Margaret Sanger was born in 1883 and had a vision...an idyllic renaissance of society through the use of abortion and birth control.For that reason Sanger founded what is now Planned Parenthood. Recently Planned Parenthood demonstrated dedication to the vision of Sanger when they were contacted by a group of students from UCLA pretending to be donors. Here's a transcript:
Donor: Wonderful. I want to specify that abortion to help a minority group - would that be possible?
Kersey: Absolutely.
Donor: Like the black community for example?
Kersey: Certainly.
Donor: OK, so the abortion I can give money specifically for a black baby, that would be the purpose.
Kersey: Absolutely. If you wanted to designate that you wanted your gift to be used to help (an) African-American woman in need, then we would certainly make sure that that gift was earmarked specifically for that purpose.
Donor: Great. Because I really face trouble with affirmative action, and I don't want my kids being disadvantaged, you know, against black kids. I just had a baby; I want to put it in his name, you know.
Kersey: Mmhmm, absolutely.
Donor: So that's definitely possible.
Kersey: Oh, always, always.
Donor: So I just wanna - can I put this in the name of my son?
Kersey: Absolutely.
Donor: Yeah, he's trying to get into colleges, and he's going to be applying, you know, he's just we're just really big he's really faced troubles with affirmative action.
Kersey: Mmhmm.
Donor: And we don't, you know, we just think, you know, the less black kids out there the better.
Kersey: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable. ... Um David, let me, if I may, just get some sort of specific general information so we can set this up the right way. You said you wanted to put it in your son's name, and you would like this designated specifically to assist (an) African-American woman who's looking to terminate a pregnancy.
Understandable...hmmm, yes....quite understandable. Understandable only if you recognize that liberals are racists and the minorities who vote for them are idiots.
I have often surmised and proffered that liberals are really racists in denial. From the present day Klinton campaign all the way back to their Progressive Pioneers (like Sanger), and the enthralling of minorities with Welfare in between, liberals have used minorities simply to gain their vote.
Margaret Sanger was one of those Progressive Pioneers and, like the organization she founded, demonstrated her feelings toward minorities thusly:
On blacks, immigrants and indigents:
"...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born." Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people
On the rights of the handicapped and mentally ill, and racial minorities:
"More children from the fit, less from the unfit -- that is the chief aim of birth control." Birth Control Review, May 1919, p. 12
On the extermination of blacks:
"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," she said, "if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, by Linda Gordon
REFERENCE Links
Margaret would be so proud of her progeny living up to mommy's dream of wiping out the black man. Yep, liberals are so understanding.
And to all the Black politicians who have coopted the Black vote to help liberals -- well, a hearty "good job" to you too -- you simpering bunch of assclowns. You might as well call your liberal leaders "massa' " cuz they've got you steppin' and fetchin' your voting blocks for them.
So, THANK YOU liberals. Thank you for showing your true colors once again.
You make my job so easy.
22 comments:
Suggest you link to the wikipedia article for the full background skinny on Sanger, which isn't nearly as black and white as you made it out to be. She is a controversial figure, to be sure, but the following excerpt illustrates that your rather opinionated depiction of her may not capture the essence of the whole, complex story. Hers is more one of promoting the ideals of birth control vs. that of abortion. Her opinions on engenics were in line with many of the day. They are not popular ideas today, particularly since the events of World War II.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger
Excerpt on abortion:
Although Sanger's views on abortion changed throughout the course of her life,[citation needed] in her early years she was acutely aware of the problem of abortion, typically self-induced or with the aid of a midwife. Her opposition to abortion stemmed primarily from a concern for the dangers to the mother, and less so from legal concerns or the welfare of the unborn child.[25] She wrote in a 1916 edition of Family Limitation, "no one can doubt that there are times when an abortion is justifiable," though she framed this in the context of her birth control advocacy, adding that "abortions will become unnecessary when care is taken to prevent conception. (Care is) the only cure for abortions." Sanger consistently regarded birth control and abortion as the responsibility and burden first and foremost of women, and as matters of law, medicine and public policy second.[26]
In her 1938 autobiography, Sanger notes that her 1916 opposition to abortion was based on the taking of life: "To each group we explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way—no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way—it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun."[27]
But, I fear I'm wasting my time. This is not a rational issue for a true dyed-in-blood pro-lifer. Based on the stand of the ultraconservatives and the pro-life evangelicals and our current administration's reflection of their values, we probably should consider passing the Comstok Laws again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_Law
LEB,
Your reliance on Wikipedia is laughable. I have an account and can edit content in Wikipedia -- would you believe it then?
