In the first installment of Live Action News’ REJECT Planned Parenthood series, we offer a glimpse into the organization’s founding under the leadership of Margaret Sanger, a strong proponent of eugenics, along with information about those who eventually led Planned Parenthood to become the nation’s largest provider of abortions, receiving billions of dollars from United States taxpayers.
Planned Parenthood founded by eugenicist
Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood, which was heavily focused on eugenics — the idea of breeding certain traits into (or out of) the population — in 1916. The organizations Sanger founded — such as the American Birth Control League (ABCL), the Birth Control Federation of America (BCFA) and later, Planned Parenthood — were closely involved with eugenics proponents and are just one of many reasons why groups and individuals have called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
Under the philosophy of eugenics, minorities and the poor, as well as others deemed to be “feebleminded or unfit” were sometimes sterilized by the government. And at times, state-based sterilization boards used Planned Parenthood to commit these surgeries without the knowledge or consent of the victims. In 1921, Sanger proclaimed that “the campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical in ideal with the final aim of eugenics.”
The philosophy of eugenics not only fed Sanger’s work within the Planned Parenthood movement, but her lesser known advocacy of euthanasia as well. As shown in the image below, Sanger was a member of the Euthanasia Society of America’s American Advisory Council.
Margaret Sanger founder of Planned Parenthood focused on eugenics called racist
In 1926, as Live Action News has previously detailed, Margaret Sanger met with the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan at the group’s request, entertaining additional invitations, according to her own report of the meeting. The event took place in Silver Lake, New Jersey, and Sanger described in it in her autobiography:
I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan…. I saw through the door dim figures parading with banners and illuminated crosses…. I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak…. In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. (Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography, P.366)
Sanger called that event “one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing.”
Sanger writes about meeting with the Klan in autobiography
Then, in 1934, Sanger suggested that couples apply for a governmental “license” to have children. Just five years later, in 1939, Sanger created her “Negro Project,” as described in a letter she penned to Clarence Gamble regarding her desire to use Black ministers in furthering her organization’s agenda. “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,” she said, and if it did, these ministers could “straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
Excerpt: Margaret Sanger Letter to Clarence Gamble, Negro Project
A few years later, on March 6, 1942, the media announced that the BCFA had changed its name to Planned Parenthood.
Fast forward several decades, and Sanger has now been described by Planned Parenthood’s own staff as a racist “white supremacist.” After more than a century of accepting Sanger’s racist, eugenicist ideologies and lauding her as a hero, Planned Parenthood finally succumbed to societal pressure into canceling her.
Margaret Sanger’s controversial history as an enthusiastic proponent of eugenics and as a member of the American Eugenics Society — history once lauded by Planned Parenthood — are now hallmarks of shame. The corporation is only very recently attempting to erase or whitewash this history after decades of celebrating abortion-friendly journalists and politicians with its Margaret Sanger Award (or “Maggie Award”).
Eugenicist president leads Planned Parenthood to commit abortion
Planned Parenthood’s obsession with abortion is the number one reason many have called to defund Planned Parenthood today. But when Sanger started the organization, she focused on birth control as a means of controlling the population. As Live Action News previously noted, “Sanger was not necessarily opposed to abortion, but as it had not yet been legalized, her focus was eugenic sterilization and birth control. In her book Woman and the New Race, published in 1920, Sanger suggest[ed] that birth control is a better choice than abortion.”
Planned Parenthood’s push to begin referring for and eventually committing abortions was initiated by the organization’s president, Alan F. Guttmacher, another eugenicist leader, who took that office in 1962.
Margaret Sanger and Alan F Guttmacher of Planned Parenthood advocate coercive sterilization
During this time, many within the Black community were concerned about the use of abortion and birth control to eugenically limit the poor, disabled, or Black segment of society. After dialoguing internally about the unease of the Black community, the suggestion was made to add Black members to Planned Parenthood’s board; this took place at the same time that Planned Parenthood was calling for the decriminalization of abortion.
According to a New York Times article from November 14, 1968, the first time that Planned Parenthood went on record calling for abortion, they also elected their very first Black board chairman to roll out the new agenda — Dr. Jerome H. Holland. According to media reports, Holland “pledged his support for the group’s program saying that those who call birth control a form of genocide are ‘not aware of the real meaning of family planning and its uses.’”
