Margaret Sanger Quotes
… we should here recognize the difficulties presented by the idea of 'fit' and 'unfit.' Who is to decide this question? The grosser, the more obvious, the undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind. But among the writings of the representative Eugenists one cannot ignore the distinct middle-class bias that prevails.
In one of the disgraces of American history, there was then an active Eugenics movement that advocated forced sterilization of people who were “unfit” to bear children. Over 20 states sterilized tens of thousands of American citizens who did not meet the “standards” of the state authorities who set the criteria of fitness. Sanger was one of those who called the implementation of Eugenics into question. However, note that even she accepted the notion of forced sterilization of mentally retarded people. Ironically, while some types of mental defects are heredity determined, others are not. The issue is a slippery slope under any conditions.
Margaret Sanger, 1883-1966, Family Planning Advocate, The Pivot of Civilization, 1922
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This book was the first popular attempt to spread the eugenics concept. Is was translated into German in 1925 and unfortunately read by Adolf Hitler who sent Grant a complimentary letter. See {603544}
There was a substantial movement to prevent mentally defective and people of low intelligence from being able to reproduce. Over 20 states, with the approval of the then Supreme Court performed forced state sterilizations. Of course the then definition of “degenerates” changed from state to state. A century later, American values changed so much that there is no state that would even consider involuntary sterilization and if they did, the Courts would hold it un-Constitutional.
Writing a majority opinion allowing forced sterilization of the mentally retarded: In the ultimate tragic irony, the legal opinion in the case never questioned the assumptions of the case—that Carrie Buck, her mother, and daughter were all mentally retarded. Later scientists established that two of the three were normal and there was no real evidence about Buck’s mother. It seems that sexual promiscuity of unmarried women was the evidence upon which mental retardation was reached.
The Eugenics Record Office was an activist organization advocating the forced sterilization of those people who they deemed to be inferior from a hereditary point of view. Most Americans are today shocked to find that this organization and its ideas were so influential that more than 30 states had passed similar laws. Only California and Virginia however were zealous in carrying them out . By 1935, 20,000 forced sterilizations had been carried out in the United States. The Supreme Court at the time even found such laws Constitutional. See {603680}.
400,000 Germans were forcibly sterilized for “mental illness”, “slow learning”. “poor posture”, and a number of other characteristics. Soon, sterilization would be replaced by murders and extermination. Ironically, Hitler and other Nazis would quote American advocates of eugenics to further justify their practice of forced sterilization. A number of American states actually sentenced “defective” people to forced sterization.
Many Leading American supported forced sterilization of mentally handicapped people. Indiana passed the first forced sterilization laws and other states followed. The Supreme Court upheld the practice. See {603680}.
Slogan of State Eugenics Movement to have “desirable” parents have more children and “undesirable” potential parents to be sterilized and prevented from having children – especially racially mixed couples as then defined. The eugenics enthusiasts got embedded in American culture although their understanding of genetics and heredity was totally wrong and unscientific. 60,000 Americans were strerilized against their will between 1923 and 1981
The Association commissioned a study to develop:
The correspondence involved the establishment of a new organization to promote legislative directed sterilization of those people who were not worthy of “pioneer” stock.
The phrase “submerged tenth” was ironically used earlier {595222} by a great humanitarian, William Booth, 1829-1912, British Cleric & Founder of The Salvation Army to refer to the poor and the underclass of England. The Salvation Army focused on helping the submerged tenth; the Eugenics Record Office, sterilizing them. The Eugenics Record Office was an activist organization advocating the forced sterilization of those people who they deemed to be inferior from a hereditary point of view. Most Americans are today shocked to find that this organization and its ideas were so influential that more than 30 states had passed similar laws. Only California and Virginia were very zealous in carrying them out however. By 1935, 20,000 forced sterilizations had been carried out in the United States. The Supreme Court at the time even found such laws Constitutional. See {603680}.
Fisher, a brilliant scientist and mathematician, engaged in some major blunders like denying that tobacco had any relationship to lung cancer and other disease. This was another. His “conclusion” that the more “successful” members of society should breed in preference to the less successful. There are three major fallacies in his argument and that of other eugenics supporters other than the obvious ethical and moral problems. First, human success in any society is determined by both genetic and environmental factors. In general, it is currently impossible to know who the successful would be if environmental factors were equal. Second, our concept of success is quite narrow from an evolutionary point of view. The most successful humans might be those who produce that most children, or those who extend man’s habitat, or those who will be most resistant to a pandemic that will arise in the near future. Third, by the standards of much of English society at the time, the most “successful” people were the monarchy and heredity aristocracy, There was already too much inbreeding in these groups and increasing this groups breeding rather than others would not only weaken the species over time, but would limit the variation that is necessary for natural selection and further evolution of the human species.
Darwin was not only favorable towards Blacks—see {621212}—but thought the political opposition to racial intermarriage and interbreeding unscientific. He believed that science could demonstrate that there was no genetic deterioration in miscegenation. Today there has been enough biracial marriage and children that it is clear that there is no difference in intelligence or other important characteristics. Despite this, the claim of racial destruction has been the claim of Nazis and other racists. See {621215}
When a couple sought assistance from a fertility clinic, the best medical procedure to fertilize a few female egg cells with sperm. After a few days of development, the seemingly best embryo is selected for implantation in the mother. The others are usually frozen so that they can be used later if there is a miscarriage or the baby dies in childbirth. The Senator and a few other religious fundamentalists believe that the fertilized cell clusters are actually human beings. Therefore if there is a successful birth, the remaining ones should not be used for research using the embryonic stem cells. On the other hand, many are often discarded as most people do not see the cell clusters as a human being but as a potential human being just as a pile of bricks and a truck of cement is not a house but is a potential house if things are done properly.
This quotation is often used by those who support the right to abortion to argue that the moral argument against abortion is exactly the same against contraception. And that if the state can interfere with the right to an abortion, then the state can equally interfere with the fight to family planning by means of contraception, and indeed such was the law until 1963. It is true that before that and since the Roman Catholic Church has argued that both abortion and contraception should be unlawful. Abortion opponents attempt to separate the two as only a small majority of Americans favor the right to an abortion while an overwhelmingly large proportion support the right to use contraception. Abortion opponents, generally avoid the contraceptive issue and try to isolate the abortion question.
Hitler’s Germany promptly passed the law which was the beginning of their program of human extermination and the Holocaust.
At the time there were some Americans who supported Hitler and Fascism. Even senior military men like Osborne.
This was a metaphorical way of criticizing the Republican Party for policies that had men controlling women’s bodies.
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
