Dear Pamela,

Thank you for shedding light on this issue. There is a great deal of historical mistrust in communities of color, and there are issues that need to be discussed and resolved if we are to provide women and their families with the reproductive health access they need to lead healthy lives. We cannot pretend these ideas don't exist, and they don't have some connection to a very real and painful past.

Thanks for lifting this up.

Aimee Thorne-Thomsen

Margaret Sanger was not exactly pro-"choice" when it came to what she called "inferior races" and "human weeds":

Sanger promoted the idea of "race hygiene" through "negative eugenics," an attempt to reduce the fertility of "dysgenic" groups. Sanger considered the unchecked multiplication of the "unfit" to be "the greatest present menace to civilization." She suggested Congress set up a special department to study population problems and appoint a "Parliament of Population." One of the main objectives of the "Population Congress" would be "to raise the level and increase the general intelligence of population."

Dr. Alveda King, the niece of human rights campaigner, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.:

The great irony, is that abortion has done what the Klan only dreamed of.

Dr. King pointed out that the killing of the unborn in the US, which has taken the lives of well over 42 million American children, is overwhelmingly concentrated in the African-American community. “In the last forty-plus years,” Dr. King said, “15 million black people have been denied their most basic civil right, the right to life. Roughly one quarter of the black population is now missing.”

I'm not sure how you got to Thomas Jefferson, and rejecting democracy. The point of my original comment was that there are a couple of strong points of evidence which Pamela did not mention, let alone refute: Sanger's documented racism and support for eugenics, and Alveda King's citation of the disproportionate number of black abortions.

By ignoring these claims brought up by anti's, her argument comparing "the black genocide charge" to an urban legend amounts to little more than handwaving. The 3 paragraphs discussing GAP are, literally, an ad-hominem attack against one single group which brings up this claim.

I agree with part of her conclusion though:

... the history of eugenics and sterilization abuse in America requires that claims like those of black genocide made against reproductive service providers not be met with casual disregard.

And speaking of the King family:

In 1966, the year Sanger died, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said,

“There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger’s early efforts. . . . Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her” (King, 1966).

Crispy - you're also making my point that this history is being manipulated in present time.

There is another history in America at play here - a history of discouraging empowerment through education within communities of color and of people of color being "protected" and prevented from making decisions "for our own good".

The interesting thing is that black genocide campaigns are trying to dress up that insult as advocacy while continuing to restrict access to proactive health care and passing laws that replace fact with dogma and empowerment with dependency.

Prevention first and comprehensive sex education programs save lives. Yet despite the alarming increases in std infection rates within communities of color, we are being fed this diet of compulsory ignorance through campaigns of fear that seek to take our health and bodies hostage to the will of others.

And that's just another case of history repeating.

Another great source to learn more about the political context that Sanger was dealing with is the book Birth Control Politics in the United States, 1916-1945, by Carole McCann. McCann looks in detail at Sanger's struggle to get women's rights advocates and medical professionals involved in the fight for birth control. Interestingly, McCann reports that the National Council of Negro Women was the first national women's organization to endorse the practice of contraception -- in 1941.

And a marvelous primary document is Toni Cade's 1969 essay "The Pill: Genocide or Liberation?" in Cade's anthology The Black Woman. It doesn't appear to be available on-line, but Dorothy Roberts writes about it here:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3209200.html

while continuing to restrict access to proactive health care and passing laws that replace fact with dogma and empowerment with dependency.

Birth Control should be free and available. There is no other way to provide true choice without starting at the beginning of what is really the problem. I am sick of that double standard.

The Genocide Awareness Project does not attempt to make people aware of the rights of all people.

It completely denigrates the experiences of groups of people that actually had genocide carried out against them. They appeared on my campus this fall with pictures of Jewish bodies from the Holocaust and black lynching victims.

As a Jew, I was disgusted and offended beyond my usual reaction to a group of white men trying to tell me what I can do with my body.

So... the only way that black people can continue as a race and as a culture is through unwanted pregnancy because having a loving, stable family unit where children are wanted and planned is so far outside of their realm of possibility that it would lead to the destruction of the race. That's not at all offensive. :rolleyes:

Pamela,
You make a great point. The fact that people were once sterilized against their will does not mean that current repro health providers are doing the same, nor that they have the same motivations. The problems with Crispy's implication (that because Margaret Sanger supported some evil things, everything she supported is bad), is no more logical than Jonah Goldberg's suggestion that because Hilter was a vegetarian, all vegetarians are fascists; or that (as Amanda pointed out) because Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, everything he ever said is evil. Actually, this could be a fun game!! Einstein was a jerk to his wife - clearly his theories must be bunk! I could go on, but you get the idea.
However, the fact is that compulsory sterilization IS an all too real part of our history, and must be taught and remembered. The context in which it occurred must also be taught, and the different contexts that current repro health providers grew out of must be emphasized. But teaching the complexity of history is a lot harder to do than providing sound bites.

Here in Minnesota, African Americans account for 4% of the population, but 23% of the total abortions.
Seems like a targeted minority to me.

Yes, I agree African Americans are targeted. As an inner city school teacher I see the unfairness toward all minorities in the funding we lack that white suburban schools have in plenty. Part of what our students aren't getting is adequate sex ed classes. Maybe if our students were properly educated about contraception, they wouldn't wind up having abortions. Or if Medicare would cover their birth control prescriptions. Abortion is a result of many factors, and can be both positive and negative. It's not genocide.

the reason more black babies are being aborted is limited access to birth control thanks to the right wing nutjobs and a lack of funding to programs that provide low-cost birth control and sex education. The majority of black babies being aborted are in LOW-INCOME, LOW-EDUCATION areas. I applaud those women for having the courage to say "enough" and know when 'one more' baby would be one too many. I don't see anti-choicers running out and adopting black babies - especially not ones who might have "problems". until they put their money where their mouthes are they have NO right to tout adoption as the panacea against abortion.