In deciding the recent case Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc., United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sent a warning to the Court, suggesting that states have a “compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics,” even going as far as to accurately implicate Planned Parenthood’s founder and leaders. In the decision, the Court allowed one provision of an Indiana law requiring the humane burial of aborted children to stand, while denying another provision to bar abortions on the basis of sex, race or disability.
Justice Thomas penned a multi-page response to address the Court’s decision, which began (emphasis added):
I write separately to address the other aspect of Indiana law at issue here—the “Sex Selective and Disability Abortion Ban.”… Each of the immutable characteristics protected by this law can be known relatively early in a pregnancy, and the [Indiana] law prevents them from becoming the sole criterion for deciding whether the child will live or die. Put differently, this law and other laws like it promote a State’s compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics.
He then pulled no punches, making it plain that Planned Parenthood — the defendant in the case — was founded in eugenics:
The use of abortion to achieve eugenic goals is not merely hypothetical. The foundations for legalizing abortion in America were laid during the early 20th-century birth control movement. That movement developed alongside the American eugenics movement. And significantly, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger recognized the eugenic potential of her cause.
Sanger was a known member of the American Eugenics Society. In addition to speaking at a Ku Klux Klan meeting by invitation, about which she wrote in her autobiography, the Planned Parenthood founder also advocated forced sterilization to rid the planet of those she deemed “unfit.” Despite this involvement, as Live Action News previously documented, Sanger’s namesake is listed on two current Planned Parenthood awards as well as Planned Parenthood facilities and Legacy Societies, with no condemnations from the abortion-friendly media.
Justice Thomas went into great detail, recording for posterity and for the public the truth about Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, which has been detailed further here. “Whereas Sanger believed that birth control could prevent ‘unfit’ people from reproducing, abortion can prevent them from being born in the first place,” he said, noting that abortion is a mere extension of Sanger’s eugenic mindset.
In his opinion, Thomas wrote a lengthy history of eugenics and touched upon one of Margaret Sanger’s notorious directors, Lothrop Stoddard, whose eugenic views have been detailed at Live Action News (here).
READ: Film documents Planned Parenthood’s history of Black genocide, eugenics
Thomas also implicated former Planned Parenthood president and Eugenics Society VP Alan F. Guttmacher, writing, “Many eugenicists therefore supported legalizing abortion” and “abortion advocates—including future Planned Parenthood President Alan Guttmacher— endorsed the use of abortion for eugenic reasons…. Even after World War II, future Planned Parenthood President Alan Guttmacher and other abortion advocates endorsed abortion for eugenic reasons and promoted it as a means of controlling the population and improving its quality….”
Alan Guttmacher 1973 (Image credit: WGBH)
Live Action News has documented how Guttmacher was instrumental in the decriminalization of abortion and then pushed Planned Parenthood into committing abortions. Guttmacher’s ideas of forced or compulsory population control measures were in lock-step with Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger — after all, they were both members of the American Eugenics Society, with Guttmacher serving as the group’s vice president. As Live Action News has previously documented, Sanger made sure that Planned Parenthood was knee deep in eugenics.
“This case highlights the fact that abortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation,” Thomas wrote.
Justice Thomas’s insights on eugenics did not go unnoticed in the legal community; his remarks were praised by the American Center for Law and Justice, which wrote a brief in the case. Sarah Pitlyk, Special Counsel, Thomas More Society, told Live Action News, “Justice Thomas spent the better part of 20 pages describing the eugenic origins of the abortion industry and citing, among other data, the shockingly high incidence of abortion in minority communities. Justice Thomas left little doubt as to his own position on the constitutionality of bans on discriminatory abortions.”
Live Action president and founder Lila Rose pointed out that Live Action has seen firsthand how the abortion industry targets vulnerable and minority demographics as evidence in the undercover call below:
“I applaud Clarence Thomas’ assertion that ‘Given the potential for abortion to become a tool of eugenic manipulation, the [c]ourt will soon need to confront the constitutionality of laws like Indiana’s…. Enshrining the constitutional right to an abortion based solely on the race, sex, or disability of an unborn child, as Planned Parenthood advocates, would constitutionalize the views of the 20th Century eugenics movement.’ Rose stated.
Although Thomas concurred with the Court’s decision to not rule on the discrimination portion of the case at this time, he recognized that this issue of eugenics must be addressed by the Court, writing, “Given the potential for abortion to become a tool of eugenic manipulation, the Court will soon need to confront the constitutionality of laws like Indiana’s…Although the Court declines to wade into these issues today, we cannot avoid them forever. Having created the constitutional right to an abortion, this Court is dutybound to address its scope.”
While some in the media have labeled Thomas’s 22-page response as a “rant,” the truth is, it’s history — something the American people are sorely in need of learning.
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