Thursday, November 17, 2011

Planned Parenthood in the New Yorker

The Nov. 14th issue of the New Yorker has a long in-depth article on the history of Planned Parenthood, "Birthright," by Jill Lapore.  It is behind a paywall (I'm a print subscriber) but worth tracking down.

A few quotes:

P. 46:  "a report published in 1965, ... , found that ninety-four per cent of women who died in New York City from illegal abortions were either black or Puerto Rican."

p. 47:  Sen. Jon Kyl's "not mean to be a factual statement" comments notwithstanding, "Planned Parenthood reported that abortions make up less than three percent of it's services ..."

p. 48:  "If a fertilized egg has constitutional rights, women cannot have equal rights with men." 

p. 49:  on Margaret Sanger's 1917 trial:  "But the judge ruled that no woman had 'the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception.'  In other words, fi a woman wasn't willing to die in childbirth, she shouldn't have sex."

The article also traced the politicization of the issue, noting that until that "Republicans were more pro-choice than Democrats up until the late 1980s."

No comments: