{"id":6397,"date":"2015-03-11T20:31:44","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T02:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/thoughtlife\/?p=6397"},"modified":"2015-03-11T20:39:55","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T02:39:55","slug":"evangelicals-writing-in-praise-of-margaret-sanger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thoughtlife\/2015\/03\/evangelicals-writing-in-praise-of-margaret-sanger\/","title":{"rendered":"Evangelicals Writing In Praise of Margaret Sanger?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"sanger\"<\/a>I just read a piece that truly shocked me.\u00a0Thin Places<\/em>, a blog hosted by\u00a0Christianity Today,\u00a0<\/em>published a piece by Rachel Marie Stone entitled \u201cContraception Saves Lives\u201d<\/a> that \u201creconsiders\u201d Margaret Sanger (HT: Eric Teetsel<\/a>). Much of Stone\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0piece focuses on the benefits of birth control, but part of it repristinates\u00a0Sanger herself.<\/p>\n

\n

On my first tour of Zomba Central Hospital in Malawi, Africa, where I lived from 2012-2014, an older nurse-midwife, Lena, told me proudly that she had visited the city of my birth, New York, to study at the Margaret Sanger Center in Lower Manhattan.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cA great woman, Margaret Sanger!\u201d Lena said.<\/em><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t sure how to reply; Sanger founded Planned Parenthood, which, contrary to what Sanger would have wished, is today the largest provider of abortions in the United States. As it happens, Planned Parenthood did not, in Sanger\u2019s day, provide abortions.\u00a0Sanger herself opposed abortion<\/a>, saying that \u201cno matter how early it was performed it was taking a life.\u201d But Sanger, like many medical professionals in her day, did hold eugenicist ideas. Eugenics were enshrined into\u00a0compulsory sterilization laws in many U.S. states<\/a>\u00a0and supported by organizations like the Women\u2019s Christian Temperance Union. I do not mean to excuse Sanger for holding these views, but I do want to give the charge of \u201ceugenicist\u201d a more complete background.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole piece.<\/a><\/p>\n

I have great respect for CT as a magazine. I subscribe to it and enjoy reading it. I\u2019m thankful to sometimes write for it (I did so last month<\/a>, in fact). I haven\u2019t read a great deal of Amy Julia Becker\u2019s writing (she\u2019s the person behind the blog), but I have read several pieces from her about disabilities that I found courageous, biblically faithful, and poignant. She\u2019s given voice to people who don\u2019t always have one, and I\u2019ve personally been thankful for that.<\/p>\n

I possess\u00a0no existing concern for Becker\u2019s material, then. I also inherently trust CT. But this piece took me aback; it truly shocked me. Margaret Sanger was an unbridled eugenicist and one of the worst (and most effective) racists America has ever seen. Let\u2019s consider a few of her choicest quotations (from here<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Then there\u2019s this:<\/p>\n

\n

[We should] 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.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here\u2019s the worst of them all (from here<\/a>)\u2013Sanger plotting with extreme cunning the extermination of \u201cNegros\u201d:<\/p>\n

\n

The minister\u2019s work is also important and he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members [emphasis added].<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We could go on, and on, and on. Margaret Sanger is a veritable fountain<\/a> of racist and eugenicist statements. She founded Planned Parenthood, which has in later years\u00a0carried out her diabolical vision. I am stunned\u00a0that a reputable and widely-respected evangelical publication like\u00a0Christianity Today<\/em>\u2013a magazine I support\u2013published this piece.<\/p>\n

As blog readers will know, I am all for a healthy conversation about sexual ethics, including contraception. I actually do believe conscionable birth control can lend aid in certain ways to humanity. I do not believe every family needs to have as many children as possible, and I am sure that conscionable forms of birth control in the developing world could assist some people. So let\u2019s be clear: the issue with this piece is\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>that it suggests a possibly viable role for certain forms of birth control.<\/p>\n

But surely this issue can be framed\u00a0without using a racist eugenicist who believed that African-Americans were \u201cobjectionable\u201d? Is that possible? I would hope that it is. I might suggest choosing someone\u00a0whose legacy does not include public questing for the extermination of \u201cinferior\u201d races. The fact that we would reference Sanger in laudable terms horrifies me, and no doubt has a similar effect on other readers, including some who would have been targeted unto death by Sanger simply for the color of their skin.<\/p>\n

*************<\/p>\n

(Image:\u00a0\u201cSangerAndSon2\u201d by Unknown \u2013 Library of Congress. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just read a piece that truly shocked me.\u00a0Thin Places, a blog hosted by\u00a0Christianity Today,\u00a0published a piece by Rachel Marie Stone entitled \u201cContraception Saves Lives\u201d that \u201creconsiders\u201d Margaret Sanger (HT: Eric Teetsel). Much of Stone\u2019s\u00a0piece focuses on the benefits of birth control, but part of it repristinates\u00a0Sanger herself. On my first tour of Zomba Central […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[849,3842,1933,2337,13245],"class_list":["post-6397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","tag-christianity-today","tag-eugenics","tag-margaret-sanger","tag-planned-parenthood","tag-racism"],"yoast_head":"\nEvangelicals Writing In Praise of Margaret Sanger?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I just read a piece that truly shocked me.\u00a0Thin Places, a blog hosted by\u00a0Christianity Today,\u00a0published a piece by Rachel Marie Stone entitled\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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