By FRC's Dan Hart
Planned Parenthood, America's largest abortion supplier, has glossed over its racist roots for decades. Their founder, Margaret Sanger, was a firm eugenicist who wanted to use her organization to, in her words, "weed out the unfit" through birth control and abortion. Despite the well-documented racism of Sanger, Planned Parenthood's website still speaks glowingly of her with no mention of her dark past.
Now, 120 black leaders from across the nation have declared that enough is enough. In a letter organized by FRC's own Senior Fellow for African American Affairs Rev. Dean Nelson and addressed to the abortion giant's president Alexis McGill Johnson, the leaders urge her to "confront the systemic racism of America's abortion practices" and to "publicly renounce the racist legacy" of Sanger.
The letter, signed by FRC Senior Fellow Ken Blackwell, Dr. Alveda King, Louisiana State Sen. Katrina Jackson (D), Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill (R), Texas State Rep. James White (R), Georgia State Rep. Mack Jackson (D), former NFL star Ben Watson, and former professor Dr. Carol Swain, among others, goes on to highlight the astonishingly tragic racial disparities in abortions, pointing out that "Black women are five times more likely than white women to receive an abortion," that "more Black children are aborted every year than are born alive [in New York City]," and that "79 percent of Planned Parenthood's surgical abortion facilities are located in or near communities of color."
Recently, small cracks have begun to appear in Planned Parenthood's carefully curated narrative. In July, they quietly removed Sanger's name from their flagship Manhattan abortion facility, and their president was forced to publicly acknowledge the fact that her own organization's former and current employees released an open letter in June accusing an affiliate CEO of "systemic racism" and "abuse" which was never addressed. All of this makes Planned Parenthood's public social media support of "black lives" particularly ironic. As the letter from black leaders points out, these words "ring hollow while your organization perpetuates this racist legacy."
Even if the entire Planned Parenthood Federation of America were to publicly renounce Margaret Sanger, as the letter from black leaders rightly demands, it would obviously not come anywhere close to rectifying the damage they have done to the black community. Since the wide legalization of abortion in 1973, approximately 20 million black babies have been aborted. This means that the black population in America would be almost 50 percent higher today if it weren't for abortion, in which Planned Parenthood has perpetrated the largest part of any abortion supplier in the country.
Planned Parenthood has much to account for, and we believers have much to pray for.
