On the 50th anniversary of
the March on Washington, the anti-choice community is taking the opportunity to
insert Martin Luther King, Jr. into their crusade against Planned Parenthood.
In an article published on
the eve of the anniversary, anti-choice outlet LifeSite News proclaimsthat
“Planned Parenthood doesn’t share Martin Luther King’s dream.” And in astatement published this week,
former Family Research Council head Gary Bauer asserts that if King were alive
today, he would be an anti-abortion activist fighting against Planned
Parenthood. On Wednesday, conservative outlets repeatedly touted
quotes from King’s niece to make the case that the civil rights leader would have been pro-life and wouldn’t have supportedPlanned
Parenthood.
Of course, decades after
his death, it’s impossible to know what King’s modern-day motivations would be.
But during his life, King was hardly a fierce opponent of Planned Parenthood or
the range of women’s health services it provides. In fact, his support for the
organization’s family planning programs iswell-documented.
In 1960, King served on a
committee for a Planned Parenthood study on contraception, explaining, “I have
always been deeply interested in and sympathetic with the total work of the
Planned Parenthood Federation.” He repeatedly wrote about why family planning programs are important, and why they
need to be funded by the government. In 1966, King received a Margaret Sanger
award from
Planned Parenthood “in recognition of excellence and leadership in furthering
reproductive health and reproductive rights.”
King saw an explicit link
between the struggle for racial equality and the struggle for reproductive
justice. In the acceptance speech he wrote for his award from Planned Parenthood — which his wife,
Coretta Scott King, accepted in his place — he explained that reproductive
rights activists like Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger help
further broader movements for equality. “Margaret Sanger had to commit what was
then called a crime in order to enrich humanity, and today we honor her courage
and vision; for without them there would have been no beginning. Our sure
beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have
been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and
people like her,” King wrote, going on to say that the African American
community has “a special and urgent concern” with issues of family planning.
The anti-choice community
often claims that even if King supported Planned Parenthood during his life, he
would oppose the national women’s health organization now because it stokes
racial divisions. Far-right abortion opponents frequently try to make the case
that Planned Parenthood endorses “black genocide” by specifically encouraging black
women to have abortions.
In reality, the attempted
link between race and abortion is a well-documented PR campaign to drum up opposition to legal abortion providers. There’s no real
evidence that Planned Parenthood — or the reproductive rights movement at
large — targets
black women, and reproductive justice leaders say the notion is simply a
right-wing effort to drive a wedge into the African
American community.
In attempts to co-opt the legacy of the civil
rights leader, conservatives also frequently incorrectly assert that King
was a Republican. He was actually strictly nonpartisan, and never
endorsed a single political figure.
Tags:
No comments:
Post a Comment