On Saturday, former Vice President Mike Pence tied the abortion industry to the eugenics movement, asserting that Planned Parenthood “shamelessly builds” on the goals of founder Margaret Sanger by targeting minority communities.
Abortion today, Pence said, is “being used as a tool of eugenics for the elimination of children of the wrong sex or race or those suffering with disability.”
His comments came at the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, D.C.
“Today, more than two-thirds of all babies with Down syndrome in the United States are killed in their mothers’ womb. This must end,” Pence said, noting that as governor of Indiana, he signed a bill prohibiting women from having an abortion because of the baby’s race, gender or disability.
Sanger was guilty of “abject racism,” Pence said.
“Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, once wrote that eugenics, in her words, was, quote ‘the most adequate and thorough avenue in the solution of racial, political and social problems.’ Today, Planned Parenthood shamelessly builds on Margaret Sanger’s legacy,” Pence said.
“According to a new report at the Center for Urban Renewal and Education … Planned Parenthood has strategically located 79 percent of its abortion clinics in black and Hispanic neighborhoods,” Pence said. “And despite being less than one-third of the U.S. population, blacks and Hispanics account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions performed. For liberty and justice for all, we must end abortion in America. We must stand with every American of every race and creed and color in their right to life.”
The report, released last week, said its findings “arguably coincide with historical revelations that eugenicists – dating to the mid-1900s – believed that one of the most effective ways they could advance their agenda would be to concentrate population control facilities within targeted communities.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case, Dobbs v. Jackson, that could result in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. A decision is expected before July.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla/Staff
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
