Amusing Twitter Debate With Anti-Choice Partisans

Tags

Abortion, factchecking, margaret sanger, myths, Planned Parenthood Federation of America

You know, we are a pretty laid back group here at the Sanger Papers. Its unusual for vicious debates to break out, but that was before we launched the @SangerPapers Twitter account a few months ago. The Twitter sphere is full of people who are rabidly opposed to Planned Parenthood, and in order to attack the organization, they tend to latch onto historic myths and misrepresentations of its founder, Margaret Sanger. Naturally, in the name of historical accuracy (and feminism), we venture from time to time out into the battlefield of representation, and encounter people who seem profoundly unattached to anything like truth or reason. Sanger undoubtedly did and said enough questionable things in her lifetime, what is the point of making stuff up? Here are some particularly juicy highlights from yesterday’s Twitter debates about Sanger with a right-wing ideologues.

@jamespeabo @OBAMA_CZAR Actually the Nazis hated Sanger, had her books burned. sangerpapers.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/set… Do you have any sources for your claim?
 
— Sanger Papers (@SangerPapers) June 6, 2012

  No one managed to get back to me about evidence. Because there is none. But that doesn’t seem too important to this kind of debate. 

@OBAMA_CZAR @SangerPapers @jamespeabo this is a hallmark of leftist thought,stems from collective ownership of everything & every one — ted schuler (@wolframrose) June 6, 2012

@OBAMA_CZAR Respectfully disagree. If you would like a historical take on Sanger and the Negro Project, read: sangerpapers.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/ano…
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— Sanger Papers (@SangerPapers) June 6, 2012

 And then, the clue that you aren’t talking about Sanger at all, Sanger is just a stand-in for a much more difficult issue with a quickly moving target: 

@OBAMA_CZAR I think women who have had abortions should be considered authorities of their own choices. Ask them if they feel targeted. — Sanger Papers (@SangerPapers) June 6, 2012

  And my personal favorite: you are a liar and accuracy means nothing. 

@OBAMA_CZAR Actually our blog is based on the archival collection of Margaret Sanger Papers. That’s what good scholarship is made of.

— Sanger Papers (@SangerPapers) June 6, 2012

Is meaningful (Twitter) debate possible? Or is it just a forum for two opposed sides to shout about their beliefs? It was clear by the end that Ms. ObamaCzar was not talking about Margaret Sanger at all, but about abortion politics. It’s slightly ironic that Sanger didn’t condone abortion and it wasn’t practiced at Planned Parenthood until after Roe v Wade made it legal in 1973, seven years after her death.

Setting the Record Straight

Tags

feminism, history, margaret sanger, myths, reproductive rights

In an article printed on the New York Times website on October 29th the author prints a popular fallacy about Sanger in reference to comments made by the director of Pro-Life Pregnancy Center, Expectant Mother Care.

“Almost as an afterthought, she told me that Margaret Sanger, the hero of the reproductive rights movement, had ties to the Third Reich.”

While the article goes on to provide links to scientific information disproving claims about a link between abortion and breast cancer, as well as claims about the existence of “post-abortive syndrome” it never corrects the characterization of Sanger.

Comments like this, allowed to go uncorrected, are problematic because most people will not take the time to research them on their own – that it was printed in the New York Times, without comment, is enough for them. Furthermore, even the people who do go on to do further research may be lead astray by the many webpages out there that falsify documents and photographs to support this fallacy. There are websites out there, for instance, whose sole purpose is to encourage people to produce writings and artwork that ties Sanger to the KKK and the Nazi Movement; the  material published on these websites is copied to other internet sites, often without any attribution of understanding that it is fictional.

This obviously photoshopped image is the perfect example of the material created to confuse people. Sanger and Hitler never actually met, nor did they agree with or like one another.

In the interest of historical accuracy, here are Sanger’s feelings about Hitler in her own words:

“The first thing I want to say in relation to my attitude regarding the present War and World Peace is that before Hitler came into power in Germany I was one of the few Americans who joined the Anti-Nazi Committee and gave money, my name and any influence I had with writers and others, to combat Hitler’s rise to power in Germany.”

“When Hitler got into the saddle and burned all books he considered (not immoral) but dangerous to the State, my three books were destroyed and have not been allowed to circulate in Germany. The publisher and translator were put into concentration camps and I have never heard of them since.”

“I firmly believe that Europe will not have a just Peace until Germany gets rid of Hitler, but also shall Italy, England and France get rid of their own leaders whom History will certainly identify as War Lords.”

Click here to read a more detailed article, from the Papers Project’s 2003 Winter Newsletter, about the Sanger-Hitler Equation.

Just to be clear: Margaret Sanger was firmly against the Nazi Party from the beginning, and Hitler was against Sanger. She had no ties to the Third Reich whatsoever.

Source:

Margaret Sanger, ” [Hitler and War] ,” [1939] . Typed draft statement. Source: Margaret Sanger Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College , MSM S72:0122 .