They said it.
Margaret Sanger was discussing “relief”, i.e. charity towards the poor.
“Relief, by its very nature is not conservation [of the race]. It may serve a destructive purpose, first by keeping alive the most unfit and encouraging them by federal, state and local aid to multiply their kind.”
Margaret Sanger “Human Conservation and Birth Control” address delivered at Conference on Conservation and Development of Human Resources, Washington DC, March 3, 1938, MSP–SS, p 5
Share on FacebookFrom Margaret Sanger:
“Assuming that God does want an increasing number of worshipers of the Catholic faith, does he also want an increasing number of feebleminded, insane, criminal, and diseased worshipers? That is unavoidable if the Pope is obeyed, because, as we shall see, he forbids every single method of birth control except continence, a method which the feebleminded, insane, and criminal will not use….
Catholic doctrine is illogical, not in accord with science, and definitely against social welfare and race improvement.”
Margaret Sanger “My Answer to the Pope on Birth Control” three page report, published by the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control, “The Pope’s Position on Birth Control” The Nation January 27, 1932
Share on FacebookIn this passage, Margaret Sanger speaks out against charity, which she calls “relief”:
“Relief, by its very nature is not conservation [of the race]. It may serve a destructive purpose, first by keeping alive the most unfit and encouraging them by federal, state and local aid to multiply their kind.”
Margaret Sanger “Human Conservation and Birth Control” address delivered at Conference on Conservation and Development of Human Resources, Washington DC, March 3, 1938, MSP–SS, p 5
Her belief was that the “unfit” i.e. the poor and disabled, should be allowed to die off for the betterment of the human race.
Share on FacebookFrom Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood:
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| Margaret Sanger “When Should A Woman Avoid Having Children?” Birth Control Review, Nov. 1918, 6-7 |
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, writes about “defectives” and the “unfit”:
“The most serious charge that can be brought against modern “benevolence” is that it encouraged the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents, and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression. Philanthropy is a gesture characteristic of modern business lavishing upon the unfit the profits extorted from the community at large. Looked at impartially, this compensatory generosity is in its final effect probably more dangerous, more dysgenic, more blighting than the initial practice of profiteering . . .”
Margaret Sanger The Pivot of Civilization (Oxford/New York: Pergamon Press, 1922) 123
Share on FacebookPlanned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger said:
“The lack of balance between the birth rate of the “unfit” and the “fit,” admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. The example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken, should not be held up for emulation…. On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective. Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon American society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupid, cruel sentimentalism.”
Margaret Sanger The Pivot of Civilization (Oxford/New York: Pergamon Press, 1922) 25
Share on FacebookMargaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood:
“The most merciful thing a large family can do for one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Margaret Sanger Women and the New Race (New York: Truth Publishing, 1920) 63
Share on FacebookMargaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood:
“Woman’s passivity under the burden of her disastrous task [to have children] was almost altogether that of ignorant resignation. She knew virtually nothing about her reproductive nature and less about the consequences of her excessive childbearing. It is true that, obeying the inner urge of their natures, some women revolted, they even went to the extreme of infanticide and abortion. Usually, their revolts were not general enough. They fought as individuals, not as a mass. In the mass they sank back into blind and hopeless subjection. They went on breeding with staggering rapidity those numberless, undesired children who became the clogs and the destroyers of civilization.”
Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race, (New York: Brentano’s, 1920)
Sanger was very anti-child and anti-motherhood.
Share on FacebookPro-Choice feminist SE Smith is describing the racist motives of the early pro-choice movement:
“While members of the reproductive rights movement are often deeply uncomfortable with discussing, let alone confronting, the origins of the movement, this is an important and necessary part of fighting for reproductive rights for all… The unfortunate truth is that many of the early fighters for access to reproductive rights did so for less-than-perfect reasons; Margaret Sanger, for example, held up as an icon of birth control, strongly believed in eugenics.
In her “Morality and Birth Control” speech (1918), Sanger stated that “all of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class.” Lest you think this was a one-time issue, she noted in a speech in 1920 that “[Birth control] sweeps the diseased, the weakling and the feebleminded to the wall with her great gestures that clean the world for the fit and the strong.” She was at it again in Birth Control Review in 1921 with “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda”: “On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to discourage the open fertility of the mentally and physically defective.”
Sanger felt that poor people, disabled persons, and people of color should not reproduce, and she stated so quite openly. Her advocacy for birth control was rooted in part in a desire to advance a eugenic agenda…
It’s deeply saddening that the origins of the movement lie in eugenics and an attempt to control fertility, not to promote bodily autonomy….
Members of minority groups have good reason to fear the reproductive rights movement, to be concerned by some of its rhetoric, and to feel left out of discussions.…
When I bring these issues up, I commonly encounter significant anger, especially from leaders of the reproductive rights movement who are disconcerted by discussions like this one. Their reactions are often defensive, and are focused on painting the movement in a better light by attempting to negate what I’ve just said.”
SE Smith “Justice for All” in Kim Wyatt, Sari Botton Get Out Of My Crotch: 21 Writers Respond to America’s War on Women’s Rights and Reproductive Health (South Lake Tahoe, California: Cherry Bomb Books, 2012) Kindle edition
Share on FacebookDid Margaret Sanger endorse abortion? Brian E Fisher, in his book Abortion: The Ultimate Exploitation of Women. posits that Sanger supported abortion but toned down her rhetoric later in her life when colleagues convinced her that supporting abortion would hurt her cause for birth control.
An example of a place where Margaret Sanger endorsed abortion:
“When once one has been convinced that an abortion is necessary, do not indulge in medicines of any kind. They only weaken the system, and require a much greater length of time to recuperate. Never allow a pregnancy to run over a month. If you are going to have an abortion, make up your mind to do it in the first stages, and have it done.”
Margaret Sanger Family Limitation, pamphlet, 1914, 5
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