During January and February of 1926, Sanger and her co-workers personally interviewed 40 senators and 14 representatives. None agreed to introduce a bill to amend the Comstock Act. Fresh from this unanimous rejection, Sanger issued an update to her followers: Everywhere there is general acceptance of the idea, except in religious circles. . .The National Catholic Welfare Council [sic] (NCWC) has a special legislative committee organized to block and defeat our legislation. They frankly state that they intend to legislate for non-Catholics according to the dictates of the church.

There was no such committee. But 20 non-Catholic lay or religious organizations joined NCWC in opposition to amending the Comstock Act. This was not the first time, nor was it to be the last, that Sanger sought to stir up sectarian strife by blaming Catholics for her legislative failures. Catholic-bashing was a standard tactic (one that Planned Parenthood still finds useful to this day), although other Christian groups now also come in for criticism.

Eight years later, in 1934, Sanger went to Congress again. Reporting on the first day of the hearings, the New York Times noted:
... the almost solidly Catholic opposition to the measure. This is now, according to Margaret Sanger. . . the only organized opposition to the proposal.

Sanger wrote a letter to her "Friends, Co-workers, and Endorsers" that portrayed the opposing testimony as the work of Catholics determined ... not to present facts to the committee but to intimidate them by showing a Catholic block of voters who (though in the minority in the United States) want to dictate to the majority of non-Catholics as directed from the Vatican in social and moral legislation ... American men and women, are we going to allow this insulting arrogance to bluff the American people?

For Sanger, the proper attitude toward her religious critics featured character assassination, personal vilification and old-fashioned bigotry. Her Birth Control Review printed an article that noted: "Today by the Roman Catholic clergy and their allies . . . Public opinion in America, I fear, is too willing to condone in the officials of the Roman Catholic Church what it condemns in the Ku Klux Klan.

A favorite Catholic-baiter of Sanger's was Norman E. Himes, who contributed articles to Sanger's journal. Himes claimed there were genetic differences between Catholics and non-Catholics.

Are Catholic stocks . . . genetically inferior to such non-Catholic libertarian stocks and Unitarians and Universal . . . Freethinkers? Inferior to non-Catholics in general? . . . my guess is that the answer will someday be made in the affirmative. . . and if the supposed differentials in net productivity are also genuine, the situation is anti-social, perhaps gravely so.

Sanger sought to isolate Catholics by creating a schism between them and Protestants, who had held parallel views of birth control and abortion for centuries. She welcomed a report from a majority of the Committee on Marriage and the Home of the General Council of Churches (later the National Council of Churches) advocating birth control. This committee was composed largely of social elite Protestants, including Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. A number of Protestant church bodies publicly repudiated the committee's endorsement.

The Rev. Worth Tippy, council executive secretary and author of the report, told Sanger in April 1931 that: ... the statement on Moral Aspects of Birth Control has aroused more opposition within the Protestant churches than we expected. Under the circumstances, and since we plan to carry on a steady work for liberalizing laws and to stimulate the establishment of clinics, it is necessary that we make good these losses and also increase our resources.Could you help me quietly by giving me the names of people of means who are interested in the birth control movement and might help us if I wrote them.

Sanger immediately wrote Tippy that she would be "glad to select names of persons from our lists whom I think might be able to subscribe." Tippy replied to Sanger a week later, offering to give her some names for fund raising and thanking her for the offer of "names of people who are able to contribute to generous causes and who are favorable to birth control." He also related that they had expected some reaction from the "fundamentalist groups," but nothing like what had happened.

Protestants repeatedly stated their unity with Catholics in opposing Planned Parenthood's initiatives. During Sanger's attempts to reform New York state law, another Protestant stood with Catholics. The Rev. John R. Straton, Pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church of New York City, said: "This bill is subversive of the human family . . . It is revolting, monstrous, against God's word and contradicts American traditions."

Sanger's attack on Catholics appeared to be an attempt to divert attention from the class politics of Planned Parenthood. The Rev. John A. Ryan wrote: ... their main objective is to increase the practice of birth-prevention among the poor . . . It is said that the present birth-prevention movement is to some extent financed by wealthy, albeit philanthropic persons. As far as I am aware , none of these is conspicuous in the movement for economic justice. None of them is crying out for a scale of wages which would enable workers to take care of a normal number of children.

