Planned Parenthood To Drop Sanger’s Name From NYC Clinic Over Eugenics Advocacy
“Margaret Sanger’s concerns and advocacy for reproductive health have been clearly documented, but so too has her racist legacy,” Karen Seltzer, the chair of Planned Parenthood of New York, said about the organization's founder in a statement announcing the removal of her name.
The Washington Post:
Planned Parenthood To Remove Margaret Sanger’s Name From N.Y. Clinic Over Views On Eugenics
Planned Parenthood of Greater New York will remove the name of the national organization’s founder, Margaret Sanger, from a Manhattan clinic in an attempt to reckon with her ties to the eugenics movement, the organization announced Tuesday. An early feminist activist, Sanger is widely regarded as a pioneer in American reproductive rights. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States more than a century ago, and helped create access to birth control for low-income, minority and immigrant women. But she was also a vocal supporter of the now-discredited eugenics movement, which aimed to improve the human race through planned breeding based on genetic traits. (Schmidt, 7/21)
AP:
Sanger's Name To Be Dropped From NYC Clinic Over Eugenics
Planned Parenthood of Greater New York will remove the name of pioneering birth control advocate Margaret Sanger from its Manhattan health clinic because of her “harmful connections to the eugenics movement,” the group announced on Tuesday. Sanger, one of the founders of Planned Parenthood of America more than a century ago, has long provoked controversy because of her support for eugenics, a movement to promote selective breeding that often targeted people of color and the disabled. “The removal of Margaret Sanger’s name from our building is both a necessary and overdue step to reckon with our legacy and acknowledge Planned Parenthood’s contributions to historical reproductive harm within communities of color,” Karen Seltzer, the chair of Planned Parenthood of New York, said in a statement. “Margaret Sanger’s concerns and advocacy for reproductive health have been clearly documented, but so too has her racist legacy.” (7/21)
