Rich Wheeler's
Roots of Planned Parenthood Page

Margaret Sanger's NAZI Spring of 1933

by Mike Richmond, Healthy Choices for Women
01/17/97
[Edited by yours truly. - rw]

Would you be surprised to learn that Planned Parenthood has its roots in eugenics and possibly even racism?

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood (1942), also founded a periodical, Birth Control Review (1917-1940). Birth Control Review provides irrefutable evidence that Sanger was a proponent of eugenics. For example, in her April 1932 essay, "A Plan for Peace," she advocated giving "certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization." Whether those "certain dysgenic groups" included racial categories is a separate subject; but the following proves that Sanger would have cut off the hereditary lines of the less intelligent, the less fit, and other social pariahs.

What did Margaret Sanger have to say about sterilization and birth control? For this, it is best to go back to April 1932:

A Plan for Peace Summary of an address before New History Society. by Margaret Sanger Published in Birth Control Review April 1932, pp. 107-108

Sidebar

First, put into action President Wilson's fourteen points, upon which terms Germany and Austria surrendered to the Allies in 1918. Second, have Congress set up a special department for the study of population problems and appoint a Parliament of Population, the directors representing the various branches of science: this body to direct and control the population through birth rates and immigration, and to direct its distribution over the country according to national needs consistent with taste, fitness and interest of individuals. The main objects of the Population Congress would be: a. to raise the level and increase the general intelligence of population. b. to increase the population slowly by keeping the birth rate at its present level of fifteen per thousand, decreasing the death rate below its present mark of 11 per thousand. c. to keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feebleminded, idiots, morons, insane, syphilitic, epileptic, criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred by the immigration laws of 1924. d. to apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring. e. to insure the country against future burdens of maintenance for numerous offspring as may be born of feebleminded parents, by pensioning all persons with transmissible disease who voluntarily consent to sterilization. f. to give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization. g. to apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives. The first step would thus be to control the intake and output of morons, mental defectives, epileptics. The second step would be to take an inventory of the secondary group such as illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, dope-fiends; classify them in special departments under government medical protection, and segregate them on farms and open spaces as long as necessary for the strengthening and development of moral conduct. Having corralled this enormous part of our population and placed it on a basis of health instead of punishment, it is safe to say that fifteen or twenty millions of our population would then be organized into soldiers of defense---defending the unborn against their own disabilities. The third step would be to give special attention to the mothers' health, to see that women who are suffering from tuberculosis, eart or kidney disease, toxic goitre, gonorrhea, or any disease where the condition of pregnancy disturbs their health are placed under public health nurses to instruct them in practical, scientific methods of contraception in order to safeguard their lives---thus reducing maternal mortality. The above steps may seem to place emphasis on a health program instead of on tariffs, moratoriums and debts, but I believe that national health is the first essential factor in any program for universal peace. With the future citizen safeguarded from hereditary taints, with five million mental and moral degenerates segregated, with ten million women and ten million children receiving adequate care, we could then turn our attention to the basic needs for international peace. There would then be a definite effort to make population increase slowly and at a specified rate, in order to accommodate and adjust increasing numbers to the best social and economic system. In the meantime we should organize and join an International League of Low Birth Rate Nations to secure and maintain World Peace.

Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 14:09:29 -0700 (PDT) From: mike richmond [email protected] To: Esther Katz [email protected] 5 July 1997 Esther Katz Editor/Director - Margaret Sanger Papers Project NYU Dear Esther Katz, Hello. In April 1932 Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) wrote a major article (A Plan for Peace) for the journal she founded (Birth Control Review). The full article is in the appendix of this letter but here are a few quotes: 1. "d. to apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring." 2. "f. to give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization." 3. "g. to apportion farm lands and homesteads for these segregated persons where they would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives." How many people would be affected by the policies pronounced in this article? "Having corralled this enormous part of our population and placed it on a basis of health instead of punishment, it is safe to say that fifteen or twenty millions of population would then be organized into soldiers of defense-defending the unborn against their own disabilities." This was said when the U.S. population was roughly 125 million. Applied to the current U.S. population of about 250 million, this would mean thirty to forty million consigned to 'farms' (i.e. concentration camps). Since Margaret Sanger was born in 1879, she was over 50 years old when she had A Plan for Peace published in 1932. How many people undergo a major change in their 'life philosophy' after the age of 40? Very few. You, Esther Katz, are the Editor/Director of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project. If Margaret Sanger ever renounced any of the above quoted ideas, you should be able to give exact references for such renunciations. If you have such documents, please specify which they are and where they may be found. Below (see appendix) is reproduced A Plan for Peace. Is there any major idea in this proposal that you, Esther Katz, renounce? Thank you, in advance, for making sure that the truth about Margaret Sanger is communicated to the public. Best Regards, Mike Richmond Appendix (A Plan for Peace, Margaret Sanger)

Articles in Sanger's magazine the next year confirm that her views in '32 were not an aberration.

An article, "Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need," by Professor Dr. Ernst Rudin, in the April 1933 issue of Birth Control Review, raises strong suspicions that Sanger's support for eugenics was at least partially motivated by racism.

