Casting Lotts and Throwing Stones in the U.S. Congress

  December 18, 2002

Volume 4/ Number 33

Dear Colleague:

Senator Trent Lott’s position as incoming Senate Majority Leader is in jeopardy because of remarks that were construed as endorsing racism. But actions speak louder than words. We invite everyone who opposes racism in word to oppose racism in deed, and join us in fighting domestic and international “reproductive health services” which target Latinos, African-Americans, Africans and poor people everywhere.

Steven W. Mosher

President 

Casting Lotts and Throwing Stones in the U.S. Congress

Senate Republicans have scheduled a meeting this January 6, 2002 to cast lots, as it were, over the fate of the Senate Leadership. Widely reported are Senator Trent Lott’s remarks during the 100th birthday celebration of Sen. Strom Thurmond, December 5, 2002. At this event, Sen. Lott said that “America wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years” if in 1948 then-segregationist Strom Thurmond had won his “Dixiecrat” candidacy for President.(1)

Among others, Virginia Senator John Warner has openly called for Senate

Republicans to move quickly to decide Lott’s fate. In the words of

Senator Warner, normally quite reserved in speech, “every day we don’t decide, we leave Lott hanging out there with blood flowing from the

wounds.”(2)

The White House has also been stern, describing Lott’s remarks as

“repugnant.”(3) Lott has issued repeated apologies for his apparently racist remark, and has insisted that he always opposed segregation. But some Republicans, like Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma, appear tired of having the reputation of the GOP too easily smeared by the Democrat’s broad brushstroke of old-school racism. Senator Nickles has emerged as a possible replacement to Sen. Lott as Senate Majority Leader.

The Congressional Black Caucus has been loud in its condemnation of Lott and its support for Affirmative Action. But if it opposes racism in word, then why does it not oppose it in deed, by opposing foreign and domestic population programs that selectively target Africans and African-Americans.

The Congressional Black Caucus is a tireless defender of abortion, and America’s number one abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. Since the inception of the Title X domestic family planning funding program, the Congressional Black Caucus has provided unwavering support. Planned Parenthood receives Title X funding, currently approximately $50 million per year. Planned Parenthood actively targets African-American women with population control, and helps educate medical personnel on the importance of targeting African-American women.(4)

In fact, controlling the rate of growth in the African-American population with abortion and birth control is a founding principle of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood’s “Birth Control Review” is laced with racist and genocidal policy, such as the following:

“Too many Negroes are born [and] consume energy that might otherwise be accumulated for advancement. So the Negro’s program should include the conservation of vital energy. The best way and perhaps the only practical way [to conserve vital energy] is to control the birth rate. Birth control propaganda and techniques should be disseminated till no more Negro babies are born than can be properly cared for and prepared for efficient citizenship.

“I wish to reiterate that all objections to birth control can be met unanswerably except one that the human race will degenerate if the superior races and the superior classes among civilized races will curtail the number of their offspring while inferior races and the inferior strata in civilized countries will continue their high birthrate. This must be prevented by all means, and it can be if we go about it earnestly and zealously, and if the civilized governments give us their cooperation.”(5)

Despite these words, the Congressional Black Caucus remains silent in speaking out against Planned Parenthood’s racist agenda. These words have, to a large extent, been fulfilled demographically, and confirmed by another Planned Parenthood publication which notes the difference between the number of abortions performed on minorities and White women in

America: During 1980-1996, 25.5% of White women’s pregnancies have ended in abortions, while 40.1% of minority women’s pregnancies have been aborted. This means a pregnant minority woman is 57 percent more likely to abort her baby than a pregnant White woman.(6)

More data points towards this demographic imbalance. In 11 major U.S. cities with more than 70 percent minority populations, an average of 52.74 abortionists per million people were performed. Most of these abortions were performed on minorities, in some of Planned Parenthood’s largest and busiest abortion clinics. In cities with less than 10 percent minority populations, roughly 75% fewer abortions were performed.(7)

The Congressional Black Caucus has also been an ardent and steadfast supporter of U.S.-funded foreign population “stabilization” programs in Africa. Over the years, this caucus has voted to approve billions of dollars for population control in developing nations, and remains largely opposed to restrictions against U.S. funding for abortion programs overseas. With the sanction of the Congressional Black Caucus, hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to largely unwanted population control programs in Africa.(8)

It is clearly hypocritical of the Congressional Black Caucus to oppose racism in word, but continue to support the systematic reduction of Africans and African-Americans with “reproductive health services.”

At PRI, we believe that all babies—red and yellow, black and white, in the words of the old hymn–are a blessing, not a curse. We invite the Congressional Black Caucus to join with us in opposing domestic and foreign population control programs designed to “stabilize” populations in Africa and the African-American population.

Whatever the fate of the Leadership of the U.S. Senate may be, there could be no better way for Republicans to raise the egalitarian mantle of Abraham Lincoln than by opposing foreign and domestic population control programs aimed at reducing the numbers of people of color.

Would the Congressional Black Caucus be with us then?

Endnotes

1. The Washington Times, “GOP to ‘hash out’ Lott’s fate, December 17, 2002. 2. The Washington Post, “Nickles Seeks Lotts Ouster,” December 16, 2002. 3. Washington Times, “White House turns up the heat on Lott,” December 17, 2002. 4. This week, PRI obtained two complaints from African-American women who allege they were pressured into accepting chemical contraceptives by medical personnel in violation of informed consent. 5. Newell Sims. “A New Technique in Race Relations.” Opportunity, April 1931. Quoted in Birth Control Review, Volume XV, Number 6 (June 1931), pages 187 and 188. 6. Stanley K. Henshaw and Jennifer Van Vort. “Abortion Services in the United States, 1991 and 1992.” Family Planning Perspectives, May/June 1994, pages 100 to 112. 7. City populations and minority population percentages are from U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Reference Data Book and Guide to Sources, Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington,

D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995.

8. See: PRI Weekly Briefing: “What African Women Want…,” August 22, 2001; https://www.pop.org/briefings/wb082201.htm .


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