Is there any rational info about Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood & Lothrop Stoddard?

[graywarrior]

I'm involved in a heated debate with someone over Planned Parenthood's history and its connection to Adolph Hitler. Most info I see online is extreme. Anyone know what the story is?

[RainDog]

1. here

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:6ULdxLuOcagJ:www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/OppositionClaimsAboutMargaretSanger.pdf+margaret+sanger+and+the+development+of+planned+parenthood&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESh11_2ALmwbzhhqSI5U1aLY1KIDzOuFQ7jQjxeumgnGGLmPvdipe3QDRQ1-fQCnllF9Sm0MXCRWEFlP6xdDTPkirR-CNjrhPbG1EytUiea421t1cm1k2oex_EzEI7L7zPX_-mvr&sig=AHIEtbSeUN2SMsQEKmYHD1miDotWSvHz2g

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:gLO6eS0HPLkJ:www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/Margaret_Sanger_Hero_1009.pdf+margaret+sanger+and+the+development+of+planned+parenthood&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShnZGxBXtSAGUP8sc7JlstqpF6fRj7q9ZfnrnPlN0rR3Y-ycpcqvhOUFAo462ryUTClkq2NTlJFe5wXe5GOkT-Vy3oEa0OZFqDpGqBLJZ8OyIPEXulIg6PQngq1ANMhOfPDF1gY&sig=AHIEtbQOpRrsLQsZUHR3TeLWwc9USb0DVQ


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/dr-king-margaret-sanger-planned-parenthood_n_1129136.html

http://www.rosaparksfacts.com/rosa-parks-later-years.php

Rosa Parks also supported PP and was on the board.

http://descooper.blogspot.com/2011/03/earlier-this-week-i-posted-link-on-my.html
The real courage of Rosa Parks has been obscured by a history that prefers women to be prim, polite and silent. I’m glad that she refused to accept the sexual violation of women in the 1940s, and that she stood up for the sexual self-determination of women decades later as a member of the Board of Advocates of Planned Parenthood.

[graywarrior]

3. Thank you!! ! ! ! ! !

[Botany]

2. this might help

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/history-and-successes.htm

I don't know about Lathrop Stoddard

[graywarrior]

5. Apparently, he was on the board of Sanger's Population Association of America

and was impressed with Hitler after an interview with him.

[RainDog]

11. if that's what someone wants to argue

what about Henry Ford and his publication, The International Jew? Or Charles Lindberg - and both of their visits with Hitler? What about the British Monarchy - Wallis Simpson, an American heiress, was a great admirer.

this sort of attempt to claim something b/c of one moment in history is bullshit. it's intellectually dishonest.

[graywarrior]

15. Great point!

I can use that!

[KamaAina]

17. Or Prescott Bush

who gladly did business with the Nazis.

[Owlet]

19. Wallis Warfield Simpson was hardly an heiress

more like a golddigger. Or, in her case, crowndigger.

[RainDog]

22. whatever she was

she shared sentiments with members of the British crown and aristocracy.

[Owlet]

25. No doubt about that. She was even rumored..

..to have had an affair with Ribbentrop when he was ambassador to Britain in 1936. Lots of sources for the story, but here's one of the juicier ones.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jun/29/research.monarchy

[TheWraith]

4. Sanger definitely was a proponent of eugenics, but support was widespread at that point.

Most major social movements supported eugenics during that time period, up until the Nazis made it uncool. There is no actual substantive connection between Planned Parenthood and Adolph Hitler.

[graywarrior]

8. That's what I'm trying to get across to this person

How can a reasonably intelligent person believe this shit?

[TheWraith]

21. If they're linking Planned Parenthood and the Nazis, you need to redefine "reasonably intelligent."

[graywarrior]

23. LOL!

This person is always calling me with controversial ideas. Eventually, he ends up agreeing with me.

[Snake Alchemist]

29. Isn't that the same argument that is used to justify slavery? nt

[enough]

6. Link to Amazon's list of books by Margaret Sanger:

This is an interesting place to start. A remarkable person. (P.S.) If you hate Amazon, you don't have to buy them there.)

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3AMargaret+Sanger&keywords=Margaret+Sanger&ie=UTF8&qid=1328917593&sr=1-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B001HOR0MO

[pamela]

7. ...

I think the wikipedia article on Sanger is comprehensive and fair. Sanger wasn't perfect. She was ahead of her time in many ways and yet very much a product of her time in other ways.

