What do these various politicians, actors, business people and otherwise famous people all have in common?
Nancy Pelosi
Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Ted Turner
Jane Fonda
Kathleen Turner
Former Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun
Ann Landers
Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby)
Phil Donahue
Katharine Hepburn
John D. Rockefeller III
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
Former President Lyndon Baines Johnson
What they all have in common is that they were all recipients of Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award.
The Margaret Sanger Award was an honor given each year by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 1966 to 2015. It was established to honor the legacy of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. This award was the organization’s highest honor up through 2015. However, the organization suddenly, and quietly, discontinued the award.
The Margaret Sanger Award was given out annually to recognize excellence and leadership in the “reproductive health and rights” movement. It was given to prominent people both because they were abortion supporters, but also because their high profile names added credibility to the Planned Parenthood cause.
It is interesting that the movement is referred to as the “reproductive health and rights” movement. The phrase “reproductive health and rights” is actually code for “the pro-abortion movement.” The award used to be considered a great honor for those who promoted abortion, and pro-abortion advocates have strongly defended their position over the years.
But in recent times Planned Parenthood has been attempting to quietly rebrand itself. A big part of the reason for the felt need to rebrand has to do with the Black Lives Matter movement. But to understand the connection, we need to know a little bit more about Margaret Sanger herself. So just who was she?
The reason her name is associated with Planned Parenthood in the first place is, obviousley, that she was its founder. In fact, it can be said that she was not only the founder of the Planned Parenthood organization, but of the entire birth control movement in the U.S. But it is the reason she founded the organization that has caused this recent attempt to scrub her name from the organization.
Margaret Sanger was a very outspoken proponent of a movement called negative eugenics. The purpose of the negative eugenics movement was ostensibly to improve human hereditary traits through social intervention. The method for doing this was to reduce the reproduction of those who were considered “unfit” so they would not pass on their genes to the next generation. One particular group that she considered to be in that “unfit” category were black people. You see, Sanger was a full on racist. She even once addressed the women’s auxiliary of the KKK.
In 1939, Sanger launched what she called the “Negro Project.” The stated aim of this effort was “helping Negroes control their birthrate.” What she didn’t reveal in public, though, was that her motivation for doing it was to eliminate the black race from the face of the earth. It is interesting to note that while Planned Parenthood would, these days, never openly espouse the racist views and tactics of its founder. Their motivation now is purely financial, as they are the largest abortion provider in America. The fact is though, in practical terms, they still carry out the policies of Sanger herself. This is demonstrated that, even today, 80% of Planned Parenthood’s abortion facilities are located within walking distance of Black neighborhoods.
But to be fair, Sanger didn’t limit her eugenics aspirations to black people. She was for getting rid of any group of people that she considered would weaken the human gene pool. So in addition to her desire to wipe out the Negro race, she also supported policies to sterilize people with disabilities, as well as of placing illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, and dope fiends on farms “for the strengthening and development of moral conduct.” She considered all of these group to be “unfit.” Beyond that, in order to enforce her desires, she also advocated for a federal “population bureau.” The purpose of this government agency would be to police reproduction. Interestingly, Hitler himself was a great admirer of Sanger, as his desire to purify the German race paralleled Sanger’s overall goals.
Anti-abortion advocates have worked diligently over the years to expose the horrors Planned Parenthood has promoted, by exposing Sanger’s overt racism. And from their side, Planned Parenthood has pushed back and worked very hard to deflect any negative criticism. For instance, years ago they began promoting a strategy to call pro-abortion advocates “pro-choice.” They never have wanted to have to defend abortion as the killing of an innocent baby, so they developed this euphemism as a way to help them go on the offense. By saying they were pro-choice, they could claim that they were on the side of women who should be able to choose what to do with their own bodies. This has served to take people’s eyes off of the fact that their “choice” was to kill a baby. Another attempt to deflect criticism was the decision in 2015 to discontinue handing out the Margaret Sanger award – as was mentioned before.
But in July 2020 another shoe dropped. Feeling the heat of criticism of Sanger’s racism because of the increasing prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York decided to remove her name from its New York City clinic, and renamed it the Manhattan Health Center of New York. Taking their rebranding one step further, they have even asked the city of New York to remove Sanger’s name from local streets, as well. They are feeling enough heat from this that they don’t even want Sanger’s name to be remembered – as it makes people think of them.
The truth is, Planned Parenthood is immoral to the core. Their efforts have resulted in the murder of over 62 million preborn babies since Roe vs. Wade was decided in 1973. The fact that the Planned Parenthood organization is doing everything it can to deflect attention from their immoral business demonstrates that they know that what they are doing is wrong. In spite of that, they are not being willing to give up their naturalistic beliefs, and the immoral expressions that go along with them.
What we as Christians can say is that God is real, and the moral principles he has revealed to us in the Bible are true. Christians, as a part of their Christian witness, need to continue to expose Planned Parenthood’s lies and immoral behavior, and present the Gospel as the only true alternative to their false beliefs.