Hillary Clinton accepts prestigious eugenics award...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

I guess the Catholic News Agency never claimed to be fair and balanced, but I wonder how many people would, when asked for three words to sum up what Margaret Sanger is best know for, would offer this characterization:

This evening Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to receive the highest award given by Planned Parenthood Federation of America -- the Margaret Sanger Award, named for the organization's founder, a noted eugenicist. The award will be presented at a gala event in Houston, Texas.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=15511

Part of the reason we give religion a pass is the assumption that religion is about lofty abstractions, not a tactical player in our politics. But that assumption has never been correct, so our reflexive deference to religious belief is merely a get-out-of-criticism-free card a lot of poisonous politics.

If it walks like Sean Hannity and quacks like Sean Hannity...

[Captain Hilts]

1. She got it a few days ago, baby killer that she is. nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. I changed the headline. (didn't want to leave you hanging)

Captain Hilts baby killer reference is an ironic take on the original headline.

[Captain Hilts]

3. Excellent!

Sanger - like Theodore R., was really into the Eugenics stuff.

I've spent a lot of time going through the Sanger papers at the LoC. Fascinating stuff.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Yes, a lot of folks were

Eugeniocs was a fascination across the political spectrum at the time.

The funny thing about eugenics is that the problems are more ethical than practical, yet a lot of people refer to it as if it were a debunked scientific concept, rather than a pernicious ethical quagmire.

Consequently, the left adopted a series of dogmatic naturist scientific beliefs that dominated mid to late-20th century thought based on no evidence whatsoever.

The ironic effect of the left's wholesale fraud on the topic was to suggest that eugenics might be okay if it worked. (Similar to the broad endorsement of torture that is implicit in analysis of torture in terms of its efficacy.)

It was, in my view, a crime of the first order and an excellent reason to not give the time of day to any ideologue.

The problem with the Catholic News version is (as you know--I am only adding this for folks skimming the thread) that their characterization is, though fact-based, equivalent to saying, "the League of Nations was the brain-child of Woodrow Wilson, a noted racist."

(Or, "the Cuban missile crisis was resolved by John Kennedy, a noted adulterer."

[jwirr]

4. Sanger was a leading eugenics person in her time. But in those days

it was not about abortion or birth control - rather about ridding the world of defective people/families.

Read War Against the Weak by Edwin Black. And before you jump all over me - my family was a victim of that movement. We had mental illness in the family and I am damned lucky that I am here. They sterilized most family members connected with what society saw as defectives. What saved my family is that we were fairly well to do and we lived in an isolated religious area that did not join in the hunt as rabidly as some other areas.

[rug]

5. Among other things, she was indeed a eugenicist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger

Like many progressive reformers of her generation, Sanger was a proponent of eugenics, a social philosophy which claims that human hereditary traits can be improved through social intervention. Methods of social intervention (targeted at those seen as "genetically unfit") advocated by eugenicists have included selective breeding, sterilization and euthanasia. In "A Plan for Peace" (1932), for example, Sanger argued for:

A stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.<19>

Her first pamphlet read:

It is a vicious cycle; ignorance breeds poverty and poverty breeds ignorance. There is only one cure for both, and that is to stop breeding these things. Stop bringing to birth children whose inheritance cannot be one of health or intelligence. Stop bringing into the world children whose parents cannot provide for them. Herein lies the key of civilization. For upon the foundation of an enlightened and voluntary motherhood shall a future civilization emerge.<20>

Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent "dysgenic" children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and dismissed "positive eugenics" (which promoted greater fertility for the "fitter" upper classes) as impractical. Though many leaders in the eugenics movement were calling for active euthanasia of the "unfit," Sanger spoke out against such methods. She believed that women with the power and knowledge of birth control were in the best position to produce "fit" children. She rejected any type of eugenics that would take control out of the hands of those actually giving birth. Edwin Black writes:

In Robinson's book, Eugenics, Marriage and Birth Control (Practical Eugenics), he advocated gassing the children of the unfit. In plain words, Robinson insisted: 'The best thing would be to gently chloroform these children or give them a dose of potassium cyanide.' Margaret Sanger was well aware that her fellow birth control advocates were promoting lethal chambers, but she herself rejected the idea completely. 'Nor do we believe,' wrote Sanger in Pivot of Civilization, 'that the community could or should send to the lethal chamber the defective progeny resulting from irresponsible and unintelligent breeding.'<21>

When Nazi Germany adopted the principles of eugenics to create a Germanic "master race," Sanger wrote in a letter:

"All the news from Germany is sad & horrible, and to me more dangerous than any other war going on any where because it has so many good people who applaud the atrocities & claim its right. The sudden antagonism in Germany against the Jews & the vitriolic hatred of them is spreading underground here & is far more dangerous than the aggressive policy of the Japanese in Manchuria.."<12>

About placing the responsibility for eugenic control in the hands of individual parents rather than the state, she wrote:

"The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics.... We are convinced that racial regeneration, like individual regeneration, must come 'from within.' That is, it must be autonomous, self-directive, and not imposed from without."<22>

We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother... Only upon a free, self-determining motherhood can rest any unshakable structure of racial betterment.<23>

She nevertheless advocated certain instances of coercion, in cases where she considered the parents unfit to decide whether they should bear children:

"The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind."<24>

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. I write with care, sometimes

The OP does not suggest she was not.

