Posted by: Mary at 10/24/08 My comment is better late than never. Sanger practiced with and studied under Hitler's doctors. She was for the elimination of imperfections. Her life is not a shining example for those of the nursing profession. Is not Eugenics and Planned Parenthood really rather the same concept, with implied differences? Can you trust the words of someone who had no regard for the most helpless of our species, whose own organization used the word "baby" in their family planning fliers circa late 50's and early 60's without the term "fetus" or "product of conception". I do believe that she felt that all black women should be placed on the table and sterilized. I believe this was quoted in a biographical text. Without dispute, abortion stops a Beating Heart, no matter what race. Flag Abuse

Posted by: Jason T at 1/28/08 Yes, but Doug, that doesn't necessarily equate to her saying that we should eradicate the black race. As I understand it, eugenics seeks to eliminate the "unwanted" element of our population. If even the parents-to-be don't want these aborted children, why should the rest of society? While it seems that you're trying to use this quotation to shock us about Ms. Sanger's callous attitude, her point is very accurate, almost to the point of being self-evident. Flag Abuse

Posted by: NowTHISiscontext! at 1/23/08 Wow, great editing. I'm surprised the CT doesn't come out and say that Jesus endorsed abortion. "True, the Son of man is going away, just as it is written concerning him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been finer for him if that man had not been born." (Matthew 26:24, Mark 14:21) Flag Abuse

Posted by: Jason T at 1/23/08 Just another thought about the article: Ms. Aldrich quotes a note from Sanger to Dr. Clarence Gamble about not wanting people to think that extermination of the black population is the goal. Ms. Aldrich takes this to mean, "eradicating black people is the goal, but we must cover it up." It seems to me that the statement could just as easily read, "we don't want to eradicate the black race, but just in case people mistakenly think that, please reassure them that we are providing a service to them." It doesn't seem unlikely to me at all that black citizens in the early 20th century would be wary of the intentions of such an organization, so such reassurance may have been appropriate. As for the KKK reference, Sanger's statement is not necessarily incriminating. She uses a basic "any press is good press" argument as justification for spreading her ideas to anyone who will listen. I realize that many of Ms. Sanger's views are now dated, but let's take a moment to recognize that there are different ways to interpret these statements. Flag Abuse

Posted by: Lizzy Carraway at 1/23/08 First of all, I’ll say that I have a pro-choice bias. That wasn’t so hard was it? Maybe if everyone was straightforward about their opinions then we wouldn’t have misleading articles like Allison Aldrich’s. I wouldn’t mind reading an intelligent, well-supported pro-life argument in the paper but this is nothing short of pure slander. Allison Aldrich goes from MLK to abortion in some sort of unintelligible stream-of-consciousness and ends up saying that all of the Planned Parenthood clinics are run by murderous racists. Now I have no idea what MLK would say about abortion, but I know he was intelligent enough to listen to both sides of an argument before verbally bombing Planned Parenthood. Her “theory” is that we should drop Planned Parenthood, an organization providing reproductive health care and family counseling to low-income women who can’t afford it, because it has a vague past connection to eugenics. That’s like saying we should dismiss everything in the Constitution because the founding fathers were racist and *#*ist (apparently the CT doesn’t allow the “s” word.) News flash: everything that occurred in the late nineteenth through the early twentieth century was at least somehow influenced by eugenics. Does that mean we should ditch women’s right to vote as well? Eugenics was a massive pseudoscientific movement that affected a lot of otherwise decent human beings. It is in no way related to the mission or services performed by Planned Parenthood: an organization providing information and counseling to women more often than it provides abortions. How does this fit into the Planned Parenthood eugenics conspiracy? Are they counseling them to death? The eugenics movement is guilty of forced sterilization and genocide; regardless of political or philosophical leanings, I think we can all agree that Planned Parenthood is not guilty of either of these crimes. Aldrich also claims that Planned Parenthood targets low-income women and women of color. Her only supporting evidence is that Planned Parenthood’s are placed in inner cities and most of the women seeking services are from low-income neighborhoods. Planned Parenthoods are opened to all women seeking help regardless of socioeconomic situation. Since middle to upper class white women are not the majority of women seeking the services of Planned Parenthood, this organization ensures that it is accessible to the population of women who historically have needed it the most. Flag Abuse

Posted by: JusttheFacts at 1/23/08 The joke is...that men apparently care about civil rights more than women do. "Oh, whatever shall we do?!? (hanky wipe), burn our bras?" How about mobilizing the female voting base? How about addressing the article in the name of sisterhood?...assuming Allison Aldrich is a female. Ah, easier to take a gender swipe. Whatever. Flag Abuse

Posted by: Anonymous at 1/23/08 I love how a bunch of MEN are on here arguing over abortion. It's ironic and even more so that the decision is left up to a bunch of men on the Supreme Court. What a joke. Flag Abuse

