"Wantedness"
and Social Justice
by Wanda Franz, Ph.D.
(Dr. Wanda Franz, the President of National Right to Life, is
a developmental psychologist and a professor of child psychology at West
Virginia University.)
In 1920, two German professors published a small book
advocating the killing of people whose lives were "devoid of value."
Nineteen years later, the professors' proposal became reality when Nazi Germany
established a euthanasia program targeting physically and mentally disabled
children, elderly patients in long-term care, and invalids from World War I.
Various estimates place the total number killed in this manner at 275,000 or
more. In contrast to the killings in the concentration camps-which were
motivated by openly-acknowledged racial, ethnic, and political hatred and
prejudice-the euthanasia program was justified as being beneficial to the
victims.
Killing them would release them from an "unbearable life." In fact,
in the German province of Brandenburg, Jewish patients were initially excluded
from the euthanasia program because the local Nazis did not want to provide
such a "benefit" to Jews.
Killing as a "benefit" to the victim was, however, not the only
justification advanced in defense of euthanasia. It was also justified as a
cost-effective way to deal with the imperfect and disabled because they were a
drain on the nation's resources and posed a burden to their families.
I gave you this bit of history in order to provide perspective for what is
going on our country today.
Our country, too, has legal killings of the innocent in horrific numbers. Here,
too, such killings are justified as a benefit to the victims. Here, too,
financial considerations and the burdens faced by the relatives of the victims
are considered sufficient excuse for killing.
Currently, there are about 1.2 million abortions a year. The abortion industry
defends these abortions as serving a high moral purpose: "Every child, a
wanted child," goes the Planned Parenthood slogan. In other words, the
"unwanted" child is better off being dead: we are doing the child a
favor. And a Planned Parenthood advertisement from 1985 proclaims: "The
right to choose makes all other rights possible."
Since I am speaking to the Catholic Press Association, it is appropriate to
present the counter view as expressed by Pope John Paul II. He declared
"the right to life" to be "the most basic and fundamental right
and the condition of all other personal rights."
Planned Parenthood is, of course, not above appealing to baser motivations.
An advertisement from its Minnesota affiliate blares: "Babies are loud,
smelly and expensive. Unless you want one."
In fact, according to Planned Parenthood's own figures, only 3% of abortions
are done for the sake of the mother's health; another 3% are done because of
health problems of the baby; and 1% are reported for rape or incest. The vast
majority of abortions, or 93%, are done for social reasons, because
"babies are loud, smelly and expensive" and inconvenient. What we
have then is killing on a massive scale as a form of birth control.
Legalized abortion on demand places the unborn child in America today as much
in jeopardy as a disabled person in Nazi Germany--except that abortion does not
even involve the pro-forma review by a panel of experts, which the Nazi program
required. Indeed, the unborn child has no rights whatsoever. There is no
provision for defense on behalf of the victim, and there is no presumption of
innocence until proven guilty; in fact, the victim's innocence is completely
immaterial. The only thing that matters is "wantedness."
The plain fact is that social justice is impossible if our right to life and
our personhood are contingent upon somebody else wanting us to exist.
"Every child, a wanted child" ultimately implies "every person,
a wanted person," and that implies the end of liberty and a state of
injustice. The social injustice generated by abortion is also evident when you
look at who gets aborted.
A survey for the years 1994 and 1995 found in the July/August 1996 issue of the
journal Family Planning Perspectives reveals a heavy racial and ethnic bias.
While black women made up only 14% of women of child-bearing age, they
accounted for 31.1% of all abortions. Hispanic women constituted only 10.6% of
that age group, but accounted for 20.2% of all abortions. In other words, these
two minority groups alone suffered over 51% of all abortions although these
minorities together amounted to less than 25% of women of child-bearing age.
As an aside, let me note that Catholic women had abortion rates very close to
the national average. Non-Hispanic, white Catholic women, however, had a 43%
lower abortion rate than the national average. It is the heavy promotion of
abortion among Hispanic Catholics that raises the overall "Catholic"
rate to the national level. If you look at the history of the eugenics and
abortion rights movements in this country you will notice heavy prejudice
against minorities and Catholics. Aborting Catholic Hispanics satisfies both
prejudices.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the percentage of abortions on
Hispanic women nearly doubled from 1990 to 1996. This surely reflects Planned
Parenthood's increasing effort to target this ethnic minority.
