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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank my good friend and colleague, Mr. King, for his leadership, for his consistency in promoting human rights, and for bringing to this floor tonight another opportunity for us to affirm the dignity and the value of all human life, including that of the unborn.
Mr. Speaker, last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, presented bouquet of flowers on behalf of the American people--a very nice gesture--and then went on to Houston, Texas, to receive the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood.
In her remarks, Secretary Clinton said she was ``in awe''--I repeat, ``in awe''--of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. To our distinguished
Secretary of State, I respectfully ask: Are you kidding? In ``awe'' of Margaret Sanger, who said in 1921, ``Eugenics is the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political, and social problems.'' And who also said in 1922, ``The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.''
Later, in 1939, Sanger wrote, ``We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social service backgrounds and with engaging personalities.'' She wrote, ``The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,'' she goes on, ``and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.''
Secretary Clinton in her speech said that Margaret Sanger's life and leadership was ``one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race.'' Mr. Speaker, transformational, yes. But not for the better if one happens to be poor, disenfranchised, weak, a person of color, vulnerable, or among the many so-called undesirables who Sanger would exclude and exterminate from the human race.
To me, and to many, including my distinguished colleague in the well, the juxtaposition of the last week's two very public events in Mexico City and in Houston bring into sharp focus two huge and irreconcilable world views.
On the one hand, the miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe has for five centuries brought a message of hope, faith, peace, reconciliation and protection for the weakest, most vulnerable among us. On the other hand, each year, Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood kills approximately 300,000 unborn baby girls and boys in their abortion clinics scattered throughout the United States.
Worldwide, the loss of innocent human life at the hands of Planned Parenthood is in the millions. Planned Parenthood even supports the hideous brain-sucking method of abortion called partial birth abortion.
On a visit to the Basilica in Mexico City in 1999, Pope John Paul II publicly entrusted protection of all at-risk human life, including especially unborn children and their mothers, to Our Lady of Guadalupe because the miracle she wrought 500 years ago resulted in an end to the barbaric practice of human sacrifice to a serpent God that claimed anywhere between 20,000 and 50,000 victims a year.
Indeed, the miraculous story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, known so well especially in Latin America, but really around the world, has been extraordinarily compelling and inspirational for centuries.
In 1531, the Blessed Mother appeared to Juan Diego, a native American at Tepeyac, near Mexico City, and asked that a church be built on the site of the apparition. The Catholic bishop was skeptical and asked for a sign. At the behest of the Blessed Mother, and despite the fact it was winter, Juan Diego gathered roses from the site into his tilma for presentation to the Bishop.
When Juan Diego met with Bishop Juan de Zumarraga with the roses tucked under his apron, a miraculous image suddenly appeared on the cloth. The Bishop was stunned, and he believed. The image of the Blessed Mother wasn't painted. There are no brush strokes. To this day, the image defies all scientific explanation as to its origin.
Within a few years of the miracle, more than 9 million Aztecs converted to Christianity and a strong devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe began that continues to this day. Each year, some 18 million to 20 million pilgrims visit the miraculous image in Mexico City.
Last Thursday, Hillary Clinton visited the shrine. On Friday, she paid homage to Planned Parenthood and to Margaret Sanger.
Margaret Sanger is the founder of Planned Parenthood. She was a self-described pro-abortionist eugenist and a racist who considered charity care for impoverished, disenfranchised women, including women of color, especially pregnant women, to be ``cruel.''
In her book, ``The Pivot of Civilization,'' Margaret Sanger devoted an entire chapter that she entitled: ``The Cruelty of Charity,'' to her inhumane case for not helping--and I repeat that--not helping poor pregnant women with prenatal and maternal care.
Sanger said in the book--and I read her book--``We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.''
In chapter 5--again, chapter 5 is called: ``The Cruelty of Charity''--she writes, ``Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease.'' Sanger writes, ``Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and diminish the spread of misery and destruction and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding, and is perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents, and dependents.'' That's Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.
She continues, ``My criticism therefore is not directed at the failure of philanthropy but rather at its success.'' Sanger goes on to say, ``There's a special type of philanthropy or benevolence now widely advertised and advocated both as a Federal program and as worthy of private endowment, which strikes me,'' that is to say Sanger, ``as being more insidiously injurious than any other. This concerns itself directly with the function of maternity and aims to supply gratis medical and nursing facilities to slum mothers.
