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Pro-lifers are responding to the effort by the president of Planned Parenthood to distance the organization from the racist views of its founder. Many are calling the leader’s words about Margaret Sanger “empty”, contending that many of the abortion giant’s current practices remain racist.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the nation’s largest abortion provider used the New York Times as the forum to admit the racism of its founder.
In last weekend’s Op-Ed, McGill Johnson wrote, “We must reckon with Margaret Sanger’s association with white supremacist groups and eugenics.”
Acknowledging failure to own the impact of their founder’s actions, McGill Johnson went on to say, “Whether our founder was a racist is not a simple yes or no question.”
Yet in her own words, Sanger strived for a society that limited births to only those she deemed fit to have children. Many cite a 1923 New York Times interview in which she called some groups of people “human weeds,” as proof of her racist motives.
“Birth Control is not contraception indiscriminately and thoughtlessly practiced,” Sanger said in the article. “It means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination, and eventual extirpation (destruction) of defective stocks – those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.”
“If they want to do something different, they can stop killing our children,” former NFL player Benjamin Watson, told CBN News in an interview Tuesday.
Watson, who also serves as Vice President of the pro-life group Human Coalition, maintains that Planned Parenthood’s admission about Sanger “does not absolve them from the blood on their hands as they take advantage of victims of the very racism they decry.”
“I find it hollow to call out Margaret Sanger and talk about her association with white supremacist groups and talk about her connection to eugenics and try to distance themselves from her while they are still perpetuating her mission that is systematically targeting young, largely African American, largely poor women and families and children,” Watson explained.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, in 2016, non-Hispanic black women had the highest abortion rate, 25.1 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years.
And a survey by Protecting Black Life found that 79 percent of Planned Parenthood’s facilities are in communities of color.
Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and president of Priests for Life, says Johnson’s words are misleading.
“She’s trying to walk back the truth of who and what Planned Parenthood is today,” King told CBN News. “Ask Lila Rose, who did an expose in this century with people admitting they were donating money to Planned Parenthood to specifically abort black babies.”
Watson said if Planned Parenthood really wants to change it should take the next step.
“If they want to do something they can use the billions of dollars to walk with these mothers in crisis and these families in crisis and provide for them long past the decision to abort but push them toward a decision to parent,” said Watson.
It is a move that King added is not likely to happen.
“They’re not about to stop aborting babies,” said King. “They don’t intend to stop killing human beings in the womb.”
Meanwhile, CBN News reached out to Planned Parenthood in an attempt to speak with Alexis McGill Johnson about this stance, but at the time of this publication, we did not receive a response.
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN