Question from a reader:
I am a Hispanic, a female who is a member of an online Hispanic community. The members are discussing abortion and I am simply at the end of my rope (after being attacked for being conservative and having to defend myself on many, other points)! They’ve started an opinion board, after first reminding us that we need to “respect each others’ opinions,” about abortion. Before I could get to respond to the 100% pro-abortion opinions, women starting discussing their personal experiences with abortion and how they made great choices and now I feel disarmed. If I am to make any comments, I will be booted off and criticized for sure (which wouldn’t be so bad), because I will be “judging” those who killed babies.
How would you advise someone to begin to make a case for the babies while not condoning their actions, and being “sensitive” to the post-abortive state of denial, etc? I do not feel comfortable sharing my ideas since they’ve given the topic an emotional spin, but I am not scared to be politically incorrect. My concern is truly that I would like to reach, somehow, a very large group (several hundred) of poor, benighted souls who may never be exposed to truth in their lives otherwise. Please help!
Answer from Cathy Ramey, EPM Volunteer, and consultant for EPM in the area of bioethics and counseling:
First, most women who have championed abortion have little or no knowledge of its eugenic purpose. It was originally championed by Margaret Sanger and others (including Hitler) through “birth control” means [which now includes both chemical and surgical “contraceptives” and abortion]. These eugenicists touted medicinals and so forth as a means for eliminating persons thought to be inferior, those who were poor, uneducated, of minority races and so forth.
I am listing a number of quotes from the magazine of Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger. There are many more that could be included, but this is a sufficient start to make the point that abortion began as and remains a means of preventing the poor and those of non-European races from propagating. It is based upon the lie that genuine equality can be earned through power and wealth, rather than through godly moral actions. In that sense it is a system that allows the rich to dispense with children that might encumber their lives in such a way that they cannot continue to amass wealth, maintain a social or political status in society.
I am afraid that Margaret Sanger and her allies would be gleeful in reading the responses of persons who embrace abortion, especially those of Hispanic, Black, Polish, Asian, Indian and other races that she deemed to be unworthy of life, burdensome to society, and polluting the genetic pool.
You may wish to quote a couple of these sources in your e-mail/message board exchange so that you cannot be accused of meanness. After all, research the names of those who make these statements and see that you merely restate historic statements that demonstrate the economic and racially eugenic purposes that have been served by the wealthiest elite in America.
Your conversation can then turn as these people respond. They will, in effect, give you specific statement within the Hispanic culture as to why anyone would possibly think that killing children of that or any other race could be justified.
From the “Birth Control Review”:
“When birth control is fully understood, we will have a finer and more perfect race.” — Mrs. J. Westburg’s letter to Margaret Sanger. Birth Control Review, Volume I, Number 3 (March 1917), page 10.
“A spread of birth control to the less capable part of the population will be an important advance for eugenics in cutting down the racial contribution of inferior stocks. — Paul Popenoe. “Birth Control and Eugenics.” Birth Control Review, Volume I, Numbers 4 and 5 (April May 1917), page 6.
“It is now recognized universally that children are no longer an asset, but are instead a financial burden carried by parents for a period of 20 or more years ...
“It is evident that any real program of race culture or betterment which excludes, or does not take for its fundamentally principle the exclusion or the elimination of those whose physical or mental incapacity would render them unfit for the battle of life—is entirely inadequate ... But to prevent the possibility of the degenerate, and feeble minded propagating their calamitous infirmities is a blessing rather than a crime, as it provides the remedy for those deteriorating and retrogressive influences which arrest human progress, lowering the human species further in the scale of evolution ... As it is a universally recognized fact that many mental, moral, and physical traits are transmissible, it obviously becomes our bounden duty to eliminate all possibility of any abnormal anthropological specimens, and parasitical members of society propagating their vices, and calamitous infirmities to the detriment of society.” — Robert H. Kennedy. “The Eugenic Conscience.” Birth Control Review, Volume V, Number 2 (February 1921), page 8.
“It is the lower elements of the population, the negroid aboriginal tribes and the Pariahs or Outcasts, who are gaining the fastest.” — Lothrop Stoddard. “Population Problems in Asia.” Birth Control Review, Volume V, Number 12 (December 1921), page 11.
“The cardinal principle of livestock breeding is selection of the individuals which shall perpetuate the stock ... The others may be killed, castrated or disposed of otherwise ... The progressive livestock breeder is not misled by any conception that his animals are “born equal;” he knows that some are inherently better than others ... The breed register is therefore a “bluebook” far more rigid in its requirements than any system of royal families or noble blood ever established in human society.” — L. J. Cole. “Animal Aristocracy and Human Democracy.” Birth Control Review, Volume VIII, Number 1 (January 1924), pages 20 and 21.
