By TOM TAKASH
Without a doubt, the most influential and the most admired woman among the radical feminists in my lifetime has been Margaret Sanger. Long before Helen Gurley Brown, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Germaine Greer, and so many others made their claim to freeing women from being “pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen,” Margaret Sanger proposed to an apathetic and somewhat naive world that women could turn their backs on motherhood and love of family.
She worked tirelessly to destroy family life and to “free women” from the “slavery” that she claimed crippled them. She wanted to bring an end to large families, and further to stop what she saw as the “breeding of the unfit and inferior races.”
Sanger was born in 1879, the sixth of 11 surviving children born to her mother, Ann, who apparently also had several miscarriages. When her mother passed at age 50 from tuberculosis, Margaret blamed her father and began an aggressive campaign against large families. As a young adult she worked as a visiting nurse in the slums of New York City. During this period, she joined the New York Socialist Party and became involved in social activism. She soon became an outspoken advocate for contraception.
At first, she opposed abortion, not because of the killing of an unborn baby, but fearing danger to a woman’s health. She soon founded a newsletter, celebrating contraception. Its slogan became “No Gods, No Masters.” She is credited with first using the phrase “Birth Control.” Threatened with jail, she fled to Europe for a time and became one of the leaders expressing fear of overpopulation. Returning to the United States, Sanger fought authorities continually and eventually with the assistance of the courts she was able to declare victory for contraception in America. She served as the first president of International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1952 and remained in that position until turning 80.
I did not become fully aware of the movement she almost singlehandedly created, until the late 1960s. I was in downtown Chicago one day with some fellow male workers on a lunch break, when we noticed a large crowd of young women gathering at a street corner. Curious, we walked close to them, only to be warned by one angry young female to keep our distance. This was “…A WOMEN ONLY gathering,” she shouted! We watched as several young women took to a mike to denounce our “male-pig” world and to show their freedom from it by removing their bras and throwing them into a pile. Then as a match was thrown into the pile, which must have been soaked with a flammable liquid since it immediately turned into a blazing fire, other young women passed out brochures to female attendees.
I stepped forward and asked one of these ladies (I use that term loosely out of courtesy) for one of the brochures, only to receive a disgusted look and a really vulgar remark as she turned away.
We left the corner amused and foolishly convinced that this was some sort of passing phase among a few fanatical girls. But as time passed, we came to realize that something very different from what we had known in the past, something uncomfortable and evil, was occurring around us. The advent and acceptance of the birth control pill had slowly taken firm hold since 1960. The dreams and demands of Margaret Sanger were becoming a reality.
She had fanatically worked promoting birth control, and by 1951 she met Gregory Pincus, a biologist who with her encouragement and with funds she helped secure from a wealthy heiress, developed an effective and, so we were told, safe contraceptive pill. The dangers it posed, and its abortive capabilities were not publicized.
Almost overnight, long-held beliefs of mutual respect between men and women, the idea of love, sharing, courtship, and marriage were suddenly being turned into a nightmare. A selfish “me first” and a “me only” world of “them versus us” was taking hold of our young people. Marriage was becoming a “maybe someday thing.” One-night stands and living together were becoming not only acceptable, but preferable. Children? You’ve got to be kidding. That would ruin the fun!
This new-found freedom that many young women thought was theirs to enjoy, was cheered on by an entire generation of young men as well. Reckless hedonism, enjoying the moment, living for today had become the mantra of boys across the globe. No necessity to become a man.
They rightly concluded that eliminating the probability of impregnating a girlfriend meant no long-term commitment, and no need for only one woman. The word love was now a quaint and dated term. Lust and unbridled passion had been unleashed and our moral values quickly began to wither.
Unfortunately for these care-free children, the pill did not always dispose of the child who could be the natural result of sexual intimacy. A messy but solvable problem sometimes occurred. Margret Sanger and Planned Parenthood had that difficulty handled too. Legal abortions were now available in clinics in some states and her Planned Parenthood locations became a major player in the slaughter of babies. It was also, not coincidentally, a financial bonanza for them.