``Such women are to be visited by nurses and receive instruction in the hygiene of pregnancy, to be guided in making arrangements for confinement, to be invited to come to the doctors' clinics for examination and supervision. They are, we are informed, to receive adequate care during pregnancy, at confinement, and for 1 month afterwards. Thus, are mothers and babies to be saved, childbearing is to be made safe.''
Construing to demean the generosity of pregnancy care centers, Margaret Sanger goes on to say, ``The work of the maternity centers in the various American cities, which they have already been established and in which they are supported by private contributions and endowment, it is hardly necessary to point out is carried out among the poor and the most docile section of the city, among mothers least able, through poverty and ignorance, to afford the care and attention necessary for successful maternity.
``The effect of maternity endowments of maternity centers supported by private philanthropy would have perhaps already have had exactly the most dysgenic tendency. The new government program would facilitate the function of maternity among the very classes in which the absolute necessity is to discourage it.
``Such benevolence,'' she goes on to say, ``is not merely superficial and nearsighted.'' Sanger continues, ``It conceals a stupid cruelty. Aside from the question of the unfitness of many women to become mothers, aside from the very definite deterioration in the human stock that such programs would inevitably hasten, we may question its value even through the unfortunate mother.
Simon concludes, ``The most serious charge that can be brought against modern benevolence is that it encourages''--and I say this again--``the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents, and dependents.'' Such audacity, such an inhumane view of human life.
Mr. Speaker, in her speech at the Planned Parenthood gala accepting the Margaret Sanger award--and I have many other quotes from Sanger that I will put into the Record, and I invite Members and the American people to look at those quotes, and there is so much more.
But in her speech last Friday, Secretary Clinton said she admired Sanger for her vision, was in awe of her, and that Margaret Sanger's work here and in the United States and certainly across the globe is not done.
Translated, ``not done'' means more abortions here in the United States, in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, the world. Planned Parenthood's mission statement, documents, and work in the field make it absolutely clear that they seek a global unfettered right to commit violence against unborn children at all stages of development. Planned Parenthood seeks integration of all health care with abortion, with no conscience rights whatsoever for medical practitioners, no parental consent or notification whatsoever for minors. And all of this paid for by the United States taxpayer.
Which begs the question, Mr. Speaker. Is our Secretary of State unaware of Margaret Sanger's inhumane beliefs? Was she not briefed on Margaret Sanger's cruel and reckless disregard for poor, pregnant women? Respectfully, Secretary Clinton should at a minimum return the Sanger award.
More importantly, Congress and the White House must at long last take a long, hard, second look at the multimillion, almost billion, dollar corporation called Planned Parenthood, Child Abuse Incorporated.
Let's be honest, Mr. Speaker. Abortion is violence against children. It dismembers and chemically poisons a child to death. It hurts women physically, psychologically, and spiritually. There is nothing whatsoever compassionate, benevolent, ennobling, benign, or empowering about abortion. It is a violation of a child's fundamental human rights.
Rather than partnering with Planned Parenthood and like-minded NGOs to promote abortion worldwide with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, the United States should affirm the inherent value, dignity, worth of both victims of abortion, mother and child. We need to promote nonviolent, life-affirming solutions to women both here as well as abroad. Women deserve better than abortion. We should always and in every way affirm the precious lives of both. And on that score, Margaret Sanger and far too many others would disagree.
I strongly urge my colleagues to take that second look at Planned Parenthood. It is time to respect the value and the dignity of all human life.
* [Begin Insert]
Mr. Speaker, last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, presented a bouquet of flowers on behalf of the American people--a nice gesture--and then went on to Houston, Texas to receive the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood.
In her remarks, Secretary Clinton said she was ``in awe'' of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. To our distinguished Secretary of State, I respectfully ask, are you kidding? In ``awe'' of Margaret Sanger who said in 1921 ``Eugenics is ..... the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems'' and in 1922 said, ``The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.''
Later in 1939 Sanger wrote ``We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.''
