Margaret Sanger was a walking contradiction.
The founder of the birth control movement spent her life arguing that women’s liberation was predicated on their ability to control their own reproduction. “No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother,” she wrote in 1919. At the same time, she bought into the ideology of eugenics — the belief that genetics could improve through selective breeding — and supported sterilization of those who were deemed unfit to reproduce. In other words, she believed the choice to be a mother was reserved only for those who were deemed worthy by society, a judgment inherently shaped by her contemporaries’ racism and prejudices against people with disabilities.
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Sanger’s complicated legacy and the long shadow it has cast over Planned Parenthood, the organization she founded, is now under the microscope.
Last week, the greater New York chapter of Planned Parenthood (PPGNY) announced it was renaming a Manhattan building that bears her name. The removal of Sanger’s name “is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color,” Karen Seltzer, board chair at PPGNY, said in a statement. “Margaret Sanger’s concerns and advocacy for reproductive health have been clearly documented, but so too has her racist legacy.”
The national organization, which supports PPGNY’s decision, said it is also embarking on a historical self-evaluation, examining Sanger’s place in its origin story as part of a larger reckoning around institutional racism at its health centers.
The rejection of Sanger comes amid an electrified movement for racial justice that has brought new scrutiny to once-revered historical figures, monuments and institutions. In a short span, the nation has witnessed scores of statues torn down, a football team change its racist name, and NASCAR ban the Confederate flag. Progressive heroes with complicated pasts, like Sanger, have not been spared. Her groundbreaking work ultimately ushered in reproductive health for millions of women, but her association with eugenics has also shaped how Planned Parenthood serves Black women today.
HuffPost spoke to scholars who have studied Sanger to understand how she went from promoting women’s reproductive freedom to embracing an ideology inextricably connected to racism.
Source: Reckoning With The Feminist, Eugenicist Founder Of Planned Parenthood
