Republican Pundits Use Planned Parenthood For Race Baiting
and Eugenics Myth
Rush Limbaugh Claims Planned Parenthood Is Conspiring Against MinoritiesLimbaugh personifies the typical conservative in his tactics. Demonize Planned Parenthood as being in the abortion business - most of their work has to do with women's health - cancer screenings, birth control information and other women's health issues. PP in fact does not perform abortions - a procedure that is legal. In addition to the scare tactics the radical Right is also engaged in race baiting, hoping to get the African-American vote. Again the fact is that PP has provided millions of dollars worth of health care to minority women when there was no place else to go.
Limbaugh: The Left "Literally Preside[s] Over The Death Of 60% Of Black Babies In The Womb Via Planned Parenthood." From the March 2 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
Limbaugh: "Planned Parenthood Is Doing The Job The Klan Could Never Finish." From the February 25 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
However, Martin Luther King Jr. Accepted Planned Parenthood Award And Praised The Organization For Its Dedication To Family Planning. From King's "Family Planning -- A Special and Urgent Concern" speech, delivered by his wife, Mrs. Coretta Scott King:If the Right really cared about children - real ones, living their lives in the real world - they would stop their attacks, fear mongering and myth making - and help real children get access to health care, instead of taking health care access away from children.
There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.
What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.
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For the Negro, therefore, intelligent guides of family planning are a profoundly important ingredient in his quest for security and a decent life. There are mountainous obstacles still separating Negroes from a normal existence. Yet one element in stabilizing his life would be an understanding of and easy access to the means to develop a family related in size to his community environment and to the income potential he can command.
This is not to suggest that the Negro will solve all his problems through Planned Parenthood. His problems are far more complex, encompassing economic security, education, freedom from discrimination, decent housing and access to culture. Yet if family planning is sensible it can facilitate or at least not be an obstacle to the solution of the many profound problems that plague him.
The Negro constitutes half the poor of the nation. Like all poor, Negro and white, they have many unwanted children. This is a cruel evil they urgently need to control. There is scarcely anything more tragic in human life than a child who is not wanted. That which should be a blessing becomes a curse for parent and child. There is nothing inherent in the Negro mentality which creates this condition. Their poverty causes it. When Negroes have been able to ascend economically, statistics reveal they plan their families with even greater care than whites. Negroes of higher economic and educational status actually have fewer children than white families in the same circumstances.
