Rep. Chris Smith Remarks on Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton Visiting Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and then receiving
the Margaret Sanger Award
REMARKS OF CONGRESSMAN CHRIS SMITH (NJ-4)
H4234 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE March 31, 2009
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank my good friend and colleague, Mr.
KING, for his leadership, or his consistency in promoting human
rights, and for bringing to this floor tonight another opportunity
for us to affirm the dignity and the value of all human life,
including that of the unborn.
Mr. Speaker, last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
visited the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico
City, presented bouquet of flowers on behalf of the American people
- a very nice gesture - and then went on to Houston, Texas, to
receive the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood.
In her remarks, Secretary Clinton said she was ‘‘in awe’’ - I
repeat, ‘‘in awe’’ - of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned
Parenthood. To our distinguished Secretary of State, I respectfully
ask: Are you kidding? In ‘‘awe’’ of Margaret Sanger, who said in
1921, ‘‘Eugenics is the most adequate and thorough avenue to the
solution of racial,
political, and social problems.’’ And who also said in 1922, ‘‘The
most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members
is to kill it.’’
Later, in 1939, Sanger wrote, ‘‘We should hire three or four
colored ministers,
preferably with social service backgrounds and with engaging
personalities.’’ She wrote, ‘‘The most successful educational
approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want
the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro
population,’’ she goes on, ‘‘and the minister is the man who can
straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more
rebellious members.’’
Secretary Clinton in her speech said that Margaret Sanger’s life
and leadership was ‘‘one of the most transformational in the entire
history of the human race.’’ Mr. Speaker, transformational, yes. But
not for the better if one happens to be poor,
disenfranchised, weak, a person of color, vulnerable, or among the
many so-called undesirables who Sanger would exclude and exterminate
from the human race.
To me, and to many, including my distinguished colleague in the
well, the juxtaposition of the last week’s two very public events in
Mexico City and in Houston bring into sharp focus two huge and
irreconcilable world views.
On the one hand, the miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe has for
five centuries brought a message of hope, faith, peace,
reconciliation and protection for the weakest, most vulnerable among
us. On the other hand, each year, Margaret Sanger’s Planned
Parenthood kills approximately 300,000 unborn baby girls and boys in
their abortion
clinics scattered throughout the United States. Worldwide, the
loss of innocent human life at the hands of Planned Parenthood is in
the millions. Planned Parenthood even supports the hideous
brain-sucking method of abortion called partial birth abortion.
On a visit to the Basilica in Mexico City in 1999, Pope John Paul
II publicly entrusted protection of all at-risk human life,
including especially unborn children and their mothers, to Our Lady
of Guadalupe because the miracle she wrought 500 years ago resulted
in an end to the barbaric practice of human sacrifice to a serpent
God that claimed anywhere between 20,000 and 50,000 victims a year.
Indeed, the miraculous story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, known so well
especially
in Latin America, but really around the world, has been
extraordinarily compelling and inspirational for centuries.
In 1531, the Blessed Mother appeared to Juan Diego, a native
American at Tepeyac, near Mexico City, and asked that a church be
built on the site of the apparition. The Catholic bishop was
skeptical and asked for a sign. At the behest of the Blessed Mother,
and despite the fact it was winter, Juan Diego gathered roses from
the site into his tilma for presentation to the Bishop.
When Juan Diego met with Bishop Juan de Zumarraga with the roses
tucked under his apron, a miraculous image suddenly appeared on the
cloth. The Bishop was stunned, and he believed. The image of
the Blessed Mother wasn’t painted. There are no brush
strokes. To this day, the image defies all scientific explanation as
to its origin.
Within a few years of the miracle, more than 9 million Aztecs
converted to Christianity and a strong devotion to Our Lady of
Guadalupe began that continues to this day. Each year, some 18
million to 20 million pilgrims visit the miraculous image in Mexico
City.
Last Thursday, Hillary Clinton visited the shrine. On Friday, she
paid homage to Planned Parenthood and to Margaret Sanger. Margaret
Sanger is the founder of
Planned Parenthood. She was a self-described pro-abortionist
eugenist and a racist who considered charity care for impoverished,
disenfranchised women, including women of color, especially pregnant
women, to be ‘‘cruel.’’
