Planned Parenthood for blacks: "humane" alternative to death camps

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg unintentionally sent the pro-abortion movement into overtime damage control last July when she said to the New York Times (July 7, 2009):

"Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of."

As Katie Walker reports in "'Maafa 21' -- A year later" [PDF] (ALL-CL, July-August 2010):

As a leader of the "women's rights" movement since at least the 1970s and now one of the most powerful women in the U.S. government, Ginsburg had just admitted to the nation's best-known daily newspaper that the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision (1973), which decriminalized abortion, was about getting rid of populations "that we don't want too many of."

The slip-up came less than a month after the documentary Maafa 21: Black Genocide in 21st Century America [(1) Trailer; (2) whole movie] was released on June 19, 1865, the anniversary of the federal enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas. Walker says that she was privileged to to sit for a screening in an auditorium in the Capitol Visitor Center, across the street from the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC. Two hours later, she writes:

... I was reeling between anger, disgust, and tears. Maafa 21 isn't just a story for black pro-lifers; it's the story of how we got saddled with a society that aggressively violates the human rights of "populations we don't want to have too many of" and justifies all sorts of atrocities in the name of some "greater good."

Maafa, a Swahili term for great tragedy or disaster, refers (1) to the more than 500 years of oppression suffered by Africans and their descendants under slavery, colonialism, imperialism and racism; and (2) -- and here's the kicker -- to the attempt to control and reduce African American populations through eugenic birth control, sterilization, and abortion (as Maafa 21 abundantly documents, nearly to the point of overkill).

Before abortion was legalized in the U.S., the illegal procedure was the province of comparatively well-to-do whites who could afford to pay for it. Since Roe v. Wade legalized it as a "right," the floodgates of funding were thrown open and comparatively low-income blacks quickly became the largest group availing themselves of the procedure. Since 1973, estimates suggest that abortion has reduced the American black population by over 25%. Table 3 of National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Oct. 14, 2009, available at www.cdc.gov) reports that in 2005, there were 587,000 live births vs. 452,000 abortions of black pregnancies. Walter B. Hoye II, CEO of the California Civil Rights Foundation calculates a net "black life deficit" of 157,808 in 2005, a figure that does not include 177,000 black preborn babies who died in 2005 from causes other than induced abortion. The Guttmacher Institute's May 2010 Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States (www.guttmacher.org) states: "Thirty percent of abortions occur to non-Hispanic black women." Bearing in mind that only about 12% of the U.S. population is African-American, according to the 2000 census, compared to about 75% for the white population (including Hispanics) and about 12% for other racial categories (see www.census.gov), and that these abortion statistics don't reflect the fact that hormonal contraceptives can induce very early, undetected abortions, the black population is clearly in significant decline. (See www.all.org, www.stopp.org, www.learninc.org, www.blackgenocide.org, and my favorite, www.klannedparenthood.com.)

I remember first reading about the phenomenon of black genocide (which sounds a little extreme at first, so call it Planned Parenthood "killing me softly with its song") about ten years ago through the precursor of this website: http://blackgenocide.org/. I had an African-American student at Lenoir-Rhyne University in an ethics class who researched the issue and became so incensed that, for his class project, he asked if he and a partner in a rap group could produce a rap song on the racist designs behind Margaret Sanger's development of the Planned Parenthood organization and its earlier parent organization. I offered a few guidelines, and he not only wrote the lyrics, but performed the rap song for the class with the help of his partner, a synthesizer, audio speakers and a great deal of electronic equipment. He got a standing ovation. It was awesome. Further, I have to credit Dr. Janet Smith with the idea, which I got from a remark she made in passing in her talk, "Contraception: Why Not?" about how she would love some "rap group" to put together a little song for her on a related issue of this kind.

I did not hear about Maafa 21, however, until I read Katie Walker's aforementioned article about it a year after it was produced. I am astounded that I haven't heard of this documentary video until now. Of course, I do not have a television, which might keep me out of the loop somewhat. I am curious, however: I wonder how many of you have heard about this documentary previously, and, if so, where you heard about it. It's remarkable to me that more notice has not been taken of this video in Catholic news outlets.

Of course, it may seem alarmist and unrealistic at first. Yet if you watch the thing, you will see that the eugenics movement is abundantly documented in American history. Names are given, and documents are shown and quoted. Margaret Sanger's speaking tour with Klu Klux Klan groups throughout the country is documented. The influence of American eugenicists on Adolf Hitler is documented. Interestingly, leaders in the black community (like Stokely Carmichael and Elijah Muhammad) sounded the alarm against the eugenics threat long before American evangelicals or Catholics awakened to the issue. Jessie Jackson once was staunchly pro-life and equated abortion with black genocide, but changed his tune to "a woman's right to choose" when he ran for president and found himself dependent on Democratic political and financial support. Promoters of the eugenics movement as a means of black population reduction has not been limited to socio-political liberals like Margaret Sanger and Democratic Presidents like Harry S. Truman and Lyndon Baines Johnson, however. There are quotations from President Dwight D. Eisenhower and a voice recording of an Oval Office conversation with Richard M. Nixon that ought to embarrass and curdle the blood of any Christian who voted for them.

Walker says in her article that one of Maafa 21's most startling effects is the support it has drawn from diverse populations that are typically pro-abortion strongholds. She quotes Mark Crutcher, the video's writer and director, as saying: "Usually, the most we can hope for is to win over the neutral or ambivalent, but winning over people who are hard-core or 'pro-choice' didn't happen; [however,] we're seeing that [happen] with Maafa."