koshergrl
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- Aug 4, 2011
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- #441
Illumination of the eugenics element of abortion as POPULATION control:
"It is important to note the difference between birth control and population control. Birth control, although often used as another label for "contraception," actually includes any method to limit births for any reason. It can be used by individuals or couples, with no involvement by government or private agencies.
Population control, however, involves a public or private program to reduce births within a specific area or group (for example, within China or among African Americans) and/or to increase births elsewhere (for example, within France or among the highly-educated). In other words, those running the program have a specific demographic outcome in mind. While equal-opportunity population programs are theoretically possible, in practice one race or nationality uses population control against another.
Population control may involve any or all of the following: propaganda in favor of smaller families; pressure for legal change such as raising the legal age for marriage or repealing restrictions on contraception and abortion; widespread availability of contraception, sterilization and abortion (often including public subsidy of them); the use of specific target numbers for birth control "acceptors" and for reduction of birth rates; economic penalties for having more than one or two children; and physical coercion to use birth control."
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Occasional internal disputes among U.S. population controllers have obscured broad areas of agreement. Key figures such as Garrett Hardin and Alan Guttmacher, for example, disagreed over whether it was best to use a radical or a gradualist approach to advance the cause of abortion within the United States.
In 1963 Prof. Hardin, an environmentalist who was also an ardent population controller and a member of the American Eugenics Society, made a radical argument for repealing anti-abortion laws. In an approach that would be copied by many others, he put his population and eugenics concerns in the background and based his argument mainly on the welfare and rights of women. To religious objections based on the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," Hardin responded that the Bible "does not forbid killing, only murder." And murder, he said, means "unlawful killing.... Murder is a matter of definition. We can define murder any way we want to." Later he said that "it would be unwise to define the fetus as human (hence tactically unwise to refer to the fetus as an 'unborn child')."(1) Hardin had learned well the Humpty Dumpty technique:
How Eugenics and Population Control Led to Abortion
"It is important to note the difference between birth control and population control. Birth control, although often used as another label for "contraception," actually includes any method to limit births for any reason. It can be used by individuals or couples, with no involvement by government or private agencies.
Population control, however, involves a public or private program to reduce births within a specific area or group (for example, within China or among African Americans) and/or to increase births elsewhere (for example, within France or among the highly-educated). In other words, those running the program have a specific demographic outcome in mind. While equal-opportunity population programs are theoretically possible, in practice one race or nationality uses population control against another.
Population control may involve any or all of the following: propaganda in favor of smaller families; pressure for legal change such as raising the legal age for marriage or repealing restrictions on contraception and abortion; widespread availability of contraception, sterilization and abortion (often including public subsidy of them); the use of specific target numbers for birth control "acceptors" and for reduction of birth rates; economic penalties for having more than one or two children; and physical coercion to use birth control."
"
Occasional internal disputes among U.S. population controllers have obscured broad areas of agreement. Key figures such as Garrett Hardin and Alan Guttmacher, for example, disagreed over whether it was best to use a radical or a gradualist approach to advance the cause of abortion within the United States.
In 1963 Prof. Hardin, an environmentalist who was also an ardent population controller and a member of the American Eugenics Society, made a radical argument for repealing anti-abortion laws. In an approach that would be copied by many others, he put his population and eugenics concerns in the background and based his argument mainly on the welfare and rights of women. To religious objections based on the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," Hardin responded that the Bible "does not forbid killing, only murder." And murder, he said, means "unlawful killing.... Murder is a matter of definition. We can define murder any way we want to." Later he said that "it would be unwise to define the fetus as human (hence tactically unwise to refer to the fetus as an 'unborn child')."(1) Hardin had learned well the Humpty Dumpty technique:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all."(2)
Dr. Alan Guttmacher, President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, wrote Hardin that anti-abortion laws could be changed "inch by inch and foot by foot, but not a mile at a time." Later Guttmacher told another correspondent that "I am in favor of abortion on demand, but feel from the practical point of view that such a social revolution should evolve by stages." Publicly he presented access to abortion as a benefit for women; indeed, he had referred women to an illegal abortionist as early as 1941. Yet he also had other motives, ones indicated by his service as vice president and board member of the American Eugenics Society.(3)
How Eugenics and Population Control Led to Abortion
