120 black leaders issue letter noting Planned Parenthood’s hypocrisy regarding racism

Black pro-life leaders from around the country have joined together to sign a letter pointing out the hypocrisy of Planned Parenthood in claiming to stand against racism while disproportionately taking the lives of Black children in the womb. The letter asks Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood, to not only renounce the foundation’s racist founder, Margaret Sanger, but also address the fact that the organization still disproportionately targets Black neighborhoods today. The letter reads:

Despite constituting only 13% of the female population, Black women represent 36% of all abortions, and Black women are five times more likely than white women to receive an abortion. In some cities, like New York, more Black children are aborted every year than are born alive.

This is no accident. Across the country, Planned Parenthood’s surgical facilities target minority communities for abortion. In fact, 79% of Planned Parenthood’s surgical abortion facilities are located in or near communities of color. Can Planned Parenthood really claim to care for Black lives while remaining complicit in the targeting of Black pregnant women?

Signatories claim that Planned Parenthood’s pledge to support the Black Lives Matter movement “rings hollow” while the company’s actions perpetuate its racist legacy. “Planned Parenthood National must renounce the views and legacy of its founder and acknowledge and discontinue its ongoing systemic targeting of Black Americans with abortion facilities,” the letter says.

The open letter was signed by more than 120 Black leaders from around the country, including various lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

READ: Black pro-life leaders: Leading the way and making their voices heard

As the founder of Planned Parenthood, Sanger was a known eugenicist who once gave a talk to members of the Ku Klux Klan and initiated the “Negro Project,” an effort to increase birth control use among minority communities. She spoke of utilizing Black physicians and ministers to help soften her approach, saying, “We do not want 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.”

Planned Parenthood has long put Sanger on a pedestal, naming abortion facilities after her and giving awards in her name to pro-abortion leaders. It is only recently that the organization has started to distance itself from the actions of its founder, with several Planned Parenthood affiliates publically denouncing their racist roots. As the letter signers are quick to point out, such actions are meaningless while Planned Parenthood facilities continue to target Black communites.

“This effort demonstrates the outrage among the Black community that we have been strategically and consistently targeted by the abortion industry ever since the practice was legalized almost 50 years ago,” said Human Coalition Action Executive Director Rev. Dean Nelson in an emailed press release about the letter. “Today, we are saying emphatically and unequivocally that Planned Parenthood must confront its racist founding, mission and practices. Too many Black lives have been lost to abortion. All Black lives matter.”

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