Margaret Sanger’s Ghost: Planned Parenthood Terminates More Black Lives Than Any Other Demographic

A woman once regarded certain human beings as weeds — her word, not mine — and built an institution to pull them from the earth. Margaret Sanger founded that group in 1916. It still operates today and keeps pulling, drawing support from your tax dollars while organizations that claim to speak in your name continue to defend it.

The institution is Planned Parenthood.

Black Americans face relentless statistics. Black women end pregnancies far more often than white women, and civil rights leaders would call it a targeted destruction of Black life if any other group produced these numbers.

This destruction arrives wrapped in the language of choice and empowerment. Funding flows from the political allies of the civil rights establishment, and endorsements follow the money. The silence is absolute, and it is killing us.

The Founder’s Own Words

Margaret Sanger never hid her commitment to eugenics. She championed the cause openly and with pride from a seat on the board of the American Eugenics Society, where it meant the belief that controlling reproduction could yield “better” humans.

Her autobiography documents her speeches at Ku Klux Klan rallies as well. Accepting an invitation to address the women’s branch of the KKK in Silver Lake, New Jersey, produced “a dozen invitations to speak to similar groups” by her own account, since the visit went so well (Sanger, An Autobiography, 1938, Chapter 29, p. 366).

From 1917 to 1938 Sanger edited The Birth Control Review, a journal that regularly featured articles by prominent eugenicists. She herself published “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda” in the November 1921 issue, arguing that birth control was “the most constructive and necessary of the means to racial health” (Sanger, The Birth Control Review, October 1921).

She published her “Plan for Peace” in the same journal during April 1932. The piece called for segregating and sterilizing those she deemed “unfit” — including the “illiterate” and the “paupers” (Sanger, “A Plan for Peace,” The Birth Control Review, April 1932, pp. 107–108).

Sanger wrote explicitly in her 1922 book The Pivot of Civilization about the “menace” of what she called the “unfit” reproducing. She called for the elimination of “human weeds,” the cessation of charity because it enabled the “defective and diseased” to breed, and a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted.

“Those least fit to carry on the race are increasing most rapidly. Funds that should be used to raise the standard of our civilization are diverted to the maintenance of those who should never have been born.” — Margaret Sanger, The Pivot of Civilization (1922), Chapter 8

The Negro Project

In 1939 Sanger launched what she called “The Negro Project” — a campaign to bring birth control services to Southern Black communities. Reducing the Black birth rate stood as the project’s stated goal.

Sanger sought Black ministers’ involvement for strategic reasons alone, not their ideas. A Black face was what she needed to advance a white agenda. That stance surfaced in her December 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble — heir to the Procter & Gamble fortune and a fellow eugenicist — the sentence that has haunted her legacy ever since —

“We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” — Margaret Sanger, letter to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, December 10, 1939 (Margaret Sanger Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Document #MS 320, Reel 73)

Defenders of Planned Parenthood have spent decades attempting to reframe that sentence. They claim Sanger voiced only a worry over possible misperceptions. The letter itself sits in the Smith College archives; read it directly. Examine the full context surrounding the Negro Project. Its proposal documents portray Black people in the South as a population that “breeds carelessly and disastrously.”

Beyond debate stands this point — the Negro Project was created from the start to cut the number of Black children born in America. That aim secured its funding. The organization descended from the project still works in the same communities and produces the same result, yet on a scale Margaret Sanger could not have imagined.

The Modern Numbers

The Centers for Disease Control releases abortion data each year, and those numbers leave nothing open to interpretation. They stand as the most damning evidence against any institution operating in the Black community today.

Black women have abortions at 3.5 times the rate of white women (CDC, Abortion Surveillance, 2021). Accounting for about 33 percent of all U.S. abortions, Black women make up roughly 13 percent of the population — which means abortion ends more Black lives than heart disease, cancer, accidents, HIV, and murder combined.

New York City’s figures reach a level capable of silencing any room. Reports from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Vital Statistics show that in multiple recent years more Black babies were aborted than were born alive. The 2018 data list 25,889 Black non-Hispanic live births and 23,116 Black non-Hispanic abortions (NYC DOHMH, Summary of Vital Statistics 2018 — Pregnancy Outcomes, Table 1). Approximately 893 abortions occurred for every 1,000 Black babies born alive in the city.

