Richard Nixon was a piece of garbage. I think anyone in the year 2009, Republican or Democrat, can admit that without any thought for it’s validity. In fact, if you have to think about whether he was a piece of garbage or not, I highly suggest you jump into a garbage pail yourself because you may very well be one also.
Last week, tapes (yep, he gets burned by tapes yet again) were released from the Nixon Library which had him discussing abortion after the 1973 tragedy better known as Roe v. Wade.
The Nixon Presidential Library released over 150 hours of audio recordings Tuesday. Of particular interest are sections in which he discusses Vietnam, and the Roe v. Wade decision that essentially legalized abortion. CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Bill Plante listened to the tapes.
The Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in January 1973, removing most restrictions on abortion. President Nixon told his special counsel Chuck Colson that even though he believed abortion encouraged permissiveness, it shouldn’t always be out of the question.
Nixon said, “There are times when abortions are necessary, I know that, you know that’s when you have a black and a white.”
Colson: “Or rape.”
Nixon: “Or rape.”
Of course, the “Republicans are racists!!!” crowd jumped on this one because, as you know, if you find one racist in a party, the whole party is to be discarded (unless it’s Robert Byrd, in which case you just ignore it because, well, he says he’s really sorry!) as racists. Unfortunately for the pro-baby-killing crowd, most of whom are on the front lines of this criticism, there isn’t a lot of knowledge going around, so I’m here to educate them.
The largest provider of abortions in the United States to this day, and one that continues to receive federal money for it’s work with “women’s health,” is Planned Parenthood, which since 1916 has performed more abortions than any other organization or medical facility. Their operating budget is over $1 billion, roughly $250 million of which comes from federal funding.
Abortion advocates, particularly those outraged by Nixon’s comments, often celebrate Planned Parenthood as a beacon of choice and the evil right wing Christians are always working against it. Ask any leftie and they’ll jump right in to defend the abortion factory of Planned Parenthood. Ask them to defend Nixon, though, and I promise you’ll have a fight on your hands.
It stands as a great irony that most of the PP supporters who hate Nixon actually don’t hate Planned Parenthood, especially considering it was started by a woman who believed in controlling the Negro population.
Margaret Sanger aligned herself with the eugenicists whose ideology prevailed in the early 20th century. Eugenicists strongly espoused racial supremacy and “purtiy”,” particularly of the “Aryan” race. Eugenicists hoped to purify the bloodlines and improve the race by encouraging the “fit” to reproduce and the “unfit” to restrict their reproduction. They sought to contain the “inferior” races through segregation, sterilization, birth control and abortion.
Sanger embraced Malthusian eugenics. Thomas Robert Malthus, a 19th century cleric and professor of political economy, believed a population time bomb threatened the existence of the human race. He viewed social problems such as poverty, deprivation and hunger as evidence of this “population crisis.” According to writer George Grant, Malthus condemned charities and other forms of benevolence, because he believed they only exacerbated the problems. His answer was to restrict population growth of certain groups of people. His theories of population growth and economic stability became the basis for national and international social policy. Grant quotes from Malthus’ magnum opus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, published in six editions from 1798 to 1826:
All children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room is made for them by the deaths of grown persons. We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality.
Malthus disciples believed if Western civilization were to survive, the physically unfit, the materially poor, the spiritually diseased, the racially inferior, and the mentally incompetent had to be suppressed and isolated–or even, perhaps, eliminated. His disciples felt the subtler and more “scientific” approaches of education, contraception, sterilization and abortion were more “practical and acceptable ways” to ease the pressures of the alleged overpopulation.
Critics of Malthusianism said the group “produced a new vocabulary of mumbo-jumbo. It was all hard-headed, scientific and relentless.” Further, historical facts have proved the Malthusian mathematical scheme regarding overpopulation to be inaccurate, though many still believe them.
Despite the falsehoods of Malthus’ overpopulation claims, Sanger nonetheless immersed herself in Malthusian eugenics. Grant wrote she argued for birth control using the “scientifically verified” threat of poverty, sickness, racial tension and overpopulation as its background. Sanger’s publication, The Birth Control Review (founded in 1917) regularly published pro-eugenic articles from eugenicists, such as Ernst Ruin. Although Sanger ceased editing The Birth Control Review in 1929, the ABCL continued to use it as a platform for eugenic ideas.
I’m not making this stuff up. It’s known about Margaret Sanger and has been one of many dark aspects of the Planned Parenthood story since its inception. Some of you will probably look at that and say, “But Vincenzo… That’s the past. Planned Parenthood may have been founded by a eugenicist, but that doesn’t put them in that crowd. It’s 90 years later,” and to those people I’d say, “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Check out this video, or this one and tell me Planned Parenthood’s roots are just theoretical. And maybe you should ask these folks what they’re protesting if there’s no racism at Planned Parenthood. I’m sure they’ll talk to you.
Let’s be honest; the reactions to Nixon’s comments aren’t that of an outraged public. They’re reactions based on politics alone. The disproportionate outrage at Nixon’s remarks versus Planned Parenthood’s actions and Margaret Sanger’s eugenicist beliefs proves, at least to me, that in the end racism isn’t the big issue, conservatism is.