They told our youth: Why should a couple be burdened with an unplanned child? A child that would place pressure on an overcrowded planet anyway. Not only that, but often the child resulted from relations between “inferior” races that polluted the population, preventing the rightful and better-bred people from strengthening the herd. Margaret’s solution: Abortion, of course. It was the quick and obvious cure for a mistake!
In almost the blink of an eye more and more states passed or strengthened laws “protecting women’s rights to privacy (abortion)” and abortion mills with gentle sounding names like “Women’s Health Care” and “Your Choice” became mainstream.
Radical feminists and financially strong organizations like Planned Parenthood and the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws and their lawyers voiced their support for unlimited abortion rights, and although Margaret Sanger didn’t live to see her dream become law (she passed away in 1966) in 1973 our nation, as a whole, embraced the slaughter of the unborn with Roe v. Wade.
Abortion became the national disgrace of our country. A nation that had prided itself on individual rights, protected by “due process,” became a world leader in the murder of innocent human beings. The complete collapse of our long-held moral values was now a reality.
But a national disgrace like this could not continue as it has without the protection and the lying of our politicians. A country built on Judeo-Christian values has managed to turn its back on God and His children and to aggressively kill its future in spite of a sizable number of dedicated “pro-life warriors.” How can this be? Wasn’t there a significant number of Catholic politicians serving our country who were willing to fight to bring an end to the slaughter of our most innocents?
Well, the answer unfortunately is no, there weren’t many and there still are not. Hearing them talk with their constituents, many have created the impression that they are pro-lifers, but when they have to face their pro-death sponsors who hold the keys to their political futures their votes betray them. Unfortunately, all too often voters rarely check on the voting records of these people, assuming that they will act in accordance with their promises and not with under-the-table paychecks.
Thirteen “Catholic” Senators
Another crippling event that almost silently increased pro-abortion voting was the creation in 1985 of EMILY’s List, a name that resonated with young women who through the propaganda of the radical feminist movement, felt cheated by our nation.
Founded specifically to promote the election of pro-abortion Democratic women to political office, the organization now boasts that it has raised over $700 million to elect “pro-choice” women candidates. The acronym EMILY stands for Early Money Is Like Yeast. These pro-abortion women understood that money placed with the right candidates would act like yeast, and forcefully expand their chances for success.
Unfortunately, many women have been deceived into believing that their contributions are used solely to promoting women in politics; the “pro-choice” part sometimes goes unnoticed. The goal of electing women to political positions draws many women to contribute, who have heard over and over again that they have been oppressed.
A while back before a Sunday Mass in a Catholic church parking lot, I noticed a car with an EMILY’s List bumper sticker, and I wondered whether this was a car belonging to a pro-abortion Catholic, or to an uninformed true Catholic. In either case, this organization is a danger to unborn babies and their mothers. I’m sure that Margaret Sanger, if she were still alive, would be pleased that the car was in a Catholic church parking lot, and would be cheering them on.
Just recently, “The Women’s Health Protection Act” was narrowly defeated in a Senate vote after being passed in the House. The victory for our unborn was only accomplished because under Senate rules, sixty votes were needed for passage. Thirteen Catholic senators favored passage of the bill, and 12 of them voted to make it law. The thirteenth, a co-sponsor of the bill, was absent when the vote was taken. Several of them claim to be pro-life.
That bill in summary stated: “To protect a person’s (Italics mine) ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy, and to protect a health provider’s ability to provide abortion services.” (Note the use of the word person rather than woman, bowing to the absurd propaganda that men as well as women can become pregnant!) The only purpose of this bill was to codify a right to kill babies and to protect abortionists from prosecution for murdering innocent babies. Diabolical wording did not save it. The bill failed to pass.
No thanks to these Catholic senators who dishonored their faith by voting in favor of the bill: Bob Casey Jr. of PA, Jack Reed of RI, Maria Cantwell of WA, Dick Durbin of IL, Kirsten Gillibrand of NY, Tim Kaine of VA, Mark Kelly of AZ, Patrick Leahy of VT, Ed Markey of MA, Bob Menendez of NJ, Patty Murray of WA, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nev., and Alex Padilla of CA. And no thanks also to a cosponsor of the bill (not present for the vote) Ben Ray Lujan of NM.
