By Elaine Carlson
"Tell Oscar to sleep on the roof."
A doctor and the Public Health Nurse Margret Sanger (1879 – 1966) were on a house call to a poor woman in one of New York City's tenements. She injured herself and was weak after giving herself an abortion. When she asked how she could avoid "having this happen again" the doctor answered with that rude comment about where her husband could sleep.
In 1993 one of Planned Parenthood's clinics in Manhattan got a National Historic Landmark Designation and the City Council voted to name a nearby intersection the Margaret Sanger Square.
I was surprised when I read that last week Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced they plan to remove Sanger's name from that clinic [USA Today July 21, 2020]. They are also "talking to city leaders about replacing Ms. Sanger's name on a street sign."
Maybe the City will change the name of that street corner but I wonder if Planned Parenthood really wants to reverse their building's National Historic Landmark Designation.
Two well known people who want our country to re-evaluate the legacy of Margaret Sanger are Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Cruz wants to remove Sanger's picture from the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian. He said, "There is no ambiguity in what Margaret Sanger's bust represents: hatred, racism, and the destruction of unborn life [emphasis added]."
In an exchange with Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Tribe Crux said, "Abortion targets in particular minority women. More than ½ of African-American babies, are aborted. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was a vehement advocate of eugenics."
In a recent abortion case Justice Thomas says, "The use of abortion to achieve eugenic goals is not merely hypothetical." (Box v Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc.)
In a long section in his Box decision Thomas sketches out the history of the early 20th Century Birth Control Movement and claims, "That movement developed alongside the American eugenics movement." He seems to want to suggest (or at least imply) that Abortion Equals Eugenics.
Cruz and Thomas are not arguing against eugenics as much as they are employing those arguments to shore up their own attacks against birth control and abortion.
It would be a good idea to carefully examine the charges that Margaret Sanger was racist. The first step to doing that would be to actually read what she said --- and that means to read what was taken out of the quotations her detractors are feeding us.
Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life America (USA Today July 23, 2020) said, "In a 1939 letter to Dr. C. J. Gamble, Sanger urged him to get over his reluctance to hire 'a full time Negro physician' as the 'colored Negroes…can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table which means their ignorance, superstitions and doubt."
In that 1939 letter Sanger said, "that while the colored Negros have great respect for white doctors they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table which means their ignorance, superstitions and doubts. They do not do this with the white people … and if we can train the Negro doctor at the Clinic, he can go among them with enthusiasm and with knowledge, which I believe, will have far-reaching results."
Margaret Sanger believed access to birth control was important for the well being for all and she devoted her life to making sure poverty did not limit that access.
It is ironic (cruelly so) that statements she made while trying to serve Blacks are distorted and used to push plans to deny birth control to poor people. Cruz may have asked for Sanger's picture to be removed from a museum but he wants so much more --- one of his goals is to defund Planned Parenthood.
Sanger was convinced that America needs to recognize the suffering caused by discrimination.
She said, "A sickly race is a weak race. As long as Negro mothers die in childbirth at two and one-half times the rate of white mothers, as long as Negro babies are dying at twice the rate of white babies, colored homes will be unhappy. [Jon Johnson-Lewis, "Quotes From Contraceptive Pioneer Margaret Sanger" ThoughtCo January 24, 2019]"
I wish the current officials of Planned Parenthood who are so quick to denounce their founder would heed her words when she said, "Negro participation in planned parenthood means democratic participation in a democratic idea. Like other democratic ideas, planned parenthood places greater value on human life and the dignity of each person. Without planning at birth, the life of Negroes as a whole in a democratic world cannot be planned."
I hope Planned Parenthood will reconsider its decision to remove the name of their founder from one of their clinics. A name on a building and on an intersection are very small steps that can be taken to honor the contributions of a brave and outstanding person.