Nor would I suggest that Woodrow Wilson was not a segregationist.

But were a diplomat receiving an award named for Woodrow Wilson described intentionally to imply that the award was recognition of excellence in the field of racism would leave no doubt as to the motives and general lack of seriousness of the author.

[cali]

8. As others have noted, she absolutely was a eugenicist.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. A well known fact of minor relevance to the OP the first time offered and

of increasing irrelevance with each iteration.

It seems this board is getting dimmer and dimmer, but this case I will attribute that to nurture.

[JohnnyLib2]

10. Nurture over nature, gotta love it.

LOL!

And let's see what sources "nurture" the Guadaloupe story in the next few days......

[pnwmom]

11. She WAS a notable eugenicist, and that is not irrelevant to the OP.

Unfortunately, her work for birth control was very much tied in with her beliefs on eugenics.

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger

Like many progressive reformers of her generation, Sanger was a proponent of eugenics, a social philosophy which claims that human hereditary traits can be improved through social intervention. Methods of social intervention (targeted at those seen as "genetically unfit") advocated by eugenicists have included selective breeding, sterilization and euthanasia. In "A Plan for Peace" (1932), for example, Sanger argued for:

A stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.<19>

Her first pamphlet read:

It is a vicious cycle; ignorance breeds poverty and poverty breeds ignorance. There is only one cure for both, and that is to stop breeding these things. Stop bringing to birth children whose inheritance cannot be one of health or intelligence. Stop bringing into the world children whose parents cannot provide for them. Herein lies the key of civilization. For upon the foundation of an enlightened and voluntary motherhood shall a future civilization emerge.<20>

Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent "dysgenic" children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and dismissed "positive eugenics" (which promoted greater fertility for the "fitter" upper classes) as impractical. Though many leaders in the eugenics movement were calling for active euthanasia of the "unfit," Sanger spoke out against such methods. She believed that women with the power and knowledge of birth control were in the best position to produce "fit" children. She rejected any type of eugenics that would take control out of the hands of those actually giving birth.

[Starry Messenger]

12. CNA is notoriously right wing.

I see they've racked up one or two entries on SourceWatch.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. But they are a perfectly acceptable source on DU as long as they are attacking the SoS

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8300928&mesg_id=8300928

[Starry Messenger]

15. Yes, I did see that thread.

I didn't comment in there. I think the OP was trying to make a point about different outrage levels in the media, but it's a bit premature on everyone's part to assume this is going to die quietly because it wasn't Obama who said/did it. The event with Clinton just happened and if CNA has their knickers in a twist about it, it's probably going to be all over the right wing blogs with all the inflammatory language you note in the article.

YMMV.

That said, I do think Sanger is a bit of an odd source for the title of this award, especially from inside a Catholic country. I wonder what the history of that is.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

16. Actually, the OP in that thread was upset it wasn't a bigger story

That was not a dispassionate look at media practice, it was a bleating cry for outrage that Hillary was not being criticized enough.

As to why an ostensible Obama supporter is fuming that his Secretary of State isn't getting worse coverage... well, I'm not a psychiatrist so I'll leave that an open question.

[Starry Messenger]

17. I see what you are saying...

I don't want to get into psychology either. :) I am a total Pollyanna and wish all "sides" would lay down arms and unite against the right-wing crazies who are the threat.

[Beacool]

18. Yeah, that crap never ends.

Notice how one side will almost break their fingers alerting on any thread that is not positive about our president, but have no problem with any thread that trashes the Clintons.

Me, I never alerted on anyone. A Democratic board should encourage free speech, but the irony is quite delicious.

:eyes:

[MadHound]

13. One of the dirty little secrets of the early abortion movement is it's close ties to eugenics

Sanger was intimately tied to the eugenics movement, yet out of that came Planned Parenthood. The anti-abortion folks like to make hay out of this whenever possible, so this piece isn't surprising.

[Beacool]

19. I give Margaret Sanger a pass

because it was the prevailing belief among scientists and prominent people of the era; just as Spiritualism was quite popular in Victorian times. Maybe not a good analogy, but it makes my point.

Ironically enough, CNA chose to attack a woman who had trouble conceiving and would have had more than one child if the doctors hadn't told her that it would endanger her life and that of the baby. Hillary believes in a woman's right to choose, but probably wouldn't have ever had an abortion herself. She's quite conservative in her own values, but is not a self righteous prig who would impose her personal religious beliefs on others. I have always respected her for it.

:)

[PBS Poll-435]

20. I wish I knew who Rec'd this thread

No offense to the OP, but what exactly was the motivation?



CNA = WhirrledNutzDaily + churchy rancor