On Planned Parenthood

It has been awhile since I've posted on here. Here is an article I wrote for SOAR(Students Organized for An American Revival). It can be viewed here at http://www.constitutionalteens.org/articles/our-articles/on-planned-parent%20/

Once upon a time there originated an idea. This idea started when people started believing that they are not made in the Image of God and started believing they are more like the animals, not being accountable to God for his actions. The intellectuals of the Enlightenment era worked to eliminate God and his redeeming work through Jesus Christ out of the story of man (or history). The ideas were that there was a need to get rid of weak and unwanted people. This is where Planned Parenthood came in. Because Planned Parenthood is the leading provider of abortions today, it is important that there is an examination of its origins.

To lay the foundation for the origins of Planned Parenthood, it would be a good idea to look at the historical background of what formed the founders’ ideas. From the 1600s-1800 was a time period known as the enlightenment. It was during this time that philosophies such as deism, empiricism (Belief that all knowledge comes by the senses), and the exaltation of reason over Scripture developed. A few ideas that arose from this era were Malthusian and social Darwinism. Malthusian was the concept that population was grown exponentially while food was grown arithmetically. Thus, poverty and hunger were just evidences of an overpopulation problem. What was the solution? Thomas Malthus wrote, “Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns, we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlement in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and restrain those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders.”1 What the followers of Malthus believed was that those deemed “unfit” were to be eliminated. On the other hand there was social Darwinism. In 1859, Charles Darwin wrote a book called Origin of Species which laid the foundation for the Darwinian Revolution. A man named Herbert Spencer applied Darwin’s principles to every area of life including politics and economics. It was he, not Darwin, who coined the term “Survival of the fittest.” It is by natural selection and survival of the fittest that the best species survive. All other species die. To pave the way for “proper evolution”, people were encouraged to not help the poor, eliminate charity, and take out the ‘human weeds’. Adolf Hitler applied this idea to Nazi Germany, the leaders of the Former Soviet Union did this, and the sterilization/eugenics movement was based on this.

How were ideas connected with Planned Parenthood? The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, clearly embraced the ideas of Darwinism and Malthusian. Author George Grant wrote, “She was thoroughly convinced that the ‘inferior races’ were in fact ‘human weeds’ and a ‘menace to civilization.’ She believed that ‘social regeneration’ would only be possible as the ‘sinister forces of the hoards of irresponsibility and imbecility’ were repulsed. She accepted the Malthusian notion that organized Christian charity to ethnic minorities and the poor were a ‘symptom of a malignant social disease’ because it encouraged the prolificacy of ‘defective, delinquents, and dependents.’” 2 David Noebel, a leading expert in Christian worldview, has stated that Sanger’s book, Pivots of Civilization, was one of the first to advocate Malthusian and eugenics.3 She called for the elimination of “human weeds” and the sterilization of those that are deemed “genetically inferior”. According to the Planned Parenthood site, Sanger’s organization “provides[d] contraceptive advice to poor, immigrant women, some of whom line up hours before the doors open.”4 Do you see who they were targeting? They were targeting poor immigrant minorities who were the source of humanity’s problems. It was the minorities such as ‘negroes’, the poor, the handicaps, and those with large families that were considered weeds. They were the ones who put an unnecessary burden on society. These people were an “inferior races”. Sanger appeared to be angry towards large families. She wrote in her book, Women and the New Race, that “Many, perhaps, will think it idle to go farther in demonstrating the immorality of large families, but since there is still an abundance of proof at hand, it may be offered for the sake of those who find difficulty in adjusting old-fashioned ideas to the facts. The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”5 This was population control in its finest. This was central to her philosophy, this was central to Planned Parenthood.

How does Planned Parenthood play out in today’s world? In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the practice of abortion Constitutional under the 14th Amendment. How did this happen? Planned Parenthood has been involved in this from the very beginning. As the result of the rise of the feminist movement within the past century, many women have argued for “equal” social status with men. The feminists were the ones who argued for women wanting to be in the military. The feminists were the ones who gave up their life of being a stay-at-home wife and mother to climb the corporate ladder. It was they who were the ones who advocated for birth control and abortion. One feminist writer even said that “a housewife is an illegitimate profession…the choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family maker is a choice that shouldn’t be”6Margaret Sanger was one of the original feminists as shown with her advocacy of birth control. Planned Parenthood from the beginning was a champion for “Women’s rights”. Besides radical feminism, population control is in the works in the modern day world. In China, there is a brutal one-child only policy that is in affect there. This country has many problems including “massive forced abortions, sterilizations and other abuses coming as a result of its one-child policy.”7 Planned Parenthood has stated that China’s policy is a model of efficiency for the rest of the world. Planned Parenthood has from the beginning targeted minorities; a lot of them have been deemed “unfit” and needed to be eliminated. Recently a New York Times article has reported that the abortion rate in New York City for African-Americans is at an alarming sixty percent.8 What this means is that more babies from African-American families are being aborted than they are being born. In case you did not know, the majority of abortion clinics are located in minority communities.9 What does this have to say about Sanger and her intention to eliminate “human weeds” and the unfit? In the 1930s, Margaret Sanger started something called the “Negro Project” whose original purpose was to reduce the birth of African-American children.10 Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has stated that “If the Dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to live, our babies must live. Our mothers must choose life. If we refuse to answer the cry of mercy from the unborn, and ignore the suffering of the mothers, then we are signing our own death warrants.”11 The ideas that minorities are unwanted simply needs to stop. It has been demonstrated throughout history how this type of thinking has been carried out. Hitler carried it out and has killed over six million people doing so. Planned Parenthood carries it out today and kills tens of millions of babies every year doing so. The original intentions of Planned Parenthood have been the goals of this group since the very beginning and they continue to the present.

In closing, when God is eliminated from the hearts and minds of man, he will come up with many bizarre ideas that can devastate the lives of millions. Malthusian and Darwinian are perfect examples of such thinking. Abortion is part of that thinking. Instead of being fruitful and reproducing, the Darwinist mandate is “Be the strongest and kill the weakest.” Abortion is really just killing unwanted babies. May we pray that this massacre can be exposed and stopped at once. If man believes he is not made in the image of God, then he thinks he does not have to be accountable to God for his actions.

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1. Cited in George Grant’s Third Time Around: A History of the Pro-Life Movement from the First Century to the Present. Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Wyatt, 1991. Print. 122

2. ibid.123

3. Noebel, David. “Margaret Sanger: Founder of Planned Parenthood and Heroine of the Secular Humanists.” Worldview Weekend. N.d. Web. 17 Jan 2011. http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/print.php?&ArticleID=939

4. http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/history-and-successes.htm

5. Black, Edwin. War Against The Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign To Create A Master Race. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 2004. Print. 127

6. quoted in David Kupelian’s The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell us Corruption Disguised As Freedom.Nashville: Cumberland House Publishing, 2005. Print. 112.

7.Ertelt, Steve. “President Hu Denies China has Forced Abortion Policy.” LifeNews.com. 20 Jan 2011. Web. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/01/20/president-hu-denies-china-has-forced-abortion-policy/

8. Vitello, George. “Religious Leaders Call for New Efforts to Lower the City’s Abortion Rate.” New York Times. 16 Jan 2011

9. http://www.abort73.com/abortion/abortion_and_race/

10. Piper, John. When Abortion is Racism. 21 Jan 2007. Web. http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/when-is-abortion-racism

11. ibid.