Conservatives are demanding that a Smithsonian Institution art and history museum remove its bust of the founder of Planned Parenthood in their latest offensive against the organization.
But the National Portrait Gallery says it won't remove its bust of Margaret Sanger, an early leader of the birth control movement. It has been displayed since 2010.
Sanger, who died in 1966, also supported eugenics, a now-condemned effort to discourage reproduction by criminals and others with undesirable traits. Brent Bozell, chairman of the conservative group ForAmerica, and a group of black pastors say Sanger favored using eugenics to limit the population of blacks, a claim that some Republican lawmakers have echoed but for which the evidence is contested.
"It's one and the same," Bozell said Wednesday of Sanger's support for eugenics and her role in starting two organizations that eventually became Planned Parenthood. He said Sanger wanted to "sterilize out of existence the poor, the blacks."
The conservative push to remove Sanger's bust comes after anti-abortion activists have released eight videos showing secretly recorded conversations in which Planned Parenthood officials discuss how the organization sometimes provides fetal tissue to medical researchers. The videos have prompted investigations by several congressional committees and efforts by Republicans in Congress and several states to block government payments to the group.
The move against Sanger's bust has the support of presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, who are circulating a letter to other lawmakers. A draft of that letter calls the bust's display by the museum "an affront both to basic human decency and the very meaning of justice."
Of course this has absolutely NOTHING to do with Sanger's perceived racism and everything to do with attacking Planned Parenthood.
You can bet that if conservatives gave a shit about racism then Donald Trump would not be leading in the polls right now.
And if they want to start removing the busts of people who supported racism in this country, perhaps they ought to start with this one:
Perhaps we should recognize that NONE of our heroes are perfect, however in many cases their contributions to this country far outweigh the perceived negatives in their character.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/08/20/false-narratives-margaret-sanger-used-shame-black-women/
ReplyDeleteA must read if one cares to understand Sanger. The pro-life movement is shameless in their distortion of truth, facts, history, et al.
Republicans Devastated By Planned Parenthood Scandal Collapse As Videos Found To Be Edited
Deletehttp://www.politicususa.com/2015/08/27/republicans-devastated-planned-parenthood-scandal-collapse-videos-edited.html
Gryphen, you really ought to read up on sanger. She wasn't racist, just the opposite, balck women, had just as much right to BIRTH CONTROL as white women. One of the things that made many children "inferior" "morons" and "imbeciles" (in the medical terminology of Sanger's day,) was poor nutrition and poor pre-natal care and nutrition - often brought about by poor families having too little income, heating fuel, and money for the mouths they had to feed. Sex was often the only pleasure poor families, aka poor men had, - since no such thing as marital rape was recognized in law. So large , poor families, often with hereditary and other deficiencies were the ones with 12 kids.
DeleteActually, I think this as everything to do with the push to remove confederate statues in southern states. It is retaliation. Google "remove confederate statues" and you will see what I mean.
ReplyDeleteOf course it is. The GOP never does anything with a pure motive,e except hate.
DeleteO/T Here she goes again...Look at ME!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2015/08/28/politics/palin-schilling-suspension/index.html
http://extratv.com/2015/08/27/sarah-palin-defends-donald-trump-for-telling-the-truth
DeleteWhy isn't Brent Bozell also demonizing Prescott Bush, who was treasurer for the first nationwide fundraising campaign?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/thefamily/media/thefamily_document007a.pdf
And why aren't they demonizing Prescott Bush for his close affiliations with Hitler?
DeleteOne doesn't have to read very far into an article such as this before the names Cruz and Gohmert come up. But here's what you never see coming from them--stories about job creation. Bold ideas for stimulating the economy.
ReplyDeleteConservative fundie-nut Franklin Graham, alive today (he didn't die half a century ago like Sanger) was a proponent of eugenics through the 1990s.
ReplyDeleteThey still are...wait until they get control again, and watch how they advocate for forced sterilization of 'illegals' and non whites. It will come..they are following the Nazi playbook page by page.
DeleteThe fact that conservatives are offended by an assumed level of racism of a person who, nonetheless, did amazing things to help women and families, but cannot see the outright and enumerated racism of Confederate leaders, who achieved nothing outside of small wins in their fight to hold on to slavery, is so fucking transparent it's laughable.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans have lost all credibility. We're witnessing the death rattles of the conservative movement.
