Many people don’t realize that Margaret Sanger, who started organizations that developed into Planned Parenthood, believed that abortion was murder, and that she wanted birth control to be legal and available to women “¦ and men.
This was Planned Parenthood in the early days … Planned Parenthood – in Their Own Words “¢ “One sperm plus one egg = one baby.” “¢ — Planned Parenthood/World Population pamphlet entitled “ABCs of Birth Control,” 1973, page 4. “An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health.” “¢ — Planned Parenthood ‘Plan Your Children’ pamphlet, 1963.
Ultimately, those at Planned Parenthood realized that law, or no law, women were dying from botched abortions, and that is why they eventually decided that to save the lives of the women, abortions performed by qualified doctors and pro-choice for women, was the only way to go.
Margaret Sanger was not a racist, or a eugenicist. In her autobiography, when she stated the word “unfit,” she meant “because of poverty, many families were unable to give proper care to so many children.” And in another part of her autobiography, she mentioned that the eugenicists were at the meeting “¦ which suggested that she was not one of them.
Her name was and still is, much maligned, and I suggest that it is time to give thanks to this pioneer woman, who went to prison, and yet kept fighting against the dictates of the male-driven hierarchies in the churches of that era, so that over-burdened families could have access to methods of birth control.
June Vandermark
McBride
