a related note, I once overheard a conversation between a couple of people who were on the opposite sides of the abortion issue. One was a pro-life-no-matter-what type and the other was a pro-abortion-rights-no-matter-what type. The conversation went something like this: Pro-lifer: I used to be against all abortion, but I've changed my mind. Black minorities in the inner cities deserve access to abortion as part of a reparations deal. I have decided they deserve special privileges. In fact, I'll will happy to help pay for it. But I am against anyone else having access to abortion. Consider this part of a reparations deal. Pro-abortist: Racist!!! What are you trying to do, eliminate black people?!!! I'm not kidding.Karen McMannus
April 28, 2021
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If "wokeness" means that we are becoming more mature as a culture, that we are able to accept iconic figures as just human beings not superheroes, then that is all to the good. By all means evaluate the life and works of Margaret Sanger or Charles Darwin as a whole, weigh their good works against their views and behaviors that we now find objectionable and see how they balance out. Also be aware that in fairness no one or no group should be immune to such appraisals. Otherwise, it's not about honesty and truth, it's just another way of making yourself feel good by scoring points against your perceived opponents or enemies. In other words, wokeness is just about virtue-signaling.Seversky
April 27, 2021
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