These numbers come as no surprise when you remember that abortion advocacy in
this country has its roots in eugenics. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned
Parenthood, remarked that "all our problems are the result of
over-breeding among the working class." While Planned Parenthood does not
openly admit to its systemic prejudice against the poor and non-white
minorities, it admits that its "core clients" are "young women,
low-income women, and women of color."
Before the Rev. Jessie Jackson became a candidate for the presidential
nomination by the Democratic Party, he denounced the preferential abortion of
African-Americans as a genocidal practice. As soon as he ran for office he
found it more advantageous to promote himself as "pro-choice."
Similar tactics were employed by others pursuing the nomination for president
in the Democratic Party. For example, Democratic House Minority Leader Dick
Gephardt used to vote pro-life until he concluded that the nomination politics
in his party required him to be pro-abortion-oops, I mean
"pro-choice."
Similarly, Vice President Al Gore voted mostly pro-life when he was in the
House of Representative. Once he reached for national office he became a
promoter of abortion rights. Now, of course, he is the presidential candidate
endorsed by the abortion lobby.
Your colleague Mary Meehan documented in a three-part series of articles in Our
Sunday Visitor in 1996, how the American eugenics and birth control movement
engaged in a long-term campaign for population control that to this day targets
the poor and the members of non-white races here and abroad.
For decades, many of America's super-rich and their foundations have been
obsessed with promoting population control in developing countries. Now,
however, their private efforts are massively aided by the power and money of
the United States government.
After World War II, population control in developing countries was promoted as
a means to secure America's access to raw materials in these countries.
Under the Nixon administration, public moneys began to fund population control
programs run by the U.N. and private groups. Even though the Helms Amendment of
1973 prohibited the use of U.S. foreign assistance funds to pay for abortions
or promote them, organizations performing abortions continued to get as much as
90% of their budget from the U.S. taxpayer.
The policy was changed during the Reagan/Bush administrations. In 1984,
President Reagan instituted the "Mexico City Policy" that stopped the
flow of funds to organizations performing and promoting abortion as a method of
family planning.
One of the first acts of the new Clinton-Gore administration was to rescind the
Mexico City Policy in January 1993. Ever since, this administration has
actively promoted abortion as a means of family planning and population control
in developing countries.
On April 1, 1993, White House spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers told reporters that
abortion was to be "part of the overall approach to population
control." On May 11, 1993, State Department official Timothy Wirth
told reporters that the administration was insisting on access to abortion as a
reproductive choice and that foreign governments may not "hide behind the
defense of sovereignty."
In a story dated January 22, 1994--the 21st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade
decision--Steven Greenhouse reported in the New York Times that
"Administration officials said that the population strategy was perhaps
the most concrete sign of Vice President Al Gore's influence on foreign
policy."
In fact, Mr. Gore went to great length to attend the U.N.-sponsored
International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. Mr.
Gore had ruptured an Achilles tendon and hobbled around on crutches.
That, however, did not stop him and the rest of the large American delegation
from exerting relentless pressure on representatives from developing countries
to accept abortion as family planning even when it was contrary to their laws,
customs and religions.
The threat to withhold U.S. foreign aid money and funds from international
bodies was used as a club. The Vatican denounced this campaign as a form of
"cultural imperialism."
Fortunately, the Vatican and its allies were able to beat back the worst
excesses of this "cultural imperialism." (I speak from experience
here; I attended the conference as a representative of the International Right
to Life Federation.)
Let me end by quoting from a message Mother Teresa sent to the Cairo
conference. She wrote: "When we die, we will come face to face with God,
the Author of life. Who will give an account to God for the millions and
millions of babies who were not allowed a chance to live, to experience loving
and being loved?"
Indeed, what account will each of us give?
This speech has been used with the permission of NRLC.