I have previously read the actual documents by Sanger and she preached both birth control AND abortion.
Further, your defense of (sic) eugenics simply based on it being popular at the time is disgusting.
Rather than reading Wikipedia, why don't you go to a library and find the source documents?
Nonetheless, let's suppose that she was only interested in birth control for blacks and the poor, are you still willing to defend that type of racism?
I didn't defend her beliefs - funny how you put those words in my mouth - I observed that her beliefs were in line with the beliefs of the day. Interesting how you make the rather breathtaking leap to assume that they are also my own.
As for Sanger, she's generally in the class of the sort of person that helped bring about the evils of a Woman's Right To Choose What To Do With Her Body. That makes her a hero or a demon, depending on where you fall on that issue, and contraception vs. abortion fall out as secondary mechanisms effecting that choice.
A woman gets to choose whether or not to get pregnant, in my opinion. Are there any women that would dispute that? Abstinence is the one guaranteed way; short of that, we have proactive or retroactive methods: prevention of pregnancy, or abortion of pregnancy. Mechanisms of choice. It's the mechanics of the legality of one particular method by which she gets the choice in question, not the right to choose.
I don't think even you would dispute that - or am I wrong?
Sanger was promoting the right to choose and education of contraception techniques as a mechanism of choice; she supported the known mechanisms. The rest is more in the context of her and our place and time in history, and, in her case, IMHO, irrelevant to the discussion today.
But I admit I could be making an assumption on your part (and the part of "true" consercatives and pro-life activists) - is biological education on sexual mechanisms and availability of contraceptive devices off the table, too?
Help me out here. Where does the "right to life" end, vs. the Mother's Right To Choose, in the eyes of a "true" right-to-life conservative?
There has to be a line somewhere. Where is it, from your point of view?
Incidentally, don't think that the issue of "eugenics" (see, I can use a spell checker sometims) is going to go away - or that you, yourself, are not defending it.
Consider the interest in insurance companies' use of DNA testing results as a driver for whether or not you get insurance coverage for certain conditions. Consider that by denying coverage, you increase the death rate, thereby culling the population of "undesirables." Since many inherited conditions are racially correlated, is that not eugenics by another name? Same for denying medical coverage to the poor, which are disproportionately minorities.
You decry my labeling the concept as contextually relevant in its time, and suggest that I am defending it; yet, today, in this country the idea is de facto alive and well - living happily inside the conservative agenda.
The conservative agenda stipulates that we have no "right" to privacy; that the market should be allowed to level and dictate medical service availability based on ability to pay and an unmandated range of provider offerings; and minimizing the offering of "free" medical care to the poor.
Is this not eugenics by another name?
"Those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it."
LEB
LEB,
Actually no, that's not eugenics. And your claim "Her opinions on eugenics were in line with many of the day" is a clearly implied validation of her views.
Do you know who else enjoyed her views? Adolph Hitler. Ya' see LEB, Sanger also wanted to sterilize the lower classes -- how exactly is that "choice"? Hitler implemented a choice in 1934 Germany between segregation versus sterilization for the lower classes based on Sanger's work.
Here are our points of agreement:
1) "A woman gets to choose whether or not to get pregnant, in my opinion."
2) a Woman's Right To Choose What To Do With Her Body
3) Biological education on sexual mechanisms and availability of contraceptive devices is a good thing, but only abstinence is 100% effective.
Where we disagree:
1) A woman has no right to harm another living person, even if it resides inside her.
And finally, in answer to your query: Where does the "right to life" end, vs. the Mother's Right To Choose -- when she spreads her legs and takes no precautions against pregnancy.
You see, I really don't care what she chooses for her life, but I will continue to defend the innocent life she wants to kill. I don't view a baby as an appendage of the woman. It is genetically distinctive from the mother.
Perhaps you should read up on Sanger's Negro Project.