The same year, Frederick Osborn, a founding Eugenics Society officer connected to Planned Parenthood, wrote, “Eugenic goals are most likely to be attained under a name other than eugenics.” Osborn signed Margaret Sanger’s “Citizens Committee for Planned Parenthood,” published in her review in April of 1938. Some speculate that Planned Parenthood’s infamous slogan, “Every Child a Wanted Child,” may have originated with Osborn.
Abortion was not introduced to Planned Parenthood by Margaret Sanger, but by the organization’s then-president, Dr Alan F. Guttmacher, a former vice president of the American Eugenics Society. In a 1970 interview, Guttmacher called for decriminalized abortion, and at a 1970 Cornell Symposium, Guttmacher suggested “unlimited abortion” as the best means of reducing “population growth.”
Then, in 1978, the organization elected Faye Wattleton as Planned Parenthood’s very first Black female as president. Under Wattleton’s leadership, Planned Parenthood’s budget grew from $90 million (1978) to $384 million (1990). For her service and dedication to the eugenics-minded organization, Wattleton received Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award in 1992.
Planned Parenthood turns its focus to abortion
As stated, Planned Parenthood did not begin committing abortions until the 1970s. As previously documented by Live Action News, “In 1966, according to the New York Times, Planned Parenthood of New York had just 42 locations. Shortly after New York liberalized its abortion laws, Planned Parenthood set out to open its first abortion facility,” the Planned Parenthood Center of Syracuse, which opened its doors on July 1, 1970. “By 1971 — just five years later — Planned Parenthood had 100 centers throughout the city.”
As reported, “In anticipation of New York decriminalizing its state abortion laws in 1970, Alan F. Guttmacher suggested that ‘special facilities,’ which he called ‘abortoriums,’ should be opened.” A New York Magazine article documented how Guttmacher, nicknamed the “dean of abortion faculty,” wanted to “rent a loft or store, equip it with surgical equipment and about 20 recovery beds and go into the large scale abortion practice….”
In addition, “On July 1, 1970, Planned Parenthood Center of Syracuse became the first affiliate to offer abortions… The following year, the New York Times announced that Planned Parenthood was set to open an abortion facility in New York. Its executing vice president, Alfred F. Moran, noted that the facility would be a better option from what he called the ‘commercial profit-making abortion services’ that were operating in the city. He called the facility a ‘prototype for the development of additional centers throughout the city, state and nation and will stimulate the conversion of so-called abortion clinics’ into facilities that would also provide comprehensive birth control services.”
Planned Parenthood Opens first abortion facility in 1970 (image New York Times)
After the Supreme Court legalized abortion in January of 1973, Guttmacher “wasted little time approaching the Planned Parenthood board to offer abortions nationwide. According to author Rose Holz, at a February 1973 PP World Population board meeting, Guttmacher insisted that Planned Parenthood begin offering on-site abortions for the poor,” Live Action News reported.
Over a century later, despite outrage from the public and regular calls to defund Planned Parenthood, the organization essentially canceled Sanger while remaining determined to carry out a eugenic, population control agenda by targeting the very least of society through abortion.
Read more about Planned Parenthood’s history at Live Action News here — Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four— and in additional articles.
Taxpayers foot the bill, despite Planned Parenthood’s abortion focus
Planned Parenthood commits 40% of all abortions in the United States. Even as its legitimate health services were in decline last year, Planned Parenthood broke its record and committed 392,715 abortions, according to its 2022-23 annual report — nearly 20,000 more abortions (a 5% increase) from the previous year. This is a 100% increase from the number of preborn children they killed in 2000. This amounts to 1,076 preborn children killed every day, nearly 45 every hour, and one every 80 seconds in 2022-23 — by Planned Parenthood alone.
In its most recently reported year, Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer dollars jumped over 4% from the previous year, up to nearly $700 million dollars reported for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023. In less than 25 years, taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood have climbed a whopping 245% (from $202.7M in 2000 to the most recent figure).
As of June 30, 2023, Planned Parenthood had accumulated over $2 BILLION in total revenue, with excess revenue hitting $178.6 million. Planned Parenthood’s net assets and liabilities now sit at over $2.9 billion, the highest recorded in recent years.
The organization has committed over 7.1 million abortions and received nearly $10.7 billion from taxpayers since 2000.
In upcoming articles in this series, Live Action News will lay out a strong case for rejecting and defunding Planned Parenthood, including the organization’s abuses, complaints from staffers about discrimination, retaliation, racism, deceptive marketing, Medicaid fraud accusations, and the failure to report child sexual abuse.