Sanger's sexual license was another motivation for her Anti-Catholic sniping. A Sanger biographer, David M. Kennedy, said her primary goal was to "increase the quantity and quality of sexual relationships." The birth control movement, she said, freed the mind from "sexual prejudice and taboo, by demanding the frankest and most unflinching re-examination of sex in its relation to human nature and the basis of human society.

Sanger's Gamble

It was in 1939 that Sanger's larger vision for dealing with the reproductive practices of black Americans emerged. After the January 1939 merger of her Clinical Research Bureau and the ABCL to form the Birth Control Federation of America, Dr. Clarence J. Gamble was selected to become the BCFA regional director for the South. Dr. Gamble, of the soap-manufacturing Procter and Gamble company, was no newcomer to Sanger's organization. He had previously served as director at large to the predecessor ABCL.

Gamble lost no time and drew up a memorandum in November 1939 entitled "Suggestion for Negro Project." Acknowledging that black leaders might regard birth control as an extermination plot, he suggested that black leaders be place in positions where it would appear that they were in chargeÑas it was at an Atlanta conference.

It is evident from the rest of the memo that Gamble conceived the project almost as a traveling road show. A charismatic black minister was to start a revival, with "contributions" to come from other local cooperating ministers. A "colored nurse" would follow, supported by a subsidized "colored doctor." Gamble even suggested that music might be a useful lure to bring the prospects to a meeting.

Sanger answered Gamble on Dec. 10. 1939, agreeing with the assessment. She wrote: "We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten that idea out if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." In 1940, money for two "Negro Project" demonstration programs in southern states was donated by advertising magnate Albert D. Lasker and his wife, Mary.

Birth control was presented both as an economic betterment vehicle and as a health measure that could lower the incidence of infant mortality. At the 1942 BCFA annual meeting, BCFA Negro Council board member Dr. Dorothy B. Ferebee–a cum laude graduate of Tufts and also president of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nation's largest black sorority–addressed the delegates regarding Planned Parenthood's minority outreach efforts : With the Negro group some of the most difficult obstacles . . . to overcome are: (1) the concept that when birth control is proposed to them, it is motivated by a clever bit of machination to persuade them to commit race suicide; (2) the so-called "husband rejection" . . . (3) the fact that birth control is confused with abortion, and (4) the belief that is inherently immoral. However, as formidable as these objections may seem, when thrown against the total picture of the awareness on the part of the Negro leaders of the improved condition under Planned Parenthood, or the genuine interest and eagerness of the families themselves to secure the services which will give them a fair chance for health and happiness, the obstacles to the program are greatly outweighed.

Birth control as an economic improvement measure had some appeal to those lowest on the income ladder. In the black Chicago Defender for Jan. 10, 1942, a long three-column women's interest article discussed the endorsement of the Sanger program by prominent black women. There were at lease six express references, such as the following example, to birth control as a remedy for economic woes:" . . . it raises the standard of living by enabling parents to adjust the family size to the family income." Readers were also told that birth control" . . . is no operation. It is no abortion. Abortion kills life after it has begun. . . Birth Control is neither harmful nor immoral."

But the moral stumbling block could only be surmounted by Afro-American religious leaders, so black ministers were solicited. Florence Rose, long-time Sanger secretary, prepared an activities report during March 1942 detailing the progress of the "Negro Project." She recounted a recent meeting with a Planned Parenthood Negro Division board member, Bishop David H. Sims (African Methodist Episcopal Church), who appreciated Planned Parenthood's recognition of the extent of black opposition to birth control and its efforts to build up support among black leaders. He offered whatever assistance he could give.

Bishop Sims offered to begin the "softening process" among the representatives of different Negro denominations attending the monthly meetings of the Federal Council of Churches and its Division of Race Relations.

These and other efforts paid off handsomely after World War II. By 1949, virtually the entire black leadership network of religious, social, professional, and academic organizations had endorsed Planned Parenthood's program.

National Scandal

More than a decade later, Planned Parenthood continued targeting minority communities, but without much success.