LEB,
Jsut to make you happy I added "and Birth control" to the post...though this only underlines my point even more.
Sanger wanted to prevent the birth of a variety of people she personally viewed as "unfit". Niiiiiice.
Ok, I'll affirm the points of agreement and disagreement. So personally, I guess I'm not sure where you were originally intending to go with your Sanger posting.
No question that the Nazis implemented a eugenics program. But roots of eugenics are startling, and the movement far wider-reaching than your posting and stand on the issue suggest. The roots of eugenics still exist, as I pointed out, in the conservative and neoconservative agenda. Further, lest we try to minimize the scope of the movement, names like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Bell (yes, he of the telephone), Harriman, Kellogg, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and a range of otehrs were supporters and funders of the movement. Even Shockley, the guy who invented the transistor, was an advocate, as late as the 1970s.
I can't help but notice the "racist" basis for (neo)conservative policy - vs. the so-called "racist in denial" policy you accuse the "liberals" of foisting on society. So trying to paint liberals as eugenicists and racists seems to me to be more rooted in your own blind prejudice against "liberals" than in the actual fact of so-called democrats, progressives, or whatever else you might group under the heading, particularly in light of the observable fact that the conservative agenda clearly has the potential for a measurable, focused effect on the genetic variety of the United states population. Worded down, we'll just let the minorities die off more quickly than the rest.
Eugenics-by-any-other-name. Call it what it is. It may not be an overt program, but the bias of conservative policy stances that will result in culling the population of minority races is undeniable. Income distribution and technology make it so; cut medicaid, open the market to insurance companies selling only to healthy people (by denying their right to privacy and refusing to mandate coverage levels), and that's what you get. QED.
LEB
LEB,
You assume the names you dropped were/are conservatives simply because they were successful. For instance, today's Rockefellers are quite liberal. Nice paradigm you've got going.
I really can't see the neocon/conservative eugenics program to which you refer. I think more conservatives would be FOR abortion were that the case.
The Sanger post shows that liberals treat blacks and others as retarded little children that have to be guided by the nose to do the "right thing".
This is the mindset I rebuke:
Liberals believe they are the grown-ups who can cure all of the world's ills. Philosophies like Socialism only fail because Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama haven't tried it yet. But don't worry, the grownups are on the way to show you how you should live. Let the government take charge of your life (even your reproductive rights like in 1907 Indiana).
That is the radical liberal agenda. Big Brother ain't conservative, baby -- it is the idea that government can cure all of your problems.
Actually, I didn't know whether the names I dropped were conservative or liberal either in their day or by today's lights, or with regard to their nth generation progeny. They were respected leaders in their day; they lent airs or respectability to a concept that turned into a nightmare, when it was implemented by the Nazis.
The point was that Sanger wasn't out of line with contemporary views of the time and to project that into today's arena using a single ugly scenario is fundamentally incorrect. You claim I am somehow defending horrific beliefs because of this; rather, I am pointing out that, taken out of historical context, critiquing Sanger's and linking them to today's challenges with regard to Abortion views is meaningless. There is no-one today that openly advocates eugenics (except the odd bigoted nutball I run into from time to time; not including you, for what it's worth). To link today's stand on a woman's right to choose what to do with her body (including or not including the right to choose an abortion of a pregnancy) to eugenics beliefs is intellectual fraud.
My labeling the conservative agenda racist and eugenicist holds roughly the same validity and veracity when viewed through a dispassionate filter as your criticism of the liberal agenda for being racist-in-denial. Both philosophies seek particular goals, and the impact on our society at a race level is a by-product, however well-intentioned.
LEB
Not so LEB,
Equating two disparate philosophies using some undefinable contextual meme introduces a vacant postmodernist twist to the debate.
Margaret Sanger worked to reduce the black population -- today, Planned Parenthood does the same. If you are doing this through killing (which we can debate separately), you are very much aligned with the Nazi Final Solution.
We have destroyed 47 million American babies over the last few decades. we have tallied a much higher score than Adolph and his boy. The ridiculous and debunked notion of 5,000 back alley abortion deaths per year was the impetus for this pogrom. The intent, however, has always been an entirely different issue.Admitted Lying
OK, so - extracting - the vacant debate, therefore, seems to be the question "is(n't) abortion a form of eugenics?"