Secretary Clinton said in her speech that Margaret Sanger's ``life and leadership'' was ``one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race.'' Mr. Speaker, transformational yes, but not for the better if one happens to be poor, disenfranchised, weak, disabled, vulnerable, or among the many so called undesirables who Sanger would exclude and exterminate from the human race.
To me--to many--the juxtaposition of last weeks two very public events--in Mexico City and in Houston--bring into sharp focus, two huge and irreconcilable world views.
On the one hand, the miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe has for 5 centuries brought a message of hope, faith, love and protection for the weakest, most vulnerable among us. On the other hand, each year Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood kills approximately 300,000 unborn children in their abortion clinics throughout the United States. Worldwide the loss of innocent human life at the hands of Planned Parenthood is in the millions. Planned Parenthood even supports the hideous brain sucking method of abortion called partial birth abortion.
On a visit to the Basilica in Mexico City in 1999, Pope John Paul II publicly entrusted protection of all at risk innocent human life, including and especially unborn children and their mothers, to Our Lady of Guadalupe because the miracle she wrought 500 years ago resulted in an end to the barbaric practice of human sacrifice to a serpent god that claimed 20,000 to 50,000 victims a year.
Indeed, the miraculous story of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been extraordinarly compelling and inspirational for centuries.
In 1531, the Blessed Mother appeared to Juan Diego, a Native American at Tepeyac, near Mexico City, and asked that a church be built on the site of the apparition.
The Catholic Bishop was skeptical and asked for a sign.
At the behest of the Blessed Mother, and despite the fact that it was winter, Juan Diego gathered roses from the site into his tilma for presentation to the Bishop.
When Juan Diego met with Bishop Juan de Zumarraga with the roses tucked in his apron, a miraculous image suddenly appeared on the cloth.
The Bishop was stunned, and believed. The image of the Blessed Mother wasn't painted--there are no brush strokes--and to this day the image defies all scientific explanation as to its origin.
Within a few years of the miracle, more than 9 million Aztecs converted to Christianity and strong devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe began, that continues to this day. Each year some 18-20 million pilgrims visit the miraculous image in Mexico City.
Last Thursday, Hillary Clinton visited the Shrine. Then on Friday she paid homage to Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger.
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood was a self-described pro-abortion eugenist and racist who considered charity care for impoverished, disenfranchised women, including women of color, especially pregnant women, to be ``cruel.'' In her book, the Pivot of Civilization, Margaret Sanger devoted an entire chapter entitled ``The Cruelty of Charity'' to her inhumane case of not helping--I repeat not helping--poor, pregnant women with prenatal and maternal care.
Sanger said in the book, ``We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.'' In Chapter 5 of that book Sanger writes:
``...... Organized charity itself is the symptom of a malignant social disease.
``Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and is perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents.''
Sanger continues, ``My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the `failure' of philanthropy, but rather at its success.......''
Sanger goes on to say, ``there is a special type of philanthropy or benevolence, now widely advertised and advocated, both as a federal program and as worthy of private endowment, which strikes me (Sanger) as being more insidiously injurious than any other. This concerns itself directly with the function of maternity, and aims to supply gratis medical and nursing facilities to slum mothers. Such women are to be visited by nurses and to receive instruction in the ``hygiene of pregnancy''; to be guided in making arrangements for confinements; to be invited to come to the doctors' clinics for examination and supervision. They are, we are informed, to ``receive adequate care during pregnancy, at confinement, and for one month afterward. Thus are mothers and babies to be saved, `Childbearing is to be made safe.' ''
Construing to demean the generosity of pregnancy centers Sanger continues, ``the work of the maternity centers in the various American cities in which they have already been established and in which they are supported by private contributions and endowment, it is hardly necessary to point out, is carried on among the poor and more docile sections of the city, among mothers least able, through poverty and ignorance, to afford the care and attention necessary for successful maternity. ..... The effect of maternity endowments and maternity centers supported by private philanthropy would have, perhaps already have had, exactly the most dysgenic tendency. The new government program would facilitate the function of maternity among the very classes in which the absolute necessity is to discourage it.''
Such ``benevolence'' is not merely superficial and nearsighted.
