In an unusual display of self-criticism, a Planned Parenthood student group at the University of Florida hosted an event Wednesday to discuss the racist roots of the organization as well as the eugenics of founder Margaret Sanger.
“Come join Planned Parenthood Generation Action for a panel discussion on the racist roots of Planned Parenthood during Black History Month,” read the Facebook announcement of the event bearing the title “Decolonizing Sexual Health.”
“Our subject is addressing the racist roots of the birth control movement, specifically pertaining to the influence of eugenics,” the post continues. “Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood’s founder, is a controversial figure in this conversation because despite her devotion to reproductive rights, she also had beliefs, practices, and associations with eugenics that we acknowledge and denounce, and work to rectify today.”
Organizers said that the event was meant “to open a conversation about the decolonization of sexual health and how resources are disproportionally inaccessible to folks based on demographics.”
According to a number of Planned Parenthood critics, however, the problem is not the inaccessibility of abortion services to minority communities, but rather its opposite: the targeting of minority communities—which seems to fit with the original racist aims of the organization.
In a statement sent to Breitbart News, the president of Students for Life of America, Kristan Hawkins, said that while acknowledging the racist roots of Planned Parenthood is an important first step, it is ultimately meaningless “unless you also acknowledge that the racist practices of Planned Parenthood continue to this day, since Planned Parenthood continues to target black and Hispanic babies for abortion by the placement of their abortion vendor locations in minority neighborhoods.”
What Planned Parenthood needs to do next, Hawkins wrote, is to “address the disparity of abortion, which takes proportionally, so many more lives of infants of color.”
Obianuju Ekeocha, an African pro-life champion and author of Target Africa: Ideological Neo-colonialism of the Twenty-first Century, told Breitbart News that she was “shocked” that Planned Parenthood would try to hijack the term “decolonization” to suit their nefarious purposes.
Planned Parenthood not only “has its roots firmly embedded in eugenic racism,” she said, but even today, “we know that Planned Parenthood targets black and other minority communities, having up to 79% of their surgical abortion facilities located within walking distance of African American or Hispanic/Latino neighborhoods.”
Excusing racist comments made by their founder Margaret Sanger as the acceptable way of speaking in her day is “unacceptable,” Ekeocha said, “especially to black communities.”
Planned Parenthood also has “a well-funded network of operations across the continent of Africa under the banner of IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation),” she added, and “embodies colonialism in their mandates and their methods.”
Just prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a group of prominent black Christian clergy and intellectuals wrote an “open letter” to Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, denouncing her complicity in America’s abortion crisis, which they said has had a “catastrophic impact” on the black community.
“Black babies are dying at terrifying rates,” stated the 26 black leaders, including eight bishops. “Don’t black lives matter?”
In their letter, the leaders noted that the rate of abortion among blacks is far higher than among whites, with “365 black babies aborted for every 1,000 that are born.”
“Blacks account for roughly 38% of all abortions in the country though we represent only 13% of the population,” they said, citing statistics that have led black Christian leaders to speak of a “black genocide” occurring at the hands of abortionists.
Abortion “is the deliberate destruction of a human life in its most vulnerable state,” they said, contrary to both natural law and biblical principle, held by the “vast majority of black churches.”
Among white women in America, there are 138 abortions for every 1000 live births; among blacks, there are 501 abortions for every 1000 births. This means that blacks are aborted at 3.6 times the rate of whites in the United States.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), between 2007 and 2010, nearly 35.4 percent of the deaths by abortion in the United States happened to black babies, despite the fact that blacks represent only 12.8 percent of the population.
For these reasons, the Rev. Clenard Childress, pastor of the New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, N.J, has fought to have the NAACP reverse its 2004 decision to endorse abortion.
Childress has stated that “the most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.”
Calling abortion in America “racist genocide,” Childress said that since 1973, after the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand, 13 million African-American babies have been put to death through abortion.
While abortion is the leading cause of death across the board in America, it is even more so for the black community, accounting for more deaths than any disease or homicide.
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome
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