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06.30.2009 0

Justice Ginsburg, Who are We?

  • On: 07/24/2009 09:27:58
  • In: Hard Left
  • By Victor Morawski

    Last week we took note of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s surprising, even shocking, observation that she thought abortions should be used to rid ourselves of “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

    This week, it is equally important to ask who, precisely, she thinks the “we” are who don’t want too many of the undesirable populations around. And it is, perhaps, even more important to examine what she and her ilk think Big Government’s role is in the sordid mix.

    When we follow their trail, what begins to emerge is a picture of a group of liberal elitists, Justice Ginsburg among them, who viewed legalized abortion as a means not only of granting women their “right to privacy,” but as a vehicle for furthering the end of eugenics, as a way by which to rid society of just those types of people the Ginsberg “we” do not want “too many of.”

    Here two threads, when followed, will amply illustrate eugenics as the main impetus behind Roe v. Wade. We will view its influence on the views of W.R. Weddington, co-counsel (along with his wife, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee) in Roe v. Wade; and Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, one of the most important groups favoring the legalization of abortion.

    (1) In a 1996 letter to Betsey Wright of the Clinton Transition Team, Ron Weddington’s strong racist advocacy of eugenics surfaced unmistakably. Writing in support of R U 486 [the morning after pill] Weddington argued for its quick approval as, “26 million food stamp recipients is more than the economy can stand.”

    He argued that Clinton’s success as a reformer needed a “better educated, healthier, wealthier population” [the goal of eugenics]. To this end, he told him, “you can start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country.”

    He urged Clinton to use a media campaign with the aid of sports and entertainment stars to persuade them to have only children that they could afford. And preventing that extra mouth to feed will require more than just pushing abstinence, Weddington maintained, “government is also going to have to provide vasectomies, tubal ligations, and abortions”

    Note that he, like Ginsburg, claims that these are things government should do. And it should do them to further eugenics as their end. To keep in check the numbers of those “we don’t want to have too many of.”

    (2) Ever since 1955 when, in a secret meeting, members of Planned Parenthood vowed to declare war on what they deemed an epidemic of back alley abortions, their organization has become a leading player in the fight to decriminalize abortion. That eugenics, not a woman’s supposed “Right to Choose,” was the guiding motivation behind their push for decriminalization can be seen from the motivations of its founder, Margaret Sanger, a forceful crusader for it.

    Indeed, Ms. Sanger’s motto for the movement she founded was, “More from the fit, less from the unfit.” And there’s not much doubt who the “we” is in that formula.

    Her successors have also openly claimed to carry on Sanger’s legacy. On what would have been Sanger’s 100th birthday, then PP president Faye Wattleton, declared that the organization is very proud of the mission given them by their “courageous leader”—a “grand mission” of which “abortion is only the tip of the iceberg.” (Presumably, furthering eugenics is below the water line on that iceberg).

    Alan Guttmacher, President of PP from 1962-1974—the years during which the battle for abortion legalization was fought—was a former Vice President of the American Eugenics Society [Need we wonder where he stood on the issue?] He is on record stating that PP as an organization is “merely walking down the path Ms. Sanger has carved out for us.” And what was that path?

    Now, please understand, as Sanger’s followers doubtlessly do, she did not see herself as a mere fellow laborer with the eugenicists, she was one, as is evidenced by her membership in organizations like the American Eugenics Society (starting in 1930) and the International Congress of Eugenics (beginning 1932).

    In words strikingly similar to Weddington’s, she argued against the creation of large families, claiming that “breeding too many children” is “the most immoral practice of the day.” Because of the lower quality of life a child will experience in a large family, she maintained that, “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

    And what, then, following this line of reasoning do “we” do if they decide not to kill it on their own? Well, that, according the Ruth Bader Ginsberg, is where Big Government comes in, deciding for the rest of us how to rid ourselves of “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

    Victor Morawski is an ALG News contributing writer and a professor of philosophy at Coppin State University.


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