Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.abortion.inequity
Subject: Re: Planned Parenthood on RU 486 "Morning After" Breakthrough
From: garvin+@cs.cmu.edu (Susan Garvin)
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 16:20:30 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

One of the pro-forcers at Pitt wrote an editorial about PP
a few weeks ago.  A response was published a few weeks later.

I'm reproducing the response.  

"The Truth About Planned Parenthood

    I love the way that people who generally don't give a damn
about African Americans get so concerned about us whenever it
suits their needs.  In the 9/24 edition of _The Pitt News_.
Mr. Q [I'm deleting the guy's name] wrote a column about
Planned Parenthood entitled 'Welcome to Banned Parenthood.'
     The first line in the column begins, 'As the leading
profiteer from abortion...'  Well, I've spoken to friends, 
activists and even the people at Planned Parenthood's New
York headquarters.  Planned Parenthood is, in fact, non-
profit.  From their, he goes on to quote Lise Fortier, who
he claims is the medical director of Planned Parenthood of
Los Angeles.  Well, I called Planned Parenthood, L.A., and 
Lise Fortier doesn't work there anymore.
     From there, Mr. Garret gets into what really bugs me
about his column.  His column is engineered to create
friction between African Americans and feminists.  He 
brings up Margaret Sanger and tosses around a few quotes
from the '30's and '40's.  Apparently Ms. Sanger had
said some things that were racially uncool.  This, I would
guess, means that the entire organization is inherently
racist and is in fact the enemy of all people of color.
Didn't George Washington own slaves?  I guess that means 
that the United States is inherently racist.
      Even though I figured that his argument itself didn't
hold water, I called the Pittsburgh division of Planned
Parenthood and asked them a few questions about Margaret
Sanger.  According to them, Margaret Sanger proposed the
'Negro Project' in response to a sugggestion of W.E.B.
DuBois.  Goals for the project were:
  *Reduction of the maternal mortality rate of African
American women - which at the time was twice that of white
women.  
  *Reduction of the African American infant mortality
rate - then 60 percent higher than that of whites.
  *Enabling women with tuberuclosis, heart disease,
kidney disease, and other serious diseases to avoid
pregnancy.
  *Enabling mothers to space their children at intervals
of two or three years.
     Planned Parenthood also commented on the quote 'We
do not want the word to get out that we want to exterminate
the Negro population.'  According to Planned Parenthood, the
quote was taken from a letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, a 
birth control activist, wherein she stressed the importance
of explaining the project to the African American ministers
who were to spread the word.  They did this because there
were people who were suspicious of any white moves, and they
'did not want the word to get out' that 'they wanted to
exterminate the Negro population.'  As opposed to Mr. Q's
painting of a eugeniscist conspiracy, the quote here seems
sensible.
    Mr. Q tries to paint a eugenicist picture of Faye
Wattleton as well.  He followed his earlier misquotes
of Sanger with Ms. Wattleton's quote 'I am proud to be
walking in the footsteps of Margaret Sanger.'  Is this
to mean that former Planned Parenthood President Faye 
Wattleton wants to exterminate African Americans?  That's
interesting, considering that Faye Wattleton is an African 
American - a fact that was carefully deleted from Q's
article.
     I got a copy of an April 1992 article from _Family
Planning Perspectives_.  According to 1988 data, only
36 percent of all abortions were performed upon non-
white women.  This is a bit different from the 53 percent
reported by Mr. Q.  These questionable numbers came from
a journal called _Diversity_.  The column was written
by Andrew Zappia, who is the assoicate editor of the
_Common Sense Guide to American Colleges_.  The article
doesn't mention where the data came from.
     After this, Mr. Q begins the false concern segment
of his column.  He goes into discussing the class 
ramifications of abortion.  Me mixes a statement about
class and race giving the impression that being a
minority and being poor are synonymous.  I know Mr. Q
personally.  Knowing that he is and has for years been an
ardent Bush supporter, I am forced to question Mr. Q's
level of concern for the poor.  He follows this up with
his concern for how abortion 'physically damages the
woman's body and psyche...'  If Mr. Q had concern about
these women after they were born, this wouldn't be
an issue.  In fact, if he thought that women were
valuable to think for themselves, this again wouldn't
be an issue.
     Mr. Q's column says to me that he thinks that women,
and particularly minority women, aren't capable of
making important decisions for themselves.  I
received 11 pages of information on abortion from 
Planned Prenthood, so the information is available 
on abortion.  If a woman choosed to talk to someone about
abortion, Planned Parenthood's ads point them in 
the right direction.  [Mr. Q had called for the
paper to quit running PP ads.]  Oh, yeah, by the way,
Planned Parenthood doesn't currently perform
abortions."
-John Day

A disproportionate number of women of color died when
abortion was illegal.

Susan