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‘Christianity Today’ Article Praises Margaret Sanger

Of all the shocking articles I’ve ever read in Christian magazines, the article “Contraception Saves Lives” by Rachel Marie Stone praising the efforts of Margaret Sanger has got to be one of the worst.

Afger receiving a lot of criticism, Stone called using Sanger a “distraction” to her larger point. Give me a break. Sanger’s history is filled with some of the most anti-Christian and racist beliefs found anywhere.

For those of you who are not aware of the views of Margaret Sanger and the origin of the philosophy of Planned Parenthood, Bill Muehlenberg’s article is a good place to start: “The Downward Plunge of American Christianity.”

There are some who are sick enough to try to get Sanger’s image on the $20 bill. It might be appropriate since abortionists trust more in abortion than God.

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A leading proponent of eugenics was Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) the founder of Planned Parenthood, the biggest promoter of sex education, abortion and birth control in the world today. Millions of school children today are exposed to the philosophy and values of Sanger.

In college she plunged into radical politics, suffragette feminism, and unfettered sex. She married into money, became a socialist, and pursued anarchist and utopian causes. She was especially influenced by English sexologist Havelock Ellis and his Studies in the Psychology of Sex. Ellis was a proponent of free love and every kind of sexual deviancy. He was to later become one of her many lovers.

Ellis was also a eugenicist, and advocated sterilizing the “unfit.” He said, “Feeble-mindedness is an absolute dead-weight on the race; it is an evil that is unmitigated.” He said those who would not volunteer for sterilization should have their Poor Relief withdrawn from them.

In 1917 she founded the Birth Control League, which changed its name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942. Today Planned Parenthood is a multi-billion-dollar international conglomerate with programs and activities in 134 nations on every continent.1

Sanger also published a paper called The Woman Rebel, with “No Gods! No Masters” emblazoned on the masthead. The first issue denounced marriage as a “degenerate institution,” capitalism as indecent exploitation,” and sexual modesty as “obscene prudery.” In another article she asserted that “rebel women claim the following rights: the right to be lazy, the right to be an unmarried mother, the right to destroy . . . and the right to love.”

Her publication Birth Control Review once featured this slogan: “Birth Control: To Create a Race of Thoroughbreds.” In her 1922 book, The Pivot of Civilization, she called for the elimination of “human weeds,” for the cessation of charity, for the segregation of “morons, misfits and the maladjusted” and the sterilization of “genetically inferior races.”

In March of 1925, at an international birth control gathering held in New York, Ms Sanger warned of the menace posed by the “black” and “yellow” peril. Elsewhere she spoke of her plan for sterilizing the “unfit” and criticized those “whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers.”

Not surprisingly, she exerted a lot of influence, especially on one person who was probably the greatest applied eugenicist who ever lived: Adolf Hitler. In 1929 he said, “if a million children were born in a year and 800,000 of the weakest and most ‘unworthy’ were killed, the end result would be a strengthening of the population.” As his deputy Rudolf Hess explained in 1934, “National Socialism is nothing but applied biology.”

Thankfully I am not the only one outraged by this. Chelsen Vicari, Evangelical Action Director of the Institute on Religion and Democracy said this:

 

“Caution to anyone who believes that Margaret Sanger’s establishment of Planned Parenthood was a righteous attempt to relieve underprivileged women. Sanger was driven by racism and eugenics. With aims for societal hegemony, Sanger started Planned Parenthood to regulate the births of minorities, or what Sanger called ‘benign imbeciles, who encourage the defective and diseased elements of humanity in their reckless and irresponsible swarming and spawning.’ Not exactly the model female leadership Christian women should emulate.

“Secular feminists are increasingly sounding the alarm on hormonal contraception today, and Christians ought to be the most pro-women voices, proclaiming the truth about real health and abortifacient risks of hormonal contraception. But this article is a sad and shocking example of a Christian voice rewriting the past and promoting the use of toxic chemicals by the poorest and most vulnerable women in the name of charity.”

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For a detailed study of the history and ideology of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood, get George Grant’s books Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood and Killer Angel: A Short Biography of Planned Parenthood’s Founder, Margaret Sanger.

  1. Millions of taxpayer dollars go to Planned Parenthood each year. In 2012, Planned Parenthood got more than $540 million and performed 327,166 abortions. []
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