“2c. We must get rid of the inferior colored races—the Blacks, the Yellow and the Red races must be exterminated—of course you must convert them first to religion because their souls are very valuable. “2d. The white race then may proceed as follows: Let the Christians exterminate all Jews and Moslems, then the Protestants kill all Catholics, then let the Ku-Klux-Klan kill everybody except the one-hundred-per-cent; then let the Nordic race with blond hair and blue eyes kill off all the dark complexioned ...” — Bernard Sacks, M.D. “Overpopulation.” Birth Control Review, Volume VIII, Number 9 (September 1924), pages 252 and 270.
“Ignorance, poverty and vice must stop populating the world. To accomplish this, there is but one way. Science must make woman the owner of herself, the mistress of her person. Science, the only savior of mankind, must put it in the power of woman to decide for herself whether she will, or will not, become a mother.” — Robert Ingersoll. Birth Control Review, Volume II, Number 9 (September 1918), page 6.
“The women of Japan are apt to give birth to offspring rather carelessly and thoughtlessly. The result is that children are born feeble and degenerate. The women who are least able to be wives and mothers are inclined to misuse the reproductive function ...” — Quote by Akiko Yoshano, in Agnes Smedley. “The Awakening of Japan.” Birth Control Review, Volume IV, Number 2 (February 1920), page 7.
“Polish men are often immoral because they have been born of too young mothers or preceded by many born before.” — Rev. T. V. Jakimowitz. “A Priest on Birth Control.” Birth Control Review, Volume IV, Number 3 (March 1920), page 12.
“First of all the hordes of degenerates, diseased, idiotic, feeble minded, alcoholic, and vicious criminals must be wiped out. Their sterilization commends itself the more in that it will not occasion them the least discomfort.” — G. Hardy. “Eugenics and Child Culture.” Birth Control Review, Volume IV, Number 8 (August 1920), page 13.
“The black people, however restless and discontented, are comparatively inoffensive and in any case easy to placate, while the American Indians are a small and diminishing race.” — Havelock Ellis. “The World’s Racial Problem.” Birth Control Review, Volume IV, Number 10 (October 1920), page 15.
“If, therefore, our civilization is now in danger of being wrecked by the overproduction of inferior stock what more natural than that we should apply the principles already tried out in the plant and animal world?” — N.C. Nelson, Curator of Prehistoric Archaeology, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, New York. Letter entitled “An Anthropologist’s Comment” to the Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 5 (May 1931), pages 155 and 156.
“Society’s chief concern with the mating of the sexes is the propagation of children who shall be the best that their parents can produce. Society has no use for a miscellaneous collection of runts ...” — Robert W. Kelso. “Dependency and Birth Control.” Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 7 (July 1931), page 199.
“I wish to reiterate that all objections to birth control can be met unanswerably except one—that the human race will degenerate if the superior races and the superior classes among civilized races will curtail the number of their offspring while inferior races and the inferior strata in civilized countries will continue their high birthrate. This must be prevented by all means, and it can be if we go about it earnestly and zealously, and if the civilized governments give us their cooperation.” — Editorial in The Critic and Guide, July 1931, quoted in “In the Magazines.” Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 9 (September 1931), page 268.
“What the country needs is more well born children and fewer ill born. This is the message of the birth control movement.” — Eleanor Dwight Jones, President of the American Birth Control League. “The American Birth Control Movement.” Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 12 (December 1931), page 312.
“A course in eugenics should be conducted by the [Chinese] government, and men and women should be examined by doctors to determine whether they are fit physically and mentally to be progenitors of our future citizens. This may be done by the Health Bureau of every city or town.” — Fang Fu an. “Birth Control in China.” Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 12 (December 1931), page 352.
“In the meanwhile, it should not be forgotten that we do not use the quota against the nations of this hemisphere. This is a most curious discrimination, because Europe unquestionably is sending more desirable immigrants than we are receiving from Mexico. A very great proportion of these Mexicans are in large part of Indian blood and of a low cultural and economic level. There is also an immigration from Brazil and the West Indies which is in part negro. It is obvious that the quota plan, so long as we have it, should be extended to all the world.” “In conclusion, any country has available a very rapid, cheap, and effective tool in a eugenic program by the very simple device of making its own median (or higher level) in mental tests the basis of its immigration control.” — Roswell H. Johnson. “Population Control by Immigration.” Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 2 (February 1932), page 58.
“I’m afraid there’s no question but that it’s unpatriotic not to believe in limiting our population ... Birth control is essential for the slums, anyway.” — John Galsworthy. Maid in Waiting. Quoted in Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 3 (March 1932), page 87.