Should we judge a modern organization based on some of the outdated views of its founder? I'm not sure I see the relevance. It's not like anyone is trying to put Sanger on the dollar or Mount Rushmore.

[graywarrior]

12. Some people take information like this as fact

Makes me want to scream!

[RainDog]

9. planned parenthood - or birth control

was an issue going all the way back to the 1700s for feminists, btw. few were in favor of birth control b/c it was associated with prostitution - but condoms go way back in history.

in the 1800s, Annie Besant took up the issue in GB and was publicly taunted for this. the reason for the move to birth control was the move from agricultural to industrial jobs for working class people. there was no job security, no safety net, no worker protections - women who lost husbands were forced into prostitution to survive - so birth control (generally a condom or a sort of sponge) were seen as HUMANE ways to keep women from having to suck the cocks of old men in order to survive.

how dare anyone put forward the idea that women shouldn't be forced to suck stranger's cocks to make money!

all churches opposed this back then, too. of course, one real fear is that a woman would not get pregnant if having sex at her own discretion, even then.

Hitler made abortion laws stricter. The Weimar Republic had allowed abortion for the health of the mother and Hitler did away with this. He also executed an officer who got an abortion for his mistress.

If anyone wants to claim Hitler is tied to birth control, they have to ignore the few hundred years prior to his era - and they also have to ignore the reality that, in the 19th and 20th c., most whites were horribly racist. Ask someone if, because his or her great-grandparents thought the same things about blacks or jews that Hitler did - if that means those people were the equivalent of Nazis.

the reality is that the 19th c. was extremely racist b/c it was a time when Europe was colonizing other parts of the world, still - and when nations colonize, they dehumanize those they are subjugating to their rule.

just as is done today.

[graywarrior]

13. Good info, thanks!

[tanyev]

10. Don't know if this helps or hurts, but you can always drag Prescott Bush into it.

Prescott S. Bush as Treasurer of Planned Parenthood First National Fundrasing Drive—1947

Planned Parenthood fundraising letter of January 8, 1947, lists Prescott S. Bush as treasurer of Margaret Sanger's first national fundraising drive. At that time, contraception was against the law in Connecticut, and the state had a large Catholic constituency. In 1950, during Prescott's first race for the U.S. Senate, the syndicated columnist Drew Pearson accused Bush of being a member of Planned Parenthood. Bush lost and accused Pearson of spreading the lie that cost him elected office. This fund-raising letter proved Pearson right.

http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/thefamily/extras_documents.php

http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/thefamily/media/thefamily_document007a.pdf

[graywarrior]

14. Nice!

Thanks!

[kestrel91316]

16. Well now THERE'S your Nazi connection.

[librechik]

18. Sanger founded PP--she was also a staunch eugenicist

as a pioneer in the progressive movement, eugenics is the notion which caused the Nazis to experiement on getting better Human Specimens..Nowadays progressives hate being reminded of this craap in their histpru the way Democrats hate to be reminded about Dixiecrats.

That was a long time ago and progressives no longer promote eugenics. And Dixiecrats are now Southern Repubs.

[graywarrior]

20. That's perfect.

Sums it up nice and neat and in a format this person will understand. Thank you!

[Crunchy Frog]

24. There was a very good NPR piece on her that I listened to not long ago.

I believe that this link is the article on the piece that I heard. http://www.npr.org/2011/11/09/142097521/how-birth-control-and-abortion-became-politicized

(Besides the article, there is also a link to the audio. The article also has a link to a very extensive piece in the New Yorker.)

It's by far the most informative and myth-debunking piece on Margaret Sanger that I've come accross and, I believe, very well researched and referenced.

[graywarrior]

27. Oh good, thank you Crunchy Frog!

[meaculpa2011]

26. I would not excuse...

20th Century eugenicists any more than I would excuse 19th Century slave owners.

Some things are objectively evil regardless of time and place. Eugenics qualifies as objectively evil.

Their mission to protect society from teeming hordes of genetically inferior people should send chills up everyone's spine.

As a member of one of the teeming hordes targetted for destruction, I take these things personally.

[graywarrior]

28. This is such a fascinating topic

[Snake Alchemist]

30. Yes, a nazi by any other name. nt

[MadHound]

31. I suggest you read the following

Edwin Black's "War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race" An eye opening look at a long concealed, black chapter of American history. Sanger is not the devil that the fundies paint her out to be, but neither is she the angel that the left portrays her as. Rather, she was human, with conflicting motivations, inspirations, faults, and regrets.

[graywarrior]

32. When did that get published?

I wonder if the library has it.