A news report which aired just following the infamous 1973 Roe V. Wade Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion on demand shows us that from its beginning, Planned Parenthood saw abortion as positive for women despite the harm it does to their bodies and the fact that it takes the life of the preborn baby in the womb.
Alan F. Guttmacher, MD, served as Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) president from 1962–1974. Journalist George Herman’s CBS News Report (below) which was unearthed by Issues for Life, shows Alan Guttmacher, as head of Planned Parenthood, responding to the ruling:
“I think that to raise the dignity of woman and give her freedom of choice in this area is an extraordinary event. I think that Jan 22, 1973 will be a historic day.”
Liberating is an interesting term to use given the fact that the one time leader of Planned Parenthood who was also a Vice President for the American Eugenics Society, said this just years earlier at a 1967 forum at Harvard Law School:
“… I would abort mothers already carrying three or more children…I would abort women who desire abortion who are drug addicts or severe alcoholics…I would abort women with sub-normal mentality incapable of providing satisfactory parental care…”(Source; “Abortion: The Issues”, Dr. Alan Guttmacher – President, Planned Parenthood, December 4, 1967, Harvard Law School Forum)
Speaking at the Harvard Law School Forum, a 1967 article in the Harvard Crimson quoted Alan Guttmacher as stating that a larger percentage of abortions performed prior to it’s legalization were from “reputable physicians” something that was downplayed as advocates pushed legal abortion as safer than illegal abortion.
“Seventy per cent of the illegal abortions in the country are performed by reputable physicians, each thinking himself a knight in white armor.”
At the same event, Guttmacher asked for liberalization of present abortion laws, but not for outright repeal, stating that, “To allow abortion on demand would relegate man to the status of the bull.” Guttmacher later said that, “abortion should be a back-up procedure for failed or failure-to-use effective contraception. It must never be the primary method of birth control.” (Source: AMA Congress on Environmental Health, May 4-5, 1970 speech by Alan F. Guttmacher, Page 63.)
Interestingly, the Planned Parenthood president made this statement in 1970, “We look forward to the time when our clinics can be closed, when the government can fund enough money to serve the poor and research new birth control methods.”
In a sobering warning, George Herman ended the CBS report with these words, “If the experience of New York State is any guide, America will eventually have one abortion for every two births.”
As we enter another year of legalized abortion, we look forward to the day we will see the closure of Planned Parenthood and all abortion clinics as we work for the protection of the preborn child in the womb.
Saynsumthn's Blog 