The doctrine of eugenics teaches that the human race faces two serious dangers: diminishing intelligence and overproduction. For this reason, eugenicists want to create a smaller, elite race using only “superior” stock; thus they work hard to discourage people with “bad” genes from producing descendents. During the early 1900’s, the American Birth Control League, forerunner of Planned Parenthood, promoted eugenics and even published articles by Nazi sympathizers.  At the same time across the Atlantic, Adolph Hitler, inspired by the eugenics philosophy, was formulating his “Master Race” plan, which eventually resulted in the atrocities of the Holocaust. As the U.S. prepared to fight against Germany in the Second World War, the American Birth Control League adopted a new slogan to explain its reason for existence: “family planning” and changed its name to Planned Parenthood.

Every year Planned Parenthood hosts a “Margaret Sanger Award Ceremony,” honoring someone who exemplifies the spirit of its founder, Margaret Sanger. Like her German contemporary, Ms. Sanger was an ardent eugenicist and envisioned a Master Race…or in her words, “A Race of Thoroughbreds.” While disapproving of the “lethal chambers” (gassing) for “defective progeny,” a horrible practice which almost emptied Germany’s mental hospitals, she did favor eliminating the descendents of “the feeble-minded” by means of sterilization and segregation.

As one reads in Margaret Sanger’s writings about the multitudes judged “unfit” for her “Race of Thoroughbreds,” one notices an attitude of total disrespect.  Included were the “mentally and physically defective,”“feeble-minded,” criminals, “dope fiends,” syphilitics, “the irresponsible,” “delinquent,” “professional prostitutes,” the illiterate, selective service inductees with low IQ scores, poor immigrants, “the blind, the deaf-mute, the degenerate, nervous, the idiotic, the vicious, the imbecile, the cretins,””morons,”“epileptic,””paupers,” “unemployables,” and “borderline cases.” She referred to such people as “an unceasing, spawning class of human beings,” some of whom “never should have been born.”  They were “biological waste,” “the dregs of the human species,” “dead weight,” “a permanent menace to the race,” and “choking human undergrowth (in) the garden of humanity.”

Ms. Sanger argued that just as a good rancher does not breed defective livestock, the breeding of the human race should also not be left to “blind chance.” She hoped that with proper education Birth Control would eventually be freely chosen, but until such time--“possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon American society.” In her April, 1932 “Plan for Peace,” she proposed that “fifteen or twenty million” (italics added) “dysgenic” Americans be segregated on work farms, or concentration camps, where they would be educated in responsible reproductive behavior. They would produce no descendents and thus be “defending the unborn against their own disabilities.” Many would remain in these camps for life.  Such work camps were later established in Europe, where millions of innocent people died.

“The exigent problem of the elimination of the feeble-minded” was a priority with Ms. Sanger. Such individuals were, in her view, “a constant drain on the finances, health, and future of the community” and “a burden…upon the whole human race.” She praised the State of Oregon for its “intelligence and courage” in documenting “the enormous drain on a state caused by mental defects” and criticized charitable organizations whose kindness and benevolence aided the “dependent, delinquent, and defective.” “These people are encouraged to increase and multiply and replenish the earth,” she lamented.  Disdaining sentiment, she declared, “We prefer the policy of immediate sterilization, of making sure that parenthood is absolutely prohibited to the feeble-minded.”

In 1917 Oregon enacted a forced sterilization law in deference to pressure from Oregon’s now-defunct State Board of Eugenics.  The law was in effect until about 1987. Oregonians who were “feeble-minded, insane, epileptic, habitual criminals, moral degenerates, and sexual perverts, and those who are likely to become a danger to society” were involuntarily sterilized. In the words of former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, “The majority suffered from mental disorders and disabilities…Many were children…Virtually all were vulnerable, helpless citizens entrusted to the care of the State of Oregon by their families or by courts.”

On December 2, 2002, Governor Kitzhaber issued a formal apology.  He said, “Today I am here to acknowledge a great wrong done to more than 2,600 Oregonians over a period of 60 years—forced sterilization in accordance with a doctrine called eugenics…At various times, supporters of eugenics urged passage of laws…to impose sterilization on those considered ‘unfit’…The time has come to apologize for misdeeds that resulted from widespread misconceptions, ignorance, and bigotry.  It is the right thing to do, the just thing to do.  The time has come to apologize for public policies that labeled people as “defective” simply because they were ill and declared them unworthy to have children of their own. To those who suffered, I say, the people of Oregon are sorry.  Our hearts are heavy for the pain you endured…we will affirm our commitment to the value of every human being in Oregon…We value them all, for they are our brothers and sisters.”

In making this apology, in my opinion Governor Kitzhaber acted not as a politician but as a statesman. His speech upholds the ideals of our Declaration of Independence, which declares it a self-evident truth that “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Governments are instituted, it says, “to insure these rights.”

If one learns anything from this brief history, may it be that whenever any group takes upon itself the authority to decide whose life has value and whose does not, the door is wide open for tyranny, abuse, and even genocide.  Rather than saving, such a group has the potential to destroy the human race.

Sources:

Sanger, Margaret:  The Pivot of Civilization.  The Echo Library 2006 (reprint of original 1922 book) ISBN I-40680-038-4.  Pages 9, 11-12, 16-17, 19, 24, 28-36, 38-40, 43, 46-47, 50, 52, 55, 60-66, and 92-93.

Sanger, Margaret:  “A Plan for Peace,” The Birth Control Review, April, 1932, p. 106.  Google search: “Stalking the Wild Taboo” Margaret Sanger Peace Plan.

01-13-03 Oregon State Archives Copy – Oregon Governor’s Office – Speech   Governor John Kitzhaber: “Proclamation of Human Rights Day and apology for Oregon’s forced sterilization of institutionalized patients.”  Salem, Oregon, December 2, 2002.