In 1940, nonwhite women aged 18 to 19 experienced 61 births per 1,000 unmarried women. In 1968, the corresponding figure was 112 per 1,000, a 100 percent jump. What other factor could account for the increased rate of sexual activity than wider access to birth control, with its promise of sex without tears and consequences?

Alan Guttmacher, then president of Planned Parenthood, was desperate to show policy-makers that birth control would produce a situation whereby "minority groups who constantly outbreed the majority will no longer persist in doing so. . . "

Despite claims that racial or ethnic groups were not being "targeted," American blacks, among whose ranks a greater proportion of the poor were numbered, received a high priority in Planned Parenthood's nationwide efforts. Donald B. Strauss, chairman of Planned ParenthoodÑWorld Population, urged the 1964 Democratic national Convention to liberalize the party's stated policies on birth control, and to adopt domestic and foreign policy platform resolutions to conform with long-sought San gerite goals: [While almost one-fourth of nonwhite parents have four or more children under 18 living with them, only 8% of the white couples have that many children living at home. For the Negro parent in particular, the denial of access to family planning professional guidance forecloses one more avenue to family advancement and well-being..

Unwanted children would not get the job training and educational skills they needed to compete in a shrinking labor market; moreover, unwanted children are a product and a cause of poverty.

Surveying the "successes" of tax-subsidized birth control programs, Guttmacher noted in 1970 that "[Birth control services are proliferating in areas adjacent to concentrations of black population." (In the 1980's, targeting the inner-city black communities for school based sex clinics became more sensitive than expected.)

Guttmacher thought that as long as the birth rate continued to fall or remained at a low level, Planned Parenthood should certainly be introduced before family size by coercion is attempted."

Reaching this goal, he thought, would best be accomplished by having groups other than the PPFA preach the doctrine of a normative 2.1-child family, as doing this would offend Planned Parenthood's minority clients. He suggested that family size would decrease if abortion were liberalized nationwide and received government support. In this prediction he was right on target.

But Guttmacher did not completely reject forced population control: Predicting 20 critical years ahead in the struggle to control the population explosion, Dr. Alan Guttmacher, president of Planned parenthoodÑWorld Population, continues to urge the use of all voluntary means to hold down on the world birthrate. But he foresees the possibility that eventual coercion may become necessary, particularly in areas where the pressure is greatest, possibly India and China. "Each country," he says, "will have to decide its own form of coercion, and determine when and how it should be employed. At Present, the means are compulsory sterilization and compulsory abortion. Perhaps some day a way of enforcing compulsory birth control will be feasible.

Coerced abortion is already practiced in China, with the International Planned Parenthood Federation's approval.

Extreme Irony

Despite its past, Planned Parenthood has managed to present the image of toleration and minority participation through the vehicle of its divorced, telegenic, African American president, Ms. Faye Wattleton, appointed titular head of the PPFA in 1978, a post she still holds. Though paid in the six-figure range, she has impeccable minority credentials that would have fit the public relations criteria for both Margaret Sanger and Dr. Clarence Gamble.

Wattleton's PPFA biography touts her as a friend of the "Poor and the young"; a nurse at Harlem Hospital; and the recipient of the 1989 Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Humanitarian Award and the World Institute of Black Communicators' 1986 Excellence in Black Communications Award. It further states she was featured in a national photography exhibit, "I Dream A World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America"; interviewed in Ebony; and was the cover story in Black Enterprise magazine. (Time published a profile of Wattleton in 1990 entitled "Nothing Less Than Perfect.")

Her ideological orientation has received certification in the form of the Better World Society's 1989 Population Model, the 1986 American Humanist Award, and others. But surely, the spectacle of the Congressional Black Caucus awarding its humanitarian award to the black woman who presides over the organization that has hastened and justified the death of almost eight million black children since 1973 and facilitates the demise of the black family is ironic in the extreme.

Killer Angel

In his book, Killer Angel, George Grant says: "Myths, according to theologian J. l. packer, are Ôstories made up to sanctify social patterns.' They are lies, carefully designed to reinforce a particular philosophy or morality within a culture. They are instruments of manipulation and control.

Killer Angel tells the real story behind one of the biggest myths that controls our culture todayÑthe life and legacy of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Grant exposes "the Big Lie" perpetuated by Sanger's followers and the organization she started.

Through detailed research and concise writing, Grant unveils Sanger's true character an