A look back at 2020: Racism and white supremacy exposed within abortion industry

Despite a complicit media covering for an abortion industry founded by eugenicists and steeped in the dehumanizing philosophy for decades, 2020 was a year in which industry whistleblowers exposed shocking racism and white supremacy still alive and well within Planned Parenthood and other abortion organizations. The news came as the nation grappled with issues of racial equity, civil unrest over police brutality, and allegations of racism, along with the growing emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood has for decades downplayed the racist beliefs of its founder, Margaret Sanger, lauding her as a heroine. They failed to remove Sanger from a place of honor until July 2020, when hundreds of past and current Planned Parenthood of Greater New York employees published an open letter which alleged the abortion organization was “founded by a racist, white woman” and had a “present steeped in white supremacy.”

Additional employees at other affiliates told Buzzfeed News they had witnessed “open racism,” endured “segregated” offices, and experienced overall unequal treatment of Black and minority employees at multiple Planned Parenthood centers across the country. Planned Parenthood’s “systemic racism” was later acknowledged by multiple affiliates. An internal audit also confirmed that Planned Parenthood Federation of America had a racism problem.

Planned Parenthood and other Pro-Abortion Groups Face Allegations of Racism From Employees

NARAL Pro-Choice America

In August 2020, NARAL staffers publicly accused the organization of racism, claiming Black and Brown staffers at NARAL “felt tokenized.” They told Buzzfeed the organization has a “race equity and inclusivity problem.”

NARAL has been a long-time defender of Planned Parenthood’s eugenicist founder Margaret Sanger, even using her name in fundraising efforts. And, they have their own checkered past and racist founders as two of NARAL’s three member pre-formation planning committee were men who held and promoted radical racist, eugenicist ideas about population control.

Despite the allegations, NARAL’s president Ilyse Hogue remains in her position. Read more here.

ANSIRH/UCSF

July of 2020, abortionist Daniel Grossman, a favored mainstream media source for information on abortion pill expansion efforts, admitted that organizations he is associated with have held back minorities, tweeting, “[…] we recognize that racism and white supremacy are deeply ingrained within our academic and research institutions, within medicine and medical research and practice, and in our own backyard of Oakland, where ANSIRH’s [Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health] office is located.” Grossman serves as director for this University of California San Francisco (UCSF) program. Read more about ANSIRH here.

He also tweeted, “Within UCSF and our own office at @ANSIRH we have created and upheld structures that limit the success of Black and Brown scholars and staff… We have work to do and will work to undo the habits of white supremacy.”

To date there have been no calls for Grossman, who has ties to several abortion organizations, to resign.

National Abortion Federation (NAF)

In June 2020, NAF tweeted, “NAF Stands in Solidarity with People and Communities of Color.”

The organization ReproJobs cried foul, tweeting in reply, “Fine. F*** it. We’ll call it out. Remember when your current president asked our Black co-founder out to lunch to pressure her to stop encouraging your staff of color to organize and expose the racist sexual harasser-enabling former president y’all were continually celebrating?”

In 2018, Live Action News revealed former and current employees of NAF had accused the organization of failing to protect employees against alleged sexual harassment.

ReproJobs’ lengthy thread read in part:

They had a long conversation about wage inequity at your org, particularly among staff of color and the president said ‘that’s just the way it is and everyone has to live with 6 roommates at some point’ after she told you about staff who said they couldn’t afford their abortions…Have you all listened to, learned from, and implemented recommendations from the droves of Black and Brown staff who left the organization because of the behaviors of white leadership? Have you amended pay scales and wages to ensure equity among staff of color and hotline staff?

“So please excuse us as we call bullsh*t on your Black Lives Matter statement, @NatAbortionFed,”  ReproJobs added.

A review left on Glassdoor seemed to confirm that NAF has issues with racism, white supremacy and sexual harassment. It states in part, “In terms of work-place culture, some employees at NAF are blatantly disrespectful and downright abusive. NAF claims to be a feminist organization that wants to fight gender oppression, yet NAF continues to defend and protect sexual harassers and racists who work here. Despite multitudes of complaints to HR, these people still work at NAF and some even continue to take on more powerful positions….”

National Organization for Women (NOW)

In August 2020, Daily Beast reporter Emily Shugerman conducted interviews with nearly a dozen members and employees of NOW, who claim women of color were being “heckled, silenced, or openly disparaged at NOW meetings and offices.” As a result, 26 of 35 NOW state chapters signed a letter demanding NOW’s president, Toni Van Pelt, to step down. The pressure led to Van Pelt’s resignation.

“Instead of acting swiftly to condemn and weed out racism and transphobia within NOW, much of the organization has worked to protect and defend this leadership,” California executive board members wrote, according to the Daily Beast. Read more here.

Population Council

Live Action News previously documented how the Population Council was founded and led by eugenicists, some with ties to Planned Parenthood. A major news outlet even recently exposed a former Population Council board member who supported compulsory sterilization. The organization brought the abortion pill to the U.S. and set up the pill’s manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, LLC.

In September 2020, former Population Council employee Shannon Harvey tweeted about her experience with “institutional racism,” indicating that leaders within the organization still held deep eugenics beliefs. “I no longer work in the US or in repro… I worked at the Population Council for 3 yrs and that org is endemically racist,” she wrote.

Harvey’s Twitter thread claimed a VP once expressed concerns about African immigration into Europe, tweeting, “At a donor event a VP made this case for family planning: ‘There’s widespread concern about 4bn people in Africa: poverty, environment, famines… With 1bn Africans, immigration is more than [Europe] thinks they can handle. With 4bn people it will be a much bigger problem.’”

She ended the thread by tweeting, “This is a fraction of what I was party to in my time at PopCouncil.”

Others

Multiple additional “reproductive rights” organizations  have also been called out, according to the online blog Lily.com. Among them are the American Association of University Women and the Feminist Majority Foundation, whom the blog claims “… have not made room for women of color, especially Black women.”

Today, these and other eugenics-connected groups continue to fund the expansion of the abortion pill.

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