Planned Parenthood CEO Calls Out Founder’s Racist Past in NYT Op-Ed
‘WHITE WOMANHOOD’
Alexis McGill Johnson, the CEO of Planned Parenthood, wrote in The New York Times on Saturday that her organization needed to acknowledge and confront founder Margaret Sanger’s “association with white supremacist groups and eugenics.” Sanger, a nurse and the founder of one of the earliest-known birth control clinics in the U.S., worked with and endorsed white supremacist groups and policies as she fought for women’s health care, “focusing on white womanhood relentlessly,” according to Johnson. “In the name of political expedience, she chose to engage white supremacists to further her cause. In doing that, she devalued and dehumanized people of color,” Johnson wrote. Planned Parenthood has renamed an award previously given in Sanger’s honor and its New York City clinic and established new racial equity standards in response, Johnson added. “We will no longer make excuses or apologize for Margaret Sanger’s actions,” she concluded. In December, the head of the organization’s Pennsylvania chapter resigned amid allegations of racism.