Anti-Abortion Groups to Use MLK Day to Protest Houston "Abortion Supercenter"

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, anti-abortion advocates will rally and march to protest a soon-to-open Planned Parenthood clinic, claiming that abortion is racist.

This weekend, evangelical Christian Lou Engle and his organization, Call to Conscience (or The Call, for short), is holding a prayer vigil for all anti-abortion Texans at Grace Community Church. The real fun comes Monday morning:

On January 18th, at 9:30am on Martin Luther King Jr.’s holiday, we will gather by the thousands to launch a silent prayer march through the streets to the abortion “super center” for the nationwide press conference and prayer stand. As Martin Luther King Jr. would proclaim it – It is time to “subpoena the conscience” of the nation from the flashpoint of Houston, Texas. Maybe Houston could become the Birmingham of our day to let the unborn go free and spare the pregnant mother the agony of guilt.

God has a dream. He has a dream for America and He has a dream for every mother and every child and a six-story massive abortion facility has never been a part of that dream.

Planned Parenthood's 78,000 square foot "abortion supercenter"

The Call is joining forces with the Family Research Council, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Bound4Life, the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Hope Christian Church (from the Washington, D.C. area).

Why MLK Jr Day? Just because people are off work?

Nope.

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, is known for her commitment to Eugenics, the concept of selectively breeding humans to eliminate undesirable characteristics and promote those which are found useful. Even though Eugenics was well-supported in the early 20th century here in the United States, the system is invariably tied to the group which most vigorously promoted it . . . Germany’s Nazis, who went far beyond selective breeding and moved to selective execution.

Liberty Counsel provides a convenient summation of some of Ms. Sanger’s more tasteless comments from the first half of the 20th century, upon which anti-choice advocates focus:

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, said: “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” (Sanger’s letter to Clarence J. Gamble, 1939, December). In Pivot of Civilization, Sanger referred to immigrants and Roman Catholics as reckless breeders: “[They’re] an unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.” (Sanger, p.187). In Women and the New Race, Sanger wrote, “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” (Sanger, p. 63). In her publication, Birth Control Review, Sanger advocated creating farms to segregate “unfit” people to “safeguard” citizens from “heredity taints.”

Sanger said other things as well:

• The real hope of the world lies in putting as painstaking thought into the business of mating as we do into other big businesses.

• War, famine, poverty and oppression of the workers will continue while woman makes life cheap. They will cease only when she limits her reproductivity and human life is no longer a thing to be wasted.

• No despot ever flung forth his legions to die in foreign conquest, no privilege-ruled nation ever erupted across its borders, to lock in death embrace with another, but behind them loomed the driving power of a population too large for its boundaries and its natural resources.

A balanced article examining Sanger’s legacy, including her thoughts on “inferiors”, may be found at Women’s E-News. A sample for you:

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America has been protective of Margaret Sanger’s reputation and defensive of allegations that she was a racist. They correctly point out that many of the attacks on Sanger come from anti-choice activists who have an interest in distorting both Sanger’s work and that of Planned Parenthood. While it is understandable that Planned Parenthood would be protective of their founder’s reputation, it cannot ignore the fact that Sanger edited the Birth Control Review from its inception until 1929. Under her leadership, the magazine featured articles that embraced the eugenicist position. If Sanger were as anti-eugenics as Planned Parenthood says she was, she would not have printed as many articles sympathetic to eugenics as she did.

The articles published in the Birth Control Review showed Sanger’s empathy with some eugenicist views. Margaret Sanger worked closely with W.E.B. Du Bois on his “Negro Project,” an effort to expose Southern black women to birth control. Mary McLeod Bethune and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. were also involved in the effort. Much later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. accepted an award from Planned Parenthood and complimented the organization’s efforts. It is entirely possible that Sanger’s views evolved over time. Certainly, by the late 1940s, she spoke about ways to solve the “Negro problem” in the United States. This evolution, however commendable, does not eradicate the impact of her earlier statements.

What, then, is Sanger’s legacy?

You’ll have to read the article to find out.

Now you know why the protest is scheduled for MLK, Jr. Day. Even though the man himself received an award from Planned Parenthood and praised their efforts — no doubt with knowledge of Sanger’s statements made before his time — predominantly white anti-choice groups still cynically play the race card and claim that Planned Parenthood is founded on attempts to eradicate non-whites and must, therefore, be continuing in that vein.

Related articles:

1. Houston Abortion Protest – Ongoing Coverage
2. Government plans on abortion advice risk anti-abortion groups replacing pro-choice providers
3. Religious Right Groups Mobilize "Defund ‘Klanned’ Parenthood" Effort
4. Flashback: Abby Johnson’s suspicious “conversion” to the anti-abortion movement
5. New Juneteenth anti-abortion billboards offensive to all

Jenny Donati is webmistress and co-editor of Secular News Daily. Jenny is an outspoken secularist who believes firmly in the separation of church and state. She demands evidence to support arguments, and holds herself to the same standard. She doesn't write about herself in the third person . . . but there's a first time for everything.

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