Who is Ernst Rudin? William H. Tucker tells about Rudin in The Science and Politics of Racial Research (1994, University of Illinois Press, p. 121):

In an address to the German Society for Rassenhygiene [Race-hygiene] Ernst Rudin, a professor of psychiatry who was one of the organization's original members and now its head, recalled the early, fruitless days when the racial hygienists had labored in vain to alert the public to special value of the Nordic race as "culture creators" and the danger of "unnatural" attempts to preserve the health of heredity defectives. Now Rassenhygiene [Race-hygiene] was finally receiving the attention it deserved, and Rudin virtually slavered over the man whose efforts produced this change: "The significance of Rassenhygiene did not become evident to all aware Germans until the political activity of Adolf Hitler and only through his work has our 30 year long dream of translating Rassen- hygiene into action finally become a reality." Terming it a "duty of honor" (Ehrenpflicht) for the society to aid in implementing Hitler's program, Rudin proclaimed, "We can hardly express our efforts more plainly or appropriately than in the words of the Fuhrer: 'Whoever is not physically or mentally fit must not pass on his defects to his children. The state must take care that only the fit produce children. Conversely, it must be regarded as reprehensible to withhold healthy children from the state.' (E. Rudin, "Aufgaben and Ziele der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Rassenhygiene," Archiv Fur Rassen- und Gesellschafts- biologie 28 (1933): 228-29) Who is author William H. Tucker? He is an associate professor psychology at Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey. Tucker is apparently somewhat left of center politically, since he complains about the 'Reagan slash and burn spending cuts.'

In addressing an American audience (Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need, Dr. Ernst Rudin, Birth Control Review , April 1933) Rudin is much more circumspect in his word choice:

The following essay is concerned only with sterilization as a a voluntary practice, that is, when undertaken with the consent of the patient himself or his statutory guardians....

But as the essay wears on, the mask begins to slip:

My experience has led me to the conclusion that systematic and careful propaganda should be undertaken where sterilization is advisable. Such propaganda should, of course, be gradual and should be directed in the first instance at the medical directors in institutions and schools, medical officers of health, and finally at private practitioners....

How many were forcibly sterilized in Germany during the NAZI regime? Estimates vary generally in the range of 250,000 to 500,000. Many sterilization laws were passed in the 1920s and 1930s in the U.S. and Canada as well. (If someone has a documented estimate of North American forced sterilizations from 1920 through 1970, please send an email TO: Mike Richmond and CC: .

Was Rudin the only author of pro-sterilization views in the April 1933 Birth Control Review? No. Cora B. S. Hodson stated in An Instrument in Race Progress

"The legislative sanction for sterilization of certain offenders given by some Swiss cantons and more recently by Denmark has brought this question to the fore in Germany. Last summer the International Criminalistic Association (the I.K.V.) at its Frankfurt session devoted considerable time to the sterilization problem, and on June 8-9, of this year, the program of the Kriminal-biologische Gesellschaft meeting in Hamburg provides for four papers on "Crime Prevention and Sterilization." The Zeitschrift fur die gesamte Strafrechtswissenshaft, Germany's leading criminal law journal, which last summer contained several articles on the subject, expects to publish this year an additional series prepared by American authorities."

Yet another article appeared which promoted eugenics. William H. Tucker identifies its author, Paul Popenoe, as a researcher who favored eugenics. Says Tucker (p. 123):

The biologist Paul Popenoe, author of the most widely used American eugenics text and editor of the Journal of Heredity, also reviewed the new German law. Noting that Hitler had read the definitive German work on heredity by Baur, Fischer, and Lenz, Popenoe judged the fuhrer's program to be based "solidly on the application of biological principles to human society."

In the April 1933 Birth Control Review, Popenoe wrote in an untitled article on the page before the table of contents (a position which indicates it was the cornerstone to set the direction of that issue and of Sanger's philosophy):

Eugenic sterilization is one of the many indispensable measures in any modern program of social welfare. It is an integral part of a general system of protection, parole, and supervision, for those who by reason on mental disease or deficiency are unable to meet the responsibilities of citizenship.

It promotes eugenics by cutting off some of the lines of descent that are spreading mental disease and mental defect throughout the population. It is conservatively estimated that there are approximately 5,000,000 people in the United States who will at some time be committed to state hospitals as insane and that there are approximately 5,000,000 more who are so deficient intellectually (with less than 70% of average intelligence) as to be, in many cases, liabilities rather than assets to the race. The situation will grow worse instead of better if steps are not taken to control the reproduction of the mentally handicapped. Eugenic sterilization represents one such step that is practicable, humanitarian, and certain in its results.

Blacks, soldiers and Jews are a menace to the race.

Do not pass go, do not ever use this 'quote' unless you see a copy directly from the pages of BCR (or correspondence between M.S. and one of her cronies).

At the least, Margaret Sanger promoted the use of eugenics to cull "inferior" genes from the human pool. At best, she tolerated those such as the NAZIs who were motivated by racism, and at worst, was herself motivated (at least in part) by racism. Planned Parenthood may sanitize its image by rewriting its history, but its roots are buried in a septic field.

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