Since eugenics is deliberately focused method of selective breeding or population culling, directed against a specified genetic or racial attribute, and requires a method by which it can be selectively applied to that specific subset of humanity, I opine that today's "legal abortion marketplace" does not fit that description. Why?
- today's "open market" implementation of abortion is race-neutral, with equal access and equal costs to all involved, independent of race, creed, color, sexual preference, hair color, political bias, or perceived genetic predisposition toward the color red.
- De facto, it fails as such, as it has done nothing to reduce or limit the growth of minority population (if anything, it's hardly even slowed it down).
- It is not selective in terms of its racial or genetic bias. A four-toed black & hispanic mix midget with sickle cell anemia is no more likely to be forced or encouraged to have an abortion than anyone else. S/he might have a bit of a problem getting laid, but that's another issue. According to Tucker Max, they generally don't have a problem in that department as far as he's concerned; let the gametes begin, and they will live on.
- you assert that Planned Parenthood is "working to reduce the Black population." Aside from the one pathological example you have found, yet I see no systemic evidence of an overt campaign to seduce black women into PP's doors to have their babies cut out of them. A single error by a single poorly trained phone rep does not a eugenics campaign make. Rather, they denied it. PP disowned the call as "a very bad mistake." If they were working to reduce the black population they would have donned their white robe and cone cap with mask, and said, "yep, we're doin' the white man a favor."
Rather, I see PP as decidedly neutral in all forms of advertising, promotion of contraception, and providing a vastly wider variety of reproductive services than just Abortion. That is not the only thing they do; they are one of the few places people can go and get affordable, fast tests for STDs, pap smears, pregnancy tests, etc. Were Abortion to be outlawed today, I do not believe that it would have much of an impact on the overall success of Planned Parenthood outlets worldwide.
So, let's take the debate into the realm of supposition: let's outlaw Abortion completely. Would you have them shut down their clinics worldwide?
Your turn. Quoting W. F. Buckley, "Take all the time you need." :-).
Cheers,
LEB
LEB,
It didn't take me long.
I agree, let's outlaw it and see what happens.
Nevertheless, the entire point of this post was...
"Today's PP is following in the footsteps of Margaret Sanger."
A representative of Planned Parenthood...no, wait.. the FRICKIN' Vice President of Development and Marketing for Planned Parenthood of Idaho was the one portrayed in my post. If it was some part-time jerkoff answering phones I would certainly agree with your characterization of the "poorly trained phone rep".
LEB, Ponder this:
- Blacks make up 12% of the population but participate in 35% of abortions
- Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities.
- More blacks have died from abortion than gang banging, drug use, and AIDS since 1973. LINK
P.S. In 1926 Sanger addressed the women's auxiliary of the KKK -- it's in her autobiography.
OK - I'll accept your stats without verification - but in response, so what? What does that have to do with linking PP with Sanger (or anyone else's) eugenics beliefs?
You suggest that PP is engaging in a planned method of racial eugenics. I see no evidence of any such plan, any consistent or applied method, and, perhaps most telling, any real measurable effect on the Black (or any other minority) population.
The fact that blacks engage in a higher percentage of abortions than a percentage of population - where is the correlation to PP's machinations? Rather, the correlation seems to be stronger with a much higher number of blacks in low-income demographics, poorer education, and a dramatically higher teenage pregnancy rate.
The question revolves around intent. Does PP "plan" to eradicate blacks by enticing them into clinics and cutting their babies out of them, or are they serving a market with a variety of reproduction management and medical services, of which abortion is only one of those services?
Coming back to the Kersey example - read the transcript and show me where Kersey engages in any attempt to encourage or entice a racially motivated donation. Rather, the caller is enticing Kersey into accepting one. Kersey's mistake was in playing along - but there is no intent on the part of planned parenthood evidenced anywhere in that transcript to encourage black abortions. The sole racial aspect of PP's policy was to support the earmarking of a donation for "a black woman in need."
Show me evidence of PP's intent to eradicate blacks. I haven't seen it, even in the Kersey transcript. I saw a racist bigot trying to make a donation for questionable motivations, and a person caught like a deer in the headlights between playing along and accepting the donation, and rejecting the donation out of hand - on a supposedly private phone call.