SANGER WASN'T RACIST - do your fucking homework, Gryphen and 5:08 a.m.
DeleteSanger came from a family in which her mother had 18 pregnancies, with 11 children that survived.
ReplyDeleteSanger's main motive was to make birth control (she coined the term) legal -- it wasn't until into the 20th c. that even doctors could own birth control devices to give to patients. Her desire to provide birth control to any woman ended up veering into muddy waters, but her main goal was to free women to have children when they wanted to -- for the health of the mother as well as the economic health of the family.
It is important -- essential -- to note that she viewed abortion as an absolute last resort and didn't promote it. She wanted birth control to be used. One of her goals was to end illegal abortions that could result in the sickness or death of the woman involved.
And, yes, a writer in The National Review today clearly states that if Confederate statues can be taken down (politicians and soldiers who advocated, fought and died to bring an end to the United States) then it's only right that the bust of one woman who wanted women to have control of their own bodies be removed as well. He writes as though a mob could invade the National Gallery to take her away.
Only two years before Sanger died in 1966 did the Supreme Court, in the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut ruling, declare that birth control was a private matter and not something for the state to dictate. That was 1964, the year of Palin's birth. I doubt she has ever learned the startlingly recent history of sexual politics in this country.
Excellent post 5:47
DeleteThey have a point.
ReplyDeleteWithout birth control, America would be a LOT more exceptional. We let the Chinese beat us to a billion citizens but once we eliminate PP and make contraception a crime - ironically punishable by death, perhaps? - we can rebuild our population quickly. With 2 billion Americans crowded shoulder to shoulder like patriotic sardines in a dystopian nightmare - and all packing heat, god willing - there isn't one severe conservative objective we can't achieve together!
yay....... (eyeroll)
Unless each and every one of these conservatives has a child every few years and foreswears any form of birth control can they attack Sanger without hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteTed Cruz has two daughters and that was it. Why? Was it because he and his wife used birth control? Was it because his wife wanted to keep working at Goldman Sachs? (Another startling development of the late 20th c. ---- a woman working in a powerful financial position). How many children does Louis Gohmert have? Etc. Anyone with fewer than eight children need not lecture to others about family practices.
In Ted Cruz's case, it might be because his wife could only stand to have sex with him twice, but I get your point.
Delete752 explains it persuasively.
DeleteHow Anti-Abortion Activists Uncover Details About Women’s Personal Medical Procedures
ReplyDeleteAbortion opponents are sifting through public records — including 911 calls, autopsy reports, and state health department documents — in order to glean medical information about women who have had abortions, according to a report from the Washington Post and ProPublica.
The report also states that some activists dig through the trash at abortion clinics to look for patient records in dumpsters.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/08/27/3695399/public-records-abortions/
This is outrageous. I hope there are lawsuits and arrests, but unfortunately, these people have a way of weaseling out on technicalities and, unfortunately, a lot of people don't care about women being victimized in this way, especially women who have had abortions.
DeleteThese FUCKs ARE our ISIS..
ReplyDeleteI can think of so many electeds whose mothers should have been using Sanger backed birth control. And as horrible as it sounds, there are some whose mothers should have taken action once they found out they were prego...
ReplyDeleteBut then those are the ones who say that raped women can't get pregnant with the rapists child cause their bodies won't allow it. And that prayer will cure everything...
So much "BULLSHIT" ( thank you, Tri-G) around these asshats that the air smells distinctly of sewage.
Great Idea, and replace her with whom? Michelle Duggar? Do Conservatives know what the Smithsonian Institute does?
ReplyDeleteApparently they don't understand that the Smithsonian is an independent institution and has nothing to do with the government.
DeleteI'll bet they don't even know who Smithson was.
Well, at some point in the future we are going to have some form of eugenics as water and resources become scarce.
ReplyDeleteBut I doubt it will have anything to do with race, religion, politics or even genetics and everything to do with wealth.
Those with the money will be able to afford to have children, those that can't afford it won't be allowed.
It may take a century or more but I truly believe at some point we will be looking at The Handmaid's Tale come to life. Only it won't be based on religion or politics. It will be solely based on wealth. The 1%ers will be able to have children.
And I'm sure they'll allow only the fittest and healthiest of the poor to breed, just to make sure they have enough of a labor force to exploit.
Hopefully I'll be dead by then.