“The extent to which persecution must have affected European races is easily measured by a few well known statistical facts. Thus, as regards martyrdom and imprisonment, the Spanish nation was drained of freethinkers at a rate of 1,000 persons annually for the three centuries between 1471 and 1781; an average of 100 persons having been executed and 900 imprisoned every year during that period. The actual data during those 300 years are 32,000 burnt, 17,000 burnt in effigy (I presume they died in prison or escaped from Spain) and 291,000 condemned to various terms of imprisonment and other penalties. It is impossible that any nation could stand a policy like this without paying a heavy penalty in the deterioration of its breed, as has notably been the result in the formation of the superstitious, unintelligent Spanish race of the present day.” — Quote by Francis Galton, from Leon F. Whitney. “Religion and the Birthrate.” Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 4 (April 1932), page 103.
“There is no great opposition to birth control among the twelve million brown Americans ... Negroes are perhaps more receptive to this information than white folk. Despite their vaunted superiority, the white brethren have a full quota of illusions and, one might say, hypocrisies, especially about anything dealing with sex ... “After all, a woman is biologically a child factory, as a cow is a milk factory and a hen an egg factory. Certain ingredients of a certain quality are necessary to produce a healthy child under proper conditions of rest and security. If these are absent, the child will usually be an inferior product.” — George Schuyler. “Quality or Quantity.” Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 6 (June 1932, the “Negro Number”), page 166.
“On the other hand, the mass of ignorant Negroes still breed carelessly and disastrously, so that the increase among Negroes, even more than the increase among whites, is from that part of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear their children properly. “Moreover, they [“negroes”] are quite led away by the fallacy of numbers. They want the black race to survive. They are cheered by a census return of increasing numbers and a high rate of increase. They must learn that among human races and groups, as among vegetables, quality and not mere quantity really counts.” — W. E. B. DuBois, Professor of Sociology, Atlanta University. “Black Folk and Birth Control.” Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 6 (June 1932, the “Negro Number”), page 167.
“Basing their prognostications on the Negro’s mortality rate as compared with that of the white population, they have seen the solution of the vexatious Negro problem achieved by the mere passing of time. And not a few anthropologists and sociologists have valiantly maintained that the difference in Negro and white mortality rates is conclusive evidence of the innate inferiority of the Negro... and the Negro who, in addition to the handicaps of race and color, is shackled by mental and social incompetence serenely goes on his way bringing into the world children whose chances of mere existence are apparently becoming more and more hazardous....The probabilities are that the race problem in America is infinitely aggravated by the presence of too many unhappily born, sub-normals, morons, and imbeciles...” — Elmer A. Carter. “Eugenics For The Negro.” Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 6 (June 1932, the “Negro Number”), page 169.
“Many of the colored citizens are fine specimens of humanity. A good share of them, however, constitute a large percentage of Kalamazoo’s human scrap-pile ...” — Walter Terpenning. “God’s Chillun.” Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Number 6 (June 1932, the “Negro Number”), pages 171 and 172.
“He [the Negro] would seem to stand a far better chance to gain by limiting his progeny. This gain would be immediate from the energy to be conserved by lower birth and death rates. As it is, too many Negroes are born, too many are sick, and too many die each year for the good of the race. The vital process, like every other one in the social order, is costly, and the Negro indulges it far beyond what he can afford.... [through birth control] there are other more remote but equally important gains. One is the enhanced respect to be had from the dominant white race. That the Negro must acquire if he is to enjoy the rights and prerogatives he covets. But acquire it he cannot and will not so long as he remains the thriftless, childlike irresponsible dependent that he is, for such behavior does not command respect. In virtually every community where Negroes dwell one finds them in fat times and lean alike contributing a disproportionate number to the rolls of the dependents and delinquents. They make excessive demands on the white man’s charity and overtax his patience with their delinquencies. Recent data from several towns and cities indicate that the Negro is furnishing a quota in the fields mentioned, four or five times in excess of his portion of the population. Whatever the explanation, one thing is certain: too many Negro parents have made themselves and their offspring public dependents by having a too numerous progeny. It is this sort of behavior that the white man is coming to resent. Time was when the dominant race was over indulgent, but that is rapidly passing. The Negro can no longer ask indulgence, he must command respect. If he will learn to control his fecundity, he will not have to give hostages to the white man till the white man despises him for his weakness and counts him a social menace.” — Newell L. Sims. “Hostages to the White Man.” Birth Control Review, Volume XVI, Numbers 7 and 8 (July August 1932), pages 214 and 215
