GOP Lawmakers To Smithsonian: Take Down That Margaret Sanger Bust!

FILE - In this March 1, 1934 file photo, renowned birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger appeals before a Senate committee for federal birth-control legislation in Washington, D.C. Sanger's legal appeals eventually pr... FILE - In this March 1, 1934 file photo, renowned birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger appeals before a Senate committee for federal birth-control legislation in Washington, D.C. Sanger's legal appeals eventually prompted federal courts to grant physicians the right to give advice about birth-control methods. She began her crusade back in 1912 when she was working on the lower east side of New York and saw women resorting to back alley, illegal abortions. One too many of these women died in her arms and she said "Enough." Sanger, together with philanthropist Katharine McCormick, bankrolled the work of Gregory Pincus, the man Sanger convinced to develop the pill. America's favorite birth control method turns 50 on Sunday, May 9, 2010. (AP Photo/File) MORE LESS
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A group of Republican lawmakers are reiterating their call for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery to remove a bust of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and 25 House members sent a letter to the museum’s director Kim Sajet Friday calling the display of the bust “an affront both to basic human decency and the very meaning of justice.”

The letter pointed to Sanger’s support of eugenics, but also blasted her for founding Planned Parenthood, which has been in the crosshairs of congressional Republicans and nearly prompted them to shutdown the federal government rather the reauthorize its funding.

“Renewed concern and scrutiny of Ms. Sanger’s background stems from the recent ongoing revelations of Planned Parenthood’s potential activities in the trafficking of fetal tissue and baby body parts from abortions,” the letter said. It goes on to take out of context a line from a 1939 letter written by Sanger to suggest Planned Parenthood was formed to “exterminate the Negro population.”

Calls from conservatives that the gallery remove Sanger’s likeness from its “Struggle for Justice” exhibit began in the summer, when NPR reported that the letter was “making the rounds” among lawmakers.

At the time, a National Portrait Gallery spokeswoman defended the decision to include her in the exhibit, arguing the museum wasn’t ignoring, “the less-than-admirable aspects of [Sanger’s] career.”

“No one has to pass a moral test to be included in a museum,” Bethany Bentley, the gallery’s head of communications, told NPR. “Everyone has something in their background or beliefs, especially looking back at history. You can look at every president up to Zachary Taylor — they owned slaves.”

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  1. You know how they know they’ve already lost the argument? They’re calling them “Planned Parenthood’s potential activities.”

    On a separate note, when did we ignore the presumption of innocence?

  2. Avatar for byteme byteme says:

    “You can look at every president up to Zachary Taylor — they owned slaves.”
    But that’s ok with conservatives. It’s 'bortion that’s a problem for them, not subjugating people.

  3. This is precisely what David Brooks wrote about today—the jaw-dropping incompetence of the modern GOP–demonstrated (again) in this letter. These people deny the pro-slavery origins of the Civil War, deny the manner in which the stars-and-bars has been taken out and waved at every racist conclave of the 20th Century—contra mountains of evidence, but want to take down a bust of a courageous and significant woman on the basis of crap that exists only in their recycled and recycled, again, slurs. Margaret Sanger was most assuredly not a proponent of extermination of the Negro race. She advanced the hopes and dreams of every American—black, white, Italian, Slavic, WASP–by enabling people to plan their family size and suit it to their means.

  4. Re the ‘all presidents up to Taylor’ line, I am pretty sure neither Adams owned slaves…

  5. Will anyone who knows actual history speak for her? Or will all be silence in the face of ignorance?

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