I'm keeping an open mind, but you haven't established (a) any overt form of intent or motivation for PP to try to eradicate blacks; (b) any evidence of a planned or structured method being applied that might fit the definition of eugenics, or (c) anything showing that Blacks or other minorities are somehow being affected by PP's ministrations, either in the form of population size, or genetic diversity.
LEB
LEB,
I would think intent became apparent at the point when you accepted the stats above.
Why place so many more PP clinics in minority neighborhoods? Given the distribution of income away from urban areas, it's not a very prolific (no pun intended) marketing strategy to place your businesses in low income neighborhoods.
Deeds can reveal intent, don't you think?
PP is a federation; quoting from the site, they have 103 independent local affiliates that operate 860 health centers throughout the US. I.e. they're a franchise. Hence, it's the affiliates that are licensing the PP brand that are placing the clinics, not PP itself. Per the site, only 3 percent of all planned parenthood health services are abortion services.
Why place clinics in minority areas? Well, based on my own personal experience with PP (helped a few low-income girlfriends out), it's the only place you can go besides an OBGYN or a doc-in-a-box to:
- get STD tests
- get prescriptions for STD treatments
- get cheap pap smears
- get breast exams
- obtain male or female sterilization
- obtain in implant, IUD, patch, diaphram, nuvaring,
- obtain contraception (exam, prescriptions), birth control shot
- obtain unbiased, nonpartisan, non-denominationally slanted reproductive educational information
- obtain information and education on adoption as an alternative to abortion
So, perhaps, in the minority neighborhoods, where a vastly higher number of people have no health insurance and are disproportionately lower income, where the culture produces a vastly higher number of unintended pregnancies and STDs, they've found a market for these services. Perhaps they don't open clinics in predominately white upper-middle-class neighborhoods because these people already have access to these services through other medical providers, and the demand is lower in general. Just a thought.
Or they're just systematically trying to stamp out the non-whites by the "deed" of opening clinics in minority neighborhoods.
You decide. It's clear that you have already made up your mind that because more blacks than whites choose abortions, and obtain them from clinics operated by planned parenthood affiliates, then IT MUST BE OBVIOUS TO EVERYONE THAT planned parenthood is the mastermind behind some greater plot to eradicate the non-whites from the planet.
Frankly, from someone of your educational level and background, and particularly since you know statistical inference, logical reasoning, and have an intellect to use these tools at least as well as I do and probably better, I'm utterly dumbfounded as to how you can make such an inappropriate leap. So either you're trolling and stringing me along (hope it was fun, it was for me - I enjoy writing and it keeps me from frying my brain on MS .NET debugging), or you have a very "flexible" intellect that can selectively apply dispassionate logic - or rationalize your convictions, based on the context, no matter what the facts suggest.
Yee hah. Let the conspiracy theorys begin!
LEB
LEB,
While you make a good point about inexpensive services, you seem not to recognize there are more whites in poverty than minorities.
Stats put the division at:
16M whites
9M Blacks
9M Hispanics
1.4M Asians
Blacks make up 25% of those in poverty, but 35% of abortions.
QUESTION: Given this information, and the fact that about 96% of abortions are done for convenience, why such a higher percentage of Black abortions rather than White or Hispanic?
Also -- the overall rate of abortion per 100,000 in our society was recorded by the Guttmacher Institute as:
White: 13
Hispanic: 33
Black: 49
Do you lack intellectual curiosity about these disparities?
I'll agree that it is indeed the dispassionate question. But consider this. You're comparing the percentages of abortions (35% black) vs. the black headcount (12% population) and black poverty headcount (25%). But nonwhite minorities, particularly blacks and Hispanics, have a higher birth rate than whites; this is clearly documented. That factor alone could account for the higher percentage. Going further, blacks and Hispanics also have a documented higher per-capita rate of unplanned (teen) pregnancies, bumping the percentage even higher.
This is certainly a question worth studying, and I think personally it strikes more deeply at the heart of the abortion issue than the issue of abortion itself. I.e. ultimately abortion should be unnecessary if proper contraception is taught, and we live in a society that both teaches and directly supports values behind the statement "a person is a person, no matter how small."
We fail on all counts, thus demand for abortion exists. QED.