Posted by: Kyle Minor at 1/22/08 I don't disagree with your assertion regarding the nature of courts, but a careful reading of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights presents itself as a specific list of protections against Federal intrusion. My ultimate point is that the SCOTUS was out of its jurisdiction in ruling as it did in Roe, and even if it HAD been within its jurisdiction, its legal reasoning was faulty because of the invocation of the umbrella of rights concept. My personal feelings about abortion aside, the issue ultimaely should be hashed out (if anywhere) in the state legislatures, since the right to an abortion (and more broadly, the right to privacy) is not enumerated anywhere in the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Thus, it falls under the scope of the 10th amendment, and as such should be left to the states to decide. A lot of the philosophical end of the argument comes from a disagreement about when a fetus becomes a human (since we operate under the assumption that humans have rights, and this is what fundamentally separates them from fetuses). From this perspective, it seems logical to assert that perhaps abortion ought not be illegal any more than the removal of a tumor ought to be illegal, but in practice we as a society still have practices (or had practices) wherein a fetus is actually 'mostly delivered' (and so can ostensibly be called partially human - although, we might want to discuss whether having your feet still in the womb really disqualifies you from being a human), and yet we still condone abortions at this point (partial-birth abortion). It is interesting to note the principle of viability as well - can it be successfully argued that a viable fetus is, effectively, being detained and killed against its will simply because the mother will not let it out of her womb? This is to say, if the fetus is capable of living outside of the womb, but the mother would prefer an abortion, why is the fetus not given the option to decide for itself (through, of course, a court-appointed guardian)? Interesting philosophical questions. Flag Abuse

Posted by: Kyle Minor at 1/22/08 The problem here, in my mind, is that (generally speaking) the same crowd clamoring for the rights of 'enemy combatants' who, they claim, are 'unlawfully detained' (but not US citizens in most cases) clamors to prohibit the unborn from having rights. Either the US Constitution applies exclusively to US Citizens or it doesn't, but you can't have it both ways. An accurate reading of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, actually, would sustain Roe v. Wade (Article XI does just this, per JustTheFacts); the problem with the caselaw is that the Supreme Court generated a right to privacy as part of an umbrella coming from the first and, I believe, 4th amendments. It is this 'umbreally' concept which many legal scholars find offensive, as it grants, to a large extent, the SCOTUS power to simply generate rights for the citizens. At the end of the day, the real trouble here is that abortion should have been a state issue (see Amendment X), but instead it wound up in Federal Court so the case was decided without proper standing. I am personally opposed to abortion, but I am even moreso opposed to federal powers overstepping their Constitutionally-appointed bounds of jurisdiction. Flag Abuse

Posted by: JusttheFacts at 1/22/08 That last sentence should read: They're not "born" so they're not citizens of the U.S. with protections equal to or greater than those rights of the person (and citizen) supporting the fetus. Flag Abuse

Posted by: Jason T at 1/22/08 Jonathan, I disagree that immoral acts ought to be illegal, as you suggest. In theory, the reason that murder is illegal is not because it is immoral, but because it infringes upon the Constitutional rights of others. The same is true of burglary and embezzlement. Once we accept the premise that all are created equal, one shouldn't need a "moral compass" to recognize that these actions ought to be illegal. As you point out, a primary problem with abortion is that many see it as murder. But the conclusion here shouldn't be to legislate based on morality; rather, we should be focused on interpreting what rights, if any, should be given to the unborn under the Constitution. As for speeding, that seems to be an example of the government seeing fit to create legislation it believes will benefit the overall safety of society. I doubt you'll hear too many people debating the morality of speeding. Flag Abuse

Posted by: Jonathan Daugherty at 1/22/08 Thanks for this article. For Justthefacts: There are many many legal scholars, lawyers, and judges who have said that Roe V Wade was a bad ruling, even without political bias, because it essentially created a right (that of privacy) which was not actually in the Constitution implicitly or explicitly. The case should be re-examined and re-decided, pure and simple. And, while it may be true that the courts will never overturn their own poorly made decision, it is possible to add an amendment to the Constitution to protect the unborn. As for “don’t get one” all I can say is this: if you don’t like murder, don’t commit one; if you don’t like burglary, don’t commit one; if you don’t like embezzlement, don’t commit it; if you don’t like speeders, don’t speed. These are all things that are illegal based upon some sense of morality. If these things can be made illegal because they are in someone’s perspective “immoral” why should abortion not be added to the list? It’s not as simple as “don’t get one” if we consider the act itself as immoral. It is immoral, therefore it should be illegal. It is immoral because it is murder, the killing of a human being without due process or proper application of justice. Flag Abuse

Posted by: TrueAgain at 1/22/08 Once again, great Article Allison. I appreciate all the articles you have written. Keep up the great work. We need to stop Planned Parenthood from receiving federal money and shut the door on abortion. Here is a Roe v Wade IQ test people should take: http://www.roeiqtest.com/ui/index.php This might open their minds to what a desastrous policy it is and why it should be overturned. Flag Abuse