In America’s most progressive city the rate of Black termination runs nearly one for one. For every Black child who draws breath another does not — and the civil rights establishment celebrates the institution facilitating that result as a guardian of freedom.

The Geography of Targeting

The Protecting Black Life initiative mapped Planned Parenthood’s surgical abortion facilities in 2012. Their finding was clear: 79 percent of them sit within walking distance of African American or Hispanic neighborhoods (Protecting Black Life / Studnicki et al., 2020).

Consider what this means.

• If a fast-food chain placed 58% of its locations in minority neighborhoods, public health advocates would call it predatory targeting.
• If a payday lending operation concentrated its offices at this rate in communities of color, the NAACP would demand investigation.
• If a tobacco company distributed its products at this geographic concentration in Black neighborhoods, the Congressional Black Caucus would hold hearings.
• But when the institution performing this targeting is Planned Parenthood, the response from the civil rights establishment is not investigation — it is endorsement.

The answer is in the money.

The Funding and the Silence

Planned Parenthood’s political action committees and affiliated organizations contribute millions of dollars each election cycle, its political spending in the 2020 cycle alone exceeding $45 million — virtually all of it directed to Democratic candidates and progressive organizations (OpenSecrets, Planned Parenthood Political Spending Summary, 2020).

The financial architecture is simple.

• Planned Parenthood funds the politicians.
• The politicians fund Planned Parenthood. The group gets over $600 million yearly in government funds, mostly through Medicaid.
• The civil rights groups endorse the politicians.
• The politicians protect Planned Parenthood from scrutiny.

Money and endorsements ease and shield the seamless closing of the circle, which an establishment defends with a loyalty to its donors that surpasses any bond to the community it claims to represent.

Planned Parenthood enjoys the defense of every major civil rights group in America, from the NAACP to the National Urban League and the Congressional Black Caucus. The data demands a question none of them has asked in public: why does this institution enjoy their protection?

The Voices That Will Not Be Silenced

Dr. Alveda King refuses to accept the silence. Niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and daughter of civil rights activist A.D. King, she has spent decades speaking against what she calls “the great deception,” arguing publicly that her uncle’s vision of justice is incompatible with an institution that disproportionately eliminates Black children.

She has pointed out that Planned Parenthood gave its “Margaret Sanger Award” to Coretta Scott King in 1968 — not to Martin Luther King Jr. himself, as is sometimes claimed. For decades the organization has leaned on this association, though King never spoke publicly in support of abortion. The award recognized Coretta Scott King for her work on family planning broadly defined (King, A. C., Testimony before U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, 2011).

The late Dr. Mildred Fay Jefferson—the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School—spent decades opposing Planned Parenthood’s presence in minority communities. As president of the National Right to Life Committee she argued that abortion services aimed at Black communities extended the eugenics movement by other means, and she made the case with a surgeon’s precision and a prophet’s fury.

These documented and credentialed voices exist, yet they are ignored—not because their arguments lack merit, but because those arguments threaten the financial and political infrastructure that benefits from the silence.

The Question That Must Be Asked

The legalization of abortion occurred in 1973 with Roe v. Wade, after which an estimated 20 million Black pregnancies were terminated in the United States (Guttmacher Institute, Abortion Incidence and Service Availability In the United States, 2020; CDC Abortion Surveillance racial proportion data, 1973–2020; U.S. Census Bureau population totals).

The abortion industry has eliminated 20 million Black lives — more than the entire Black population of the United States in 1960, which stood at 18.9 million, or than existed in the whole country at the dawn of the civil rights movement.

Every leader defending the status quo faces this question. If Margaret Sanger saw the current numbers—the disproportionate termination rates, the strategic facility placement, the elimination of Black life at a pace that exceeds every other demographic in America—would she be horrified, or would she be satisfied?

Consider her writings — the Negro Project proposal, the letter to Clarence Gamble, the plan for peace, and the language about weeds, the unfit, and the menace of the feebleminded. The numbers from the CDC, New York City records, geographic mapping data, funding flows, and endorsements deserve equal scrutiny. One is left to decide whether current trends represent accident or fulfillment.