Why a higher percentage of blacks per capita engage in abortions is certainly an interesting question to study, and the answer is important. But it is hardly the basis for asserting that Planned Parenthood is intent on systematically stamping out blacks by aborting them more often than whites.
I appreciate your considering my arguments, and hope that your intellectual curiosity will override the emotional conviction you have that Planned Parenthood is somehow an arm of a new eugenics movement. Rather, they provide a single service (one of many services they provide) that you abhor. Their stand is that a woman has a right to know and engage the service; your stand is that the service is immoral, and you will fight it every way you can.
I urge you to consider that the fight against abortion's "proponents" is misguided. (I don't know anyone and have never heard anyone advocate abortion; I have only heard people advocate a mother's right to consider it as an option) From a practical perspective, the bell cannot be un-rung; there are too many different ways, now, to get a chemical abortion, for example, that are for all practical purposes unregulatable.
Rather, attacking the practices that lead to unwanted pregnancy, providing incentives in the form of support for prenatal and postnatal care as an incentive to carry the baby to term, and - most of all - promoting preventative practices (of which Planned Parenthood is a major sponsor) removes the need to obtain an abortion in the first place
When there is no demand for it, it will simply go away.
Attacking abortion is attacking the symptom, not the disease. The root disease is the societal norms that produce unwanted pregnancies in the first place, and a society that roundly refuses to provide support for mothers to (might) want to carry the baby to term.
I fear I am wasting my time writing all of this, however. If I have truly convinced you that PP is not an arm of a new-age eugenics movement, then you should retract your post; it is inflammatory without basis in fact, which makes it a form of emotional propaganda.
If I have not, then my efforts are flying in the face of an illogical, irrational, ironclad conviction, that no amount of argument, logic, math, education, I.Q., or "proof" will ever modify. You'll go on believing that PP brings the spirit of Sanger's misguided eugenics comments into the present no matter what, and no matter how many letters follow your name.
Best regards, and thanks for the fun debate.
LEB
LEB,
You were admittedly never able to answer the question in the comment, so how irrational can it really be? Can you not apply reason to refute the numbers?
Rather, IMHO, it is abortion that is irrational. You pose it as "a woman's right to choose". If I chose to murder my neighbor, would you also support my right to choose?
If I attended a KKK meeting and started a foundation (the ABCL)wouldn't you be suspicious of my intent?
While you contend that PP doesn't follow the original ideology of Sanger, can you be absolutely sure? She died fairly recently in this nation's history and certainly influenced the current leaders of that organization.
Am I stating that there is a concerted effort by all members of PP to commit genocide? No, some really believe they are simply defending this as a cause for women (as you seem to be.) My concern is with the original intent and the rationalizations used by today's leaders who may simply be stuck in the meme set down by Sanger.
Could they (and you by extension) be defending something indefensible because they don't understand the original impetus? Have you been acculturated into a movement that used documented lies to change our collective moral compass?
A house built on a foundation of lies wallows in its own corruption. You never did answer this link or the person who made these statements.
There's no doubt that Sanger's influence in promoting education and contraception were a powerful influence.
But to suggest that PP is systematically carrying forward a eugenics agenda, without any supporting evidence whatsoever (and the phone transcript - again - does not demonstrate PP's agenda, only the caller's), I just don't see your point.
You are unwilling to consider threats to your assertion, despite a very wide range of theories strongly supported by data that would suggest that your linkages are erronious.
I'll leave it at this - if PP is carrying forward a eugenics agenda, demonstrate - through data - that they are doing it, that it's successful, and that it's specifially racially motivated against blacks.
Until you can do that, then you're just making inflammatory racist comments in the hopes of stirring people up. Which is, methinks, the point of your post in the first place.
Take good care,
LEB
LEB,
Racists...BWAHAHAHAHA -- you confuse me with the Democrats.
What's next, accusing me of being Nazi?
Weak minded folks resort to that tactic. I expected more from you.
Anywhoo, I think if you look at the data, it speaks for itself. Will the PP leadership come out and admit their policy to the public and their volunteers -- not likely.
Did Sanger meet with the KKK?
So, if you can't read the tea leaves, I'm afraid you'll be stuck watching a disproportionate number of Blacks be aborted (as I proved above).
