Abortion: Eugenic's Other Holocaust

Of all the social issues, I am the most passionate about abortion. With 1.5 million lives being aborted every year in America and approx. 50 million since 1973, I would consider it odd for one not to have a strong opinion on such an issue. Imagine for every two babies born in the U.S., another dies in an abortion. Well, statistics show that is exactly what is happening. However, abortion is not just an American problem ~ 42 million abortions take place worldwide every year. But for this post, I will focus on abortion in the United States.

Many arguments are proposed when countering abortion opposition. Revolved around "women's rights" and "women's choice" is the argument that if abortion is illegal than there will be no protection for women's health. However, if we look at the statistics, it is apparent that it is not women's health that they are trying to protect. Using one of the more liberal studies I found, only 3% of abortions are due to the protection of the mother's health (though many "protections" are debatable). Another 1% are the result of rape or incest, and yet another 1% are the result of fetal abnormalities (note that 90% of Downs Syndrome babies are aborted). That leaves 95% of abortions in the United States as nothing more than a means of birth control. Moreover, even by today's methods, abortion is a risky and unhealthy procedure. It is not uncommon for post-abortive women to have problems such as infertility, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages when a pregnancy is desired. Miscarriages happen at a rate of 35% in women who have had an abortion, and they are 5x more likely to experience an ectopic pregnancy than a woman who has not had an abortion. Furthermore, an article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published research by Dr. Janet Daling showing that there is a 50% increase of breast cancer in women under 45 years old who have had an abortion. Clearly, these are not health benefits for any woman.

Another pro-abortion proposition states that an embryo or fetus is not really a baby, but a clump of cells, uncharacteristic of a human. But like in all species, humans go through stages of development, inside and outside the womb, until death. This is the natural progression of life. Left to develop, a human baby will be born to a woman. She will not give birth to a calf, fawn or rock. 18 days after conception, the child has a heartbeat. At 6 weeks, brain waves can be measured. At 8 weeks, the stomach, kidneys, and liver are functioning and the baby has formed unique fingerprints. And at 9 weeks, the fetus can feel pain. 700,000 babies are aborted each year that have developed beyond 9 weeks.

Now that we have established that an abortion is rarely a life-saving measure, is anything but healthy(for any party), and that an embryo contains everything necessary for all stages of human development, abortion is truly a matter of women's choice and women's rights. Women have the legal choice and have the legal right ~ although abortion is anything but liberating. It is elevating one's rights at the expense of another. It is killing the weak to promote the strong. It is murdering the inconvenient for the sake of self-betterment. It is valuing one's life above another. It is eugenics.

Planned Parenthood prides itself on its "efforts" to reduce teen pregnancy and STDs, including the spread of HIV, by the distribution and promotion of birth control. But with teen birth rates up for the second year in a row and 26% of young women between the ages of 14-19 years old infected with an STD (48% among young black women), I think it's safe to say that Planned Parenthood has not been successful in its "efforts". What Planned Parenthood has been successful at, however, is reducing the number of live births, especially within the African American and Hispanic communities. With African Americans making up 32% of abortions, but only 13% of the population, statistics are showing that more African Americans are dying each year than are being born ~ with crime, abortion, and natural causes all factored into the death rate. And with most facilities centered in inner cities, Planned Parenthood is the number one provider of abortions in America. So how did this happen?

Planned Parenthood grew out of the eugenics movement and was founded by a woman named Margaret Sanger. Sanger was born in New York in 1879 and died in a nursing home in 1966. She was born into a large family, to an Irish father and a Catholic mother. Her childhood was extremely influential in constructing her adult worldview, and the actions that manifested from that view. She believed the quality of members of a family were dependent upon the quantity. She believed that the "unfit" produced more children than the "fit"~ thus, perpetuating "unwanted" and "undesirable" traits and straining economic conditions. In The Pivot of Civilization, Margaret Sanger wrote: "Those least fit to carry on the race are increasing most rapidly... funds that should be used to raise the standard of our civilization are diverted to maintenance of those who should never have been born". Likewise, in Woman and the New Race written by Margaret Sanger, she wrote: "The most merciful thing a large family can do for one of its infant members is to kill it". Her view of Catholics and marriage were similarly offensive. She saw a correlation between the religious and large families, and believed the sacredness of marriage promoted the procreation of "undesirables". In David Kennedy's Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger, Kennedy addresses Sanger's expressed belief that a woman's physical satisfaction was more important than any marriage vow and, in Sanger's own words, that "the marriage bed is the most degenerating influence in the social order".

