Earlier this year (April), my conservative counterpart evaluated a PolitiFact (PF) Georgia Pants on Fire ruling on a since repeated statement by Herman Cain concerning Planned Parenthood: that “"When Margaret Sanger - check my history - started Planned Parenthood, the objective was to put these centers in primarily black communities so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world.” What was Bryan White’s explanation for Cain not deserving his pants set on fire? While he agrees that there’s “no good evidence black babies were being killed” he claims that (1) PF did not adequately examine the context of the statement, as is part of its standards, and (2) PF mistakenly interpreted (and defended) the statement as Cain viewing Margaret Sanger as racist and that this personal belief of Sanger’s was “largely irrelevant to the implicit argument that Planned Parenthood has a history of targeting blacks.” Or so he says.
Below is a youtube video of Cain’s recorded statement back in March.
Here’s most of the “context” of Cain's original comments:
His comments about Planned Parenthood come amid a debate in Congress over federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Attached to the spending bill recently passed by the House is an amendment from Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana that denies the group funds.
Speaking to reporters and bloggers at the Heritage Foundation, Cain echoed a position expressed by many other Republicans.
“I support de-funding Planned Parenthood,” Cain said. “Tactically how they [Congress] does it…I can’t tell you.”
Cain then explained the reason behind his stance.
“You probably don’t hear a lot of people talking about this,” Cain said. “When Margaret Sanger – check my history – started Planned Parenthood, the objective was to put these centers in primarily black communities so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world.”
“It's planned genocide,” Cain claimed.
“It’s carrying out its original mission,” he continued. “I’ve talked to young girls who go in there, and they [Planned Parenthood] don’t talk about how you plan parenthood. They don’t talk about adoption as an option. They don’t say, ‘Well, bring your parents in so we can sit down and talk with you, and counsel with you before you make this decision.’”
Six months fast forward, and with Cain now the leading presidential candidate according to polls, he was asked to re-confirm this statement by Bob Schieffer on “Face The Nation.” He not only re-confirmed, but embellished further:
If people go back and look at the history and look at Margaret Sanger's own words, that's exactly where that came from. Look up the history. So if you go back and look up the history -- secondly, look at where most of them were built; 75 percent of those facilities were built in the black community -- and Margaret Sanger’s own words, she didn’t use the word "genocide," but she did talk about preventing the increasing number of poor blacks in this country by preventing black babies from being born.
There’s plenty of context there with which to infer what Cain was talking about, which were his reasons why Planned Parenthood should be defunded by congress. Faulting PolitiFact with failing to find the original context was misleading, nor necessary . But Bryan’s point is a larger one in respect to what seems to be a common thread throughout this blog post: that PolitiFact has “whitewashed” Planned Parenthood’s “unseemly” origins and that Cain “claimed nothing about Sanger other than calling her the founder of Planned Parenthood.”
If Cain called her nothing other than the founder of Planned Parenthood, then why did his remarks elicit a formal response not just from Planned Parenthood, but from Alexander Sanger, the grandson of Margaret, saying this was a “slur”?
When my grandmother started Planned Parenthood in 1916, her first clinic was in Brownsville, Brooklyn, then a mixed neighborhood of primarily European immigrants. Within a decade and a half, her nascent organisation received the endorsement of several prominent African Americans, including Mary McLeod Bethune, WEB DuBois and Rev Adam Clayton Powell Jr. At their urging, in 1930, Harlem's first birth control clinic was opened, in partnership with the New York Urban League. In years to come, African American leaders endorsed her efforts to bring contraceptives to poor, rural black residents – the same services Planned Parenthood delivered to poor, rural white residents.
To think that my grandmother was clever enough to enlist prominent black religious and community leaders to exterminate their own race is not only nonsensical; it's racist. Throughout her career, my grandmother's driving force was to ensure that every child was a wanted child.
Bryan asks why PF didn’t endeavor to find out “why Sanger welcomed some of the most notorious leaders of the eugenics movement into leadership in her organization.” He calls them notorious, but at the time, the cultural view of this movement was far different:
The eugenics movement has long since been abandoned, but in Sanger's time, it was extremely popular. In addition to Sanger, its supporters included President Theodore Roosevelt, future First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and, of course, Du Bois.
The Washington Post Fact-Checker gave Cain’s remarks the Pants-on-Fire equivalent of Four Pinnochios, and supported the above view that not only was it popular but widely accepted:
Still, eugenics enjoyed wide acceptance in the early 20th century, advocated by dignitaries such as Theodore Roosevelt and Alexander Graham Bell. It was certainly seen as less controversial than birth control at the time. (The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, even ruled in 1927 that Virginia could sterilize a white woman considered an imbecile.)
Even FactCheck.org called Cain’s remarks a “false attack.” The International Business Times makes several points as to why Cain deserved these “ridiculously false” ratings:
Most Planned Parenthood Clinics are in white communities. Cain’s “75%” number was believed to have been due to a gross misinterpretation of a statement by Tait Sye, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, who said 73% of Planned Parenthood Clinics are in “health professional shortage areas.”
Planned Parenthood never targeted black communities. A link may soon be provided at not just Bryan's blog but to those he debates on Facebook (if this subject is brought up again) of what the WaPo calls “a very interesting report done by a conservative group that uses Census data to determine the African-American and Hispanic population of each zipcode where Planned Parenthood has an office" because its "spin" on the data are just up his conservative "evidence" alley. However, the data in this report still undermine Cain’s claims, according to WaPo writer Glenn Kessler, because it still does not come close to his 75% figure.
Sanger’s quotes [should be put] in historical context. Her statements at the time would have been more accepted even though they were incorrect, and they are not relevant today.
The International Business Times conclusion is an excellent way to wrap up this Lil White Lie:
There is nothing wrong with Cain opposing abortion, nor with him wanting to defund Planned Parenthood because it provides abortions. But there is a lot wrong with him spreading false information about Planned Parenthood's origins and mission.
Planned Parenthood was not founded to perpetuate a silent genocide on black communities. It was not even founded to provide abortions. It was founded because Sanger believed that women, regardless of their race or class, would be healthier and their families happier if they could choose whether and when to have a child.
Cain doesn't have to like that, but the least he can do is tell the truth.
Cain’s re-confirmation of the statement, and the further detail he adds, serves to further repudiate Bryan White’s argument back in April that “Planned Parenthood's roots contain a concerted effort to reduce procreation by blacks.” He would be wise to publish a retraction for perpetuating the false “unseemly” historical narrative of Planned Parenthood. Where’s my “when pigs fly” graphic?
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