The Puzzle and the Solution

A puzzle master studies the question and isolates the one variable holding the arrangement together. Ideology plays no part, nor does healthcare access or personal choice. The driver is money. Planned Parenthood spends $45 million per election cycle funding the political allies of civil rights groups. It receives approximately $600 million annually in government funding, primarily through Medicaid. Those groups endorse the allies, and the loop closes around financial dependency.

Top 5 Solutions That Are Already Working

1. Facing History and Ourselves (Nationwide and International). Using history as its foundation, this civic education program builds critical thinking skills. More than 10,000 teachers have completed its training, reaching over 500,000 students in total. Positive effects on student reasoning emerged in two controlled trials. A separate study involving 346 eighth graders documented reduced racist attitudes. Alumni show an 86% voter registration rate, exceeding that of their peers. The program teaches the complete record of institutional exploitation of vulnerable groups, preparing students to recognize such patterns in the present. (Facing History and Ourselves; Institute of Education Sciences)

2. Planned Parenthood Federation of America (Nationwide, 600+ Health Centers). Planned Parenthood itself serves more than 2 million patients a year. The group has begun a public reckoning with its founder’s legacy. Sanger’s work led to the legalization of birth control. Yet the organization has now publicly denounced her racism and eugenics beliefs. It removed her name from its Manhattan health center in 2020. It has also built a framework for how institutions can reckon with problematic founders. Whether that reckoning is enough remains the central question this article raises. (Planned Parenthood; Population Reference Bureau)

3. Nurse-Family Partnership (40+ States). Registered nurses visit low-income first-time mothers from pregnancy through the child’s second birthday. The outcomes stand out: a 48% reduction in child abuse and neglect, 18% fewer preterm births, infant deaths down 45.4%, and TANF dependency down 5.6%. At $4,500 per family per year, the program supplies Black mothers under pressure with concrete, professional support — addressing the material conditions behind the decisions they face. (Olds et al., Pediatrics, 2014; Evidence-Based Programs, 2023)

4. AVANCE Parent-Child Education (Texas, California, New Mexico). A free nine-month two-generation program from AVANCE delivers parenting education along with early childhood development and adult literacy. Results show 80% of families increased parent-child interactions, and 88% of children who completed it met state reading standards against a district-wide rate of 73%. It strengthens exactly the families that high termination rates are reducing, on a simple principle: the answer to reproductive pressure is material support, education, and community. (IDRA, 2005; AVANCE Dallas Impact Report, 2022-2023)

5. Harlem Children’s Zone (Central Harlem, New York City). This cradle-to-career pipeline spans more than 100 blocks across Harlem. It links Baby College parenting workshops, Promise Academy charter schools, health programs, and the College Success Office into one network. Nearly 100% of Promise Academy seniors gain college acceptance, and the program has eliminated the Black-white math achievement gap. President Obama used its approach as the blueprint for a $210 million federal grant initiative. In a city where Black termination rates approach one for one, the work demonstrates how birth-to-maturity investment alters entire community trajectories. (Dobbie & Fryer, American Economic Journal, 2011; HCZ Annual Reports)

The Bottom Line

The numbers tell a story that no political endorsement can override.

• 3.5 times — Black women end pregnancies compared to white women (CDC, 2021).
• 33% vs. 13% — Black share of all U.S. abortions vs. Black share of the population.
• 893 per 1,000 — Black abortions per live births in New York City (NYC DOHMH, 2018).
• 58% — Planned Parenthood surgical facilities near minority neighborhoods (Studnicki et al., 2020).
• About 20 million — estimated Black pregnancies terminated since 1973. This exceeds the entire Black population at the dawn of the civil rights movement.

Margaret Sanger described certain populations as weeds and created an institution to remove them. She launched the Negro Project to reduce the Black birth rate, spoke at KKK rallies, and published plans for sterilizing the “unfit.” The institution she built now ends more Black pregnancies than any other group. It operates mostly in minority neighborhoods and draws funding from the political allies of every major civil rights group in America.

Whether this outcome matches the founder’s intent is not the question. What matters is whether the groups that claim to protect Black life will keep endorsing it or whether the silence will at last break.