Margaret Sanger was a member of the Socialist Party, the American Eugenics Society (1926-1973), and the English Eugenics Society (changed to the Society for the Study of Social Biology in 1973). She was a leading advocate for birth control, opening her first clinic in 1916, which was shut down shortly thereafter. In 1917, she became editor for the Birth Control Review, a publication that featured many articles on eugenics, such as "Birth Control: The True Eugenics" included in the August 1928 edition. In the April 1932 publication, Sanger spoke of her "Plan for Peace" in which she expressed belief that couples should be required to submit an application to have a child ~ the proposed American Baby Code.

In 1921, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League (ABCL). In 1939, ABCL merged with similar interest groups and formed the Birth Control Federation of America. By 1942, amidst mass slaughters in Germany, Margaret Sanger decided it wise to take the advice of a friend and colleague to drop the "Birth Control" from the Birth Control Federation of America and replace it with the more embracing title of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

I think it is important to mention the significance the Nazi regime had on the American people in relation to the eugenics movement and those sympathetic to Sanger's agenda. In pre-Hitler years, eugenics did not carry the negative connotations it did later on, so conscious race building was more easily implemented by force and the threat of public and moral opposition was not as strong. Yet when the Nazi's eugenic horrors surfaced, the American people were not so taken with eugenics, and the movement realized that its focus had to rely on "voluntary unconscious selection" through deception and manipulation.

When Planned Parenthood was still the Birth Control Federation of America, most of its functions were already in place. It appears the change was in name only. When the Birth Control Federation of America was formed, Dr. Clarence J. Gamble (of Proctor and Gamble) was appointed as BCFA regional director of the South. Sanger was familiar with Gamble because he had served in her American Birth Control League. Aware of the obstacles in persuading the "unfit" to control their birth rates, Gamble drafted the Negro Project in November 1939. The Project proposed the placing of black leaders, such as ministers, in positions as to influence the black population. According to documents from the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in Massachusetts and pointed out in Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Rights: A Social History of Birth Control in America, Margaret Sanger wrote a letter to Dr. Gamble in December 1939 concerning her thoughts and intentions on the Negro Project. In the letter, Sanger writes: "We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal... We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man that can straighten that idea out if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members". After soliciting black ministers, it appears the strategy worked. By 1949, virtually all black leaders ~ social, religious, professional, and academic ~ had endorsed Planned Parenthood.

Today Planned Parenthood has 129 affiliates, operates 875 centers, and serves 5 million women a year in the United States. Planned Parenthood promotes all forms of birth control, but I believe the invention of the modern day birth control pill was a pivoting point in cultural history. Since the invention of the modern-day birth control pill by Carl Djerassi in the 1950's (with widespread public access in the 1960's), many cultural attitudes have undeniably changed in the U.S. I do not believe that I would be going out on a limb to suggest that the birth control pill not only made its contribution to the cultural shift, but also to the rise in pregnancy and STD rates. Although debatable, I believe the evil does not lie within the birth control pill itself, but in its broader implications. I do believe that the Pill and other forms of birth control that prohibit conception are beneficial to marriages and adults in commited relationships, and that using and supporting birth control does not make someone eugenic. It is the carefree attitude about sex that has come from the Pill that is discouraging to me ~ and its widespread use among children. We see an accepted desire for self-gratification ~ masked as empowerment and liberation. And this self-gratification discourages the natural human desire to bond in ways that result in mutual respect, responsibility, care, trust, romance, and unselfish love ~ all prerequisites for healthy units such as marriage and family. In contrast to what we are told, our pursuit of self-fulfillment is ultimately an expression of self-denial. Without meaningful human bonding and the fruit it produces, we are isolated people with hardened hearts ~ trying to find any way to please our ego in order to make ourselves feel good. And although we would never consciously reject love, our actions suggest otherwise. Unfortunately, this attitude effects every aspect of our culture. The "success" of abortion comes from the "success" of the eugenics movement ~ however unbelievable it may seem to suggest our society to be "textbook eugenicists". Yet, as "textbook eugenics" was dying, an unconscious form of eugenics was blooming, creating weapons more powerful than a pill or a procedure ~ a weapon that destroys the human desire for healthy bonding and replaces it with a destructive "all about me" worldview that elevates ourselves above God or excludes Him altogether, giving us the "right" to destroy life. Even more troubling are the statistics that show that 70% of women who receive an abortion describe themselves as Christian. Consciously or not, embracing a "me first" attitude serves the self and denies respect for the life of others, born or unborn. Though very few pro-choicers think of themselves as supporters of eugenics, selfishly choosing to deny life to another for the purpose of self-advancement is nothing short of eugenic, despite intentions.

I believe as Americans, we need to check the depths of our hearts. We need to realize that abortion is not a matter of women's rights ~ it is a matter of human rights. Abortion affects millions of women and men worldwide every year ~ born and unborn. I believe Americans have a tendency to want to deny the big picture because we are too focused on ourselves. Fortunately, God has a tendency to change human perspective. When we put God first, we find our place and our "me first" attitude cannot stand.

~ Lester