Sanger continues to write: ``it conceals a stupid cruelty ..... Aside from the question of the unfitness of many women to become mothers, aside from the very definite deterioration in the human stock that such programs would inevitable hasten, we may question its value even to the normal though unfortunate mother.''
Sanger concludes, ``the most serious charge that can be brought against modern `benevolence' is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents.''
Sanger also said:
``The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.''
``Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race.''
Margaret Sanger, Woman, Morality, and Birth Control. New York: New York Publishing Company, 1922. Page 12.
``We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful education approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.''
Margaret Sanger's December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255 Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.
``Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need ..... We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock.''
Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review.
``Eugenics is ..... the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.
Margaret Sanger. ``The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.'' Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5.
``As an advocate of birth control I wish ..... to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the `unfit' and the `fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation .....
``On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.''
Margaret Sanger. ``The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.'' Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5.
``The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics.''
Margaret Sanger. ``The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda.'' Birth Control Review, October 1921, page 5.
``Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying ..... demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism .... . [Philanthropists] encourage the healthier and more normal sections of the world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant ..... We are paying for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.''
Margaret Sanger. The Pivot of Civilization, 1922. Chapter on ``The Cruelty of Charity,'' pages 116, 122, and 189. Swarthmore College Library edition.
``The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind.''
Margaret Sanger, quoted in Charles Valenza. ``Was Margaret Sanger a Racist?'' Family Planning Perspectives, January-February 1985, page 44.
``The third group [of society] are those irresponsible and reckless ones having little regard for the consequences of their acts, or whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers. Many of this group are diseased, feeble-minded, and are of the pauper element dependent upon the normal and fit members of society for their support. There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped.''
Margaret Sanger. Speech quoted in Birth Control: What It Is, How It Works, What It Will Do. The Proceedings of the First American Birth Control Conference. Held at the Hotel Plaza, New York City, November 11-12, 1921. Published by the Birth Control Review, Gothic Press, pages 172 and 174.
``The marriage bed is the most degenerative influence in the social order .....''
Margaret Sanger (editor). The Woman Rebel, Volume I, Number 1. Reprinted in Woman and the New Race. New York: Brentanos Publishers, 1922.
``[Our objective is] unlimited sexual gratification without the burden of unwanted children .....''
Margaret Sanger (editor). The Woman Rebel, Volume I, Number 1. Reprinted in Woman and the New Race. New York: Brentanos Publishers, 1922.
``Give dysgenic groups [people with `bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.''
Margaret Sanger, April 1932 Birth Control Review.
In her speech at the Planned Parenthood Gala, accepting the Margaret Sanger award, Secretary Clinton said she admired Sanger for her ``vision,'' was in ``awe of her'' and that ``Margaret Sanger's work here in the United States and certainly across the globe is not done.''
Translated, ``not done'' means more abortions here in the United States, in Latin America, Africa, Asia--the world. Planned Parenthood's mission statement, documents, and work in the field make it absolutely clear that they seek a global unfettered right to commit violence against unborn children at all stages of development. Planned Parenthood seeks integration of all health care with abortion, with no conscience rights whatsoever for medical practitioners, no parental consent or notification for minors, and all paid for by the taxpayers.
Which begs the question: is our Secretary of State unaware of Margaret Sanger's unhumane beliefs? Was she not briefed on Margaret Sanger's cruel and reckless disregard for poor pregnant women? Respectfully, Secretary Clinton should at a minimum return the Sanger award. More importantly, Congress and the White House must, at long last take a long hard second look at the multi-million corporation Planned Parenthood--Child Abuse Inc.
Let's be honest, Mr. Speaker. Abortion is violence against children. It dismembers and chemically poisons a child to death. It hurts women physically and psychologically and spiritually. There is nothing whatsoever compassionate, benevolent, ennobling, benign or empowering about abortion. It is a violation of a child's fundamental human rights.
Rather than partnering with Planned Parenthood and like minded NGOs to promote abortion worldwide, with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, the United States should affirm the inherent value, dignity and worth of both victims of abortion--mother and child. We need to promote both at home and abroad. We should always and in every way affirm the precious lives of both. On that score, Margaret Sanger and far too many others would disagree.
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