‘Systemic Racism’ at Planned Parenthood
One of its leaders has been ousted over accusations of racism. Paging Margaret Sanger…
“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.” —Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger in a 1939 letter
To be sure, you could read those remarks one of two ways: Either Sanger didn’t want the (forgive the pun) misconception to spread that Planned Parenthood wanted to terminate black lives, or she didn’t want the truth to spread. Regardless, that’s just one example of Sanger’s eugenicist views, which, along with her associations with likeminded people, should be far more informative than they are when considering this celebrated “champion” of women’s rights.
We begin with quoting her for two reasons. One is that, whether or not Sanger intended it, millions of black lives have been terminated in Planned Parenthood’s abortion mills over the decades — in grossly disproportionate numbers to minorities’ share of the population because the vast majority of Planned Parenthood’s clinics are located in minority neighborhoods. And American taxpayers fund those clinics to the tune of half a billion dollars per year.
But more to the point, Planned Parenthood just fired one of its state executives over allegations of racism. Laura McQuade used to run Planned Parenthood of Greater New York. We note, tongue planted firmly in cheek, that The New York Times uses the racially insensitive term chief executive to describe her role. She was fired, the Times reports, after “hundreds of former and current employees signed a series of public letters over the past week” in which McQuade is accused of “berating and humiliating employees; presiding over a system that paid black staff members unequally and kept them from advancing in their careers; and supporting layoffs and furloughs for nearly a third of the organization’s employees amid the Covid-19 crisis without cutting her own pay or that of other top officials.”
Ah, racism. “Planned Parenthood was founded by a racist, white woman,” one letter admitted. “That is a part of history that cannot be changed. While efforts have been made to undo some of the harm from institutional racism, many of these issues have worsened under McQuade’s tenure.”
According to the letters, another of McQuade’s awful sins was her “Trumpian leadership style.” Except the letter then goes on to describe that behavior: “Dozens of staff members have witnessed McQuade yell, berate, slam her fists, verbally abuse, humiliate, and bully employees, often brutally shaming staff members in internal meetings in front of their colleagues.”
Trump may be rude on Twitter, but McQuade’s alleged behavior sounds a lot more like another woman from New York who Trump happened to defeat in 2016. Hillary Clinton is infamous for this type of treatment of anyone “beneath” her, which happens to describe, well, everyone.
Then again, when has Planned Parenthood ever embraced the truth? It routinely denies the science of life in the womb. Its president even unironically referred to 2020 as “literally a life and death election.” Its founder viewed minorities as unfit to have babies and her organization continues to ensure that preborn black lives don’t matter. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton received the annual Margaret Sanger award in 2009, saying, “I admire Margaret Sanger enormously.”
So forgive us if, during the age of leftist iconoclasts when Margaret Sanger’s bust still resides at the Smithsonian, we chuckle once again at how well The Babylon Bee summed up the situation: “‘I Think We’ve Found All The Institutions Founded By Racists And We Can Just Stop Looking For Them Now,’ Says Planned Parenthood Spokesperson Nervously.”