Need we mention that our Catholic president, who is now the most pro-abortion president in our history, stated that, if passed, he would sign the bill into law! Yet not to be out done by the Senate nor by the president, among the most flagrant slaps in the Catholic Church’s face, was accomplished by our esteemed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who by her own words is a “devout Catholic.” She rammed the bill through the House and is an outspoken defender of “reproductive rights” while continually applauding herself for having had five children in six years.
Should anyone deceive themselves regarding Pelosi’s true beliefs, it should not be forgotten that on March 27, 2014, Pelosi joyfully accepted the Margaret Sanger Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. While accepting the award, she praised Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s then president, Cecil Richards, as a woman of “grace, intellect, and determination.” (It should be noted that Pelosi also mentioned that Richards had once served as Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff.) During that disgraceful speech, while placing Sanger on a pedestal, she said: “To be associated with the great Margaret Sanger is a distinct privilege.”
Later in her groveling speech, Pelosi added: “Over the years the opponents of family planning have targeted Planned Parenthood for one reason and one reason only, Planned Parenthood is effective.” By effective, was she referring to the millions upon millions of unborn babies they had slaughtered?
To read Pelosi’s entire acceptance speech one might think that it is actually a glowing report prepared by a well-paid employee of the abortion giant itself at a stockholders’ meeting. And to hear Pelosi’s adoring tribute to Margaret Sanger, one might easily conclude that Sanger was a saint in the making, and one should disregard Sanger’s Nazi-like rantings. Has Pelosi never read any of Sanger’s comments about eliminating “human weeds,” about segregating “morons, misfits, and maladjusted” — and what about her call to sterilize inferior races?
Sanger’s evil anti-life philosophy has penetrated our entertainment industry, our medical community, our courts, and even our churches. Local, state and federal governments have been inundated with the need to curtail population increases. “Catholic” government officials at all levels are promoting the pro-abortion mindset as a human rights issue!
Prominent governors like Gavin Newsom, the governor of the largest state by population in the nation, is almost euphoric in his promotion of California as a sanctuary state for those seeking to kill their unborn. In a joint open letter with the pro-abortion governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, and the pro-abortion governor of Washington, Jay Inslee, Newsom urges other states to enact laws that the three believe can “defend every American’s right to reproductive freedom.”
California under Newsom even allows minors to obtain abortions without parental consent!
Adding to the continuing scandal to the Catholic faithful, Newsom was once quoted as calling himself an “Irish Catholic rebel.” Nice sounding and kind of romantic. You might even say swashbuckling, too. But in reality, it’s just a perverted West Coast way of saying: “Ok, so I’m not really a dot your ‘I’ and cross your ‘T’ Catholic. You probably aren’t either. So what? But I’m kind of Catholic. So, let’s just pretend that we all still follow that antiquated Church, and give me your Catholic votes while I protect and expand murder of the unborn in California.”
Decent Human Beings?
One tends to ask whether arguments made by professed Catholic politicians defending their pro-abortion voting records are genuine misunderstandings of the Church’s clear and uncompromising defense of all life — or are they heretical lies of self-deception? A book that I consult every day, one that thoughtfully addresses life issues each day of the year, Pro-Life Reflections for Every Day by Fr. Frank Pavone, presents a different thought on their anti-life actions:
“When we read the descriptions of what the abortion procedure does to little babies, we understand that the core question is not whether these politicians are good Catholics, but whether they are decent human beings.”
The answer may be buried in the deep recesses of their minds, but it is truly known in the Mind of God. We must pray that through prayers, theirs and ours, many pro-abortion Catholic politicians will turn away from the Culture of Death and form their consciences to the teaching of the one true Church. Perhaps they will then become pro-life warriors themselves, and with their votes we will be able to honestly declare that we promote “liberty and justice for all.”
If that happens, the nightmare that has been Margaret Sanger’s America will be no more.
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