Please don't accept the facts on my behalf, just keep on heading down the road and ignoring the link I left for you twice. I shall not leave it again. Obviously you fear it and I don't want you to be uncomfortable in your cognitive dissonance.
Perhaps a new direction for you...try:
Loretta J. Ross, "A Simple Human Right: The History of Black Women and Abortion," On The Issues, Spring 1994, vol. III, #2,
p. 2. (she's a Black feminist humanist - definitely not conservative).
I read the Nathanson commentary. It's an interesting statement and story, and for what it's worth, I'm more-or-less in the pro-life camp. "Permissive abortions" strikes me as a symptom of a sick society. Banning abortion in its entirety vs. banning "permissive" or "casual" abortions appear (to me) to be two separate questions, but arguing that point will divert us from what I thought was the original question, to wit:
QUESTION: Given this information, and the fact that about 96% of abortions are done for convenience, why such a higher percentage of Black abortions rather than White or Hispanic?
I did theorize that due to a higher birth rate and a higher rate of teen pregnancy, that alone might account for the higher percentage. Those are theories subject to test data and evidence. I.e. we can relate per capita abortion rate to per capita pregnancy rate and see what happens. Even with that, we may yet see that blacks still per-pregnancy choose abortion more frequently than whites. Answering that question is a sociology project, and will probably show many answers, along the lines of:
- unplanned pregnancy may be more frequent for blacks than whites;
- abortion may be less stigmatized by blacks than by whites;
- the black statistic may be biased upward due to income or concentrations of extremely high abortion rates in specific areas;
All of these are plausible, testable theories, subject to fact-based analysis.
But facts and analysis will not win an argument here; I am arguing against your unshakable conviction that PP is an outgrowth of Sanger, eugenics, and the KKK. So I think at this point I'll drop it; there is no benefit gained by either of us in pursuing it further. You pronounce guilt by association, use a few out-of-context statistics to "prove" your point, and that's that.
You suggest some kind of linkage between a PP "hidden agenda" and blacks choosing abortions more frequently than whites. I'm still waiting to hear what that (agenda? policy? double-top-secret plan?) linkage is.
Rather, I'll offer one final twist to perspective on this question, by slightly rewording it:
QUESTION: Given this information, why do a higher percentage of Blacks and Hispanics choose abortions of their own independent thought and will as opposed to than Whites, in a market in which access to abortion services is legal, freely available, low cost, and offered on a nondiscriminatory basis?
This presupposes that the facts bear out that, on a pregnancy-for-pregancy basis (not population size) blacks still choose abortions more frequently than whites.
I will not argue the merits of abortion any further; I do not support it, rather I support its ability to exist to some degree as a (legal but heavily regulated) medical procedure. That's it, and my perspective will never match yours nor yours mine on this matter. We are fundamentally opposed on some issues, which is the way of a pluralistic world.
I will continue to argue, however, that your inference that PP is all about abortion and nothing else (3% of services provided) is fundamentally incorrect and misleading; that PP is pursuing a hidden eugenics agenda by somehow "causing" blacks to choose abortions more frequently than whites, as unsurportable with facts or evidence, and is inappropriately inflammatory - and perhaps, in the end, intellectually dishonest.
Finally, I'll agree that I misspoke when I suggested that the comment was racist. It is merely inflammatory.
Show me a linkage I can test, rather than making conspiracy-theory statements that are untestable. We cannot prove that man did not walk on the moon and that it's all one big Hollywood hoax; we can, if we go there again, prove it.
If you cannot establish a supportable, testable linkage, if it's all to remain supposition and pointers back to the evils of abortion, and guilt-by-association with a person and a discredited meme popular 100 years ago, then this isn't a debate, it's just a relatively polite shouting match. And neither you nor I are doing ourselves any credit thereby.
LEB
LEB,
Exactly right on all counts.
One thing about my post and my comments - -I never drew a conclusion that PP was absolutely involve in Sangerian eugenics...though I implied a connection.
This entire post was meant to prick the conscience of those who advocate the act and the concomitant results in the Black community.
Whether PP targets Blacks, I cannot be sure. I know they target the poor with the placement of their clinics -- you might call it "serving the poor".
I can think of better ways to serve them.
Fair thee well, this thread has ended.
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