The Real War On Women & Minorities

Many times the answer to some of the political questions that face us is somewhere right in the middle of the left and the right. The left will often make absurd claims like "Republicans want dirty air and water" and the right will respond with "Democrats want people to get abortions." While there may be a handful of extremists who for whatever reason want dirty air or water, nobody is going to believe a statement as idiotic as that. Furthermore, most Democrats who support abortion rights have a much more moderate position on the issue like I do myself. While abortion is objectionable and should be used only as a last resort, it is a medical decision that a woman must make for herself, and her decision should not be legislated by the Government. So what of this war on women we have been hearing about? Where does the truth lie on this issue?

Obviously, not wanting the Federal Government to get into the business of demanding that insurance companies provide birth control for their clients is not an act of war against women. One can make a case for either side of the issue, and I am not going to debate it in this article as I have already addressed it. I would rather take a look at an interesting legislative attempt that took place in the House of Representatives yesterday. A vote to restrict abortions based on the gender of the fetus failed, and here is what sponsor Trent Franks had to say about it.

"We are the only advanced country left in the world that still doesn't restrict sex-selection abortion in any way," said Franks, who has also collided with pro-choice groups recently over a bill he is pushing to ban abortions in the District of Columbia after 20 weeks of pregnancy. "This evil practice has now allowed thousands of little girls in America and millions of little girls across the world to be brutally dismembered."

Now where does the truth lie? Are Republicans stepping up to defend women's rights, and are the Democrats wanting "millions of little girls" to be dismembered?

First off, to call them "little girls" is deceptive. Ultrasounds that determine the gender have been known to be wrong, and that point aside, it is a fetus not a child to have a specific sex assigned to it. Secondly, there is no evidence that has been presented to establish that there have been thousands of occurrences of gender based abortions in this Country. What Franks is doing here is using rhetoric to try to establish a mindset that the truth would serve much better.

This issue is revolving around a case of a sting which revealed that Planned Parenthood employees were counseling women on how to go about ensuring they could abort their baby if the gender was not to their liking. In the cases involved in the sting, the gender identified as undesirable was female. In fairness to PP, they did fire at least one of these individuals.

Planned Parenthood is a very controversial organization, and there are many who argue back and forth about it's founder Margaret Sanger and her views on race and eugenics. What cannot be debated is that Margaret did make the following statement. She had a supervisory role in "The Negro Project" which was an effort to deliver birth control to the black community. Margaret fought to get black ministers into positions of influence in the organization, a move that other leaders were resisting. In making the case for why it was necessary to have them on board, she said the following.

We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

Now it is important to judge this statement for what it actually says. Notice the key points here.

1. The statement is proactive. It is not a response to a charge that has been made, it is based on the assumption that a charge will be made.
2. It shows a knowing and willing attempt to exploit the trust that the community has in their minister to dictate how their efforts will be viewed.
3. Those who simply disagree with Ms. Sanger are referred to as "rebellious members." If one is simply offering a charitable service, would turning down the offer be considered "rebellion?" But if one were trying to deceitfully install their agenda against a population, those who recognized this and stood up against it certainly would be deemed rebels.

One cannot indict Sanger as a racist by this statement alone, but it certainly could be entered into a body of evidence. What one can deduce at a minimum here is that she recognized that some in the black community would view her work as racist. In defense of her work, the New York University Margaret Sanger Papers Project stated that she "recognized that elements within the black community might mistakenly associate the Negro Project with racist sterilization campaigns in the Jim Crow South, unless clergy and other community leaders spread the word that the Project had a humanitarian aim." I would ask that if one of the leaders of the project knew instinctively that it could appear to be a part of a racial sterilization program, and her defense was not to bring forward the merits of the project, but rather to get someone that was trusted by the presumed victims to "say it ain't so" then it doesn't bode well for the true intent of the project. Furthermore, if the only discernible difference between the two projects is that one did not seek to get consent from blacks before sterilizing them, and that the other sought to get the consent by deceitfully gaining the trust of the intended victim, then is there any truly discernible difference between the two? I'm just saying.

But let's assume just for the sake of argument that Planned Parenthood was founded by a racist who wanted to use birth control and abortion to limit the number of minorities born in this Country, would that have any relevance today? It would only if the principles of racism were woven into a fabric of the organization that caused them to still work towards a racist end. At stake is an age old notion first expressed in Jeremiah 13:23. Can a leopard change it's spots?

Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.

Consider a recent sting operation against Planned Parenthood in which a operative called in pretending to be a potential donor who wished to pay for abortions, but only for black women. Here is what took place on that call.

Actor: I want to specify that abortion to help a minority group, would that be possible?
Planned Parenthood: Absolutely.
A: Like the black community for example?
PP: Certainly.
A: The abortion - I can give money specifically for a black baby, that would be the purpose?
PP: Absolutely. If you wanted to designate that your gift be used to help an African-American woman in need, then we would certainly make sure that the gift was earmarked for that purpose.
A: Great, because I really faced trouble with affirmative action, and I don’t want my kids to be disadvantaged against black kids. I just had a baby; I want to put it in his name.
PP: Yes, absolutely.
A: And we don’t, you know we just think, the less black kids out there the better.
PP: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable.
A: Right. I want to protect my son, so he can get into college.

Now the defense of the organization here is a simple one. This is one employee of many. PP cannot be held accountable for every word uttered by each of it's employees, and I would agree with that. But here is the real heart of the issue. Planned Parenthood is an organization founded by a believer in eugenics who understood that her work could be easily mistaken for racial sterilization. It is operating in a current culture where it has solicited donations for race based abortions. It has, on more than one occasion, worked with undercover agents who claimed to be a pimp and a prostitute to help them violate the law in ways so small as getting abortions for their working girls and so large as smuggling underage prostitutes into the country. They have been caught advising those exploiting underage prostitutes to tell the girls to lie about their age when seeking services to avoid legal questions.

To indict the whole organization as a criminal enterprise as some on the right would like to see is probably a bit extreme. However, for the Government to continue to use taxpayer money to fund an organization surrounded in this much legal controversy is unconscionable. As usual, the truth is centralized. What does escape me is why so many in Congress are willing to go on the record with a vote that can be demonized as showing support for gender based abortions to protect funding for an organization as suspect as this one.

Recently, President Obama urged Mitt Romney to denounce Donald Trump for his statements about President Obama's birth certificate. I believe that to be a ridiculous request. Isn't it a bit absurd to imply that a candidate meeting with someone is an endorsement of everything they say or do? If I am wrong and it is not absurd, then certainly President Obama will denounce the endorsement he received from Planned Parenthood this week. Or does he support gender based abortions, exploitation of underage prostitutes, and receiving funding for abortions based on race? See how out of hand this can get when allowed to go back and forth unfettered?