In her book, ‘‘The Pivot of Civilization,’’ Margaret Sanger
devoted an entire chapter that she entitled: ‘‘The Cruelty of
Charity,’’ to her inhumane case for not helping -and I repeat that -
not helping poor pregnant women with prenatal and maternal care.
Sanger said in the book - and I read her book - ‘‘We are paying
for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing,
unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have
been born at all.’’
In chapter 5 - again, chapter 5 is called: ‘‘The Cruelty of
Charity’’ - she writes, ‘‘Organized charity itself is the symptom of
a malignant social disease.’’ Sanger writes, ‘‘Those vast,
complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and diminish
the spread of misery and destruction and all the menacing evils that
spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil are the surest sign that
our civilization has bred, is breeding, and is perpetuating
constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents, and
dependents.’’
That’s Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. She
continues, ‘‘My criticism therefore is not directed at the failure
of philanthropy but rather at its success.’’ Sanger goes on to
say, ‘‘There’s a special type of philanthropy or benevolence now
widely advertised and advocated both as a Federal program and as
worthy of private endowment, which strikes me,’’ that is to say
Sanger, ‘‘as being more insidiously injurious than any other. This
concerns itself directly with the function of maternity
and aims to supply gratis medical and nursing facilities to slum
mothers. ‘‘Such women are to be visited by nurses and receive
instruction in the hygiene of pregnancy, to be guided in making
arrangements for confinement, to be invited to come to the doctors’
clinics for examination and supervision. They are, we are
informed, to receive adequate care during pregnancy, at confinement,
and for 1 month
afterwards. Thus, are mothers and babies to be saved, childbearing
is to be made safe.’’
Construing to demean the generosity of pregnancy care centers,
Margaret Sanger goes on to say, ‘‘The work of the maternity centers
in the various American cities, which they have already been
established and in which they are supported by private contributions
and endowment, it is hardly necessary to point out is carried out
among the poor and the most docile section of the city, among
mothers least able, through poverty and ignorance, to afford the
care and attention necessary for successful maternity.
‘‘The effect of maternity endowments of maternity centers
supported by private philanthropy would have perhaps already have
had exactly the most dysgenic tendency. The new government program
would facilitate the function of maternity among the very classes in
which the absolute necessity is to discourage it.
‘‘Such benevolence,’’ she goes on to say, ‘‘is not merely
superficial and nearsighted.’’ Sanger continues, ‘‘It conceals a
stupid cruelty. Aside from the question of the unfitness of many
women to become mothers, aside from the very definite deterioration
in the human stock that such programs would inevitably hasten, we
may question its
value even through the unfortunate mother.
Simon concludes, ‘‘The most serious charge that can be brought
against modern benevolence is that it encourages’’ - and I say this
again - ‘‘the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents, and
dependents.’’ Such audacity, such an inhumane view of human life.
Mr. Speaker, in her speech at the Planned Parenthood gala
accepting the Margaret Sanger award - and I have many other quotes
from Sanger that I will put into the RECORD, and I invite Members
and the American people to look at those quotes, and there is so
much more.
But in her speech last Friday, Secretary Clinton said she admired
Sanger for her vision, was in awe of her, and that Margaret Sanger’s
work here and in the United States and certainly across the globe is
not done. Translated, ‘‘not done’’ means more
abortions here in the United States, in Latin America, Africa, and
Asia, the
world. Planned Parenthood’s mission statement, documents, and work
in the field make it absolutely clear that they seek a global
unfettered right to commit violence against unborn children at all
stages of development. Planned Parenthood seeks integration of all
health care with abortion, with no conscience rights whatsoever for
medical practitioners, no parental consent or notification
whatsoever for minors.
And all of this paid for by the United States taxpayer.
Which begs the question, Mr. Speaker. Is our Secretary of
State unaware of Margaret Sanger’s inhumane beliefs?
Was she not briefed on Margaret Sanger’s cruel and reckless
disregard for poor, pregnant women? Respectfully, Secretary Clinton
should at a minimum return the Sanger award.
More importantly, Congress and the White House must at long last
take a long, hard, second look at the multimillion, almost billion,
dollar corporation called Planned Parenthood, Child Abuse
Incorporated.
Let’s be honest, Mr. Speaker. Abortion is violence against
children. It dismembers
and chemically poisons a child to death. It hurts women physically,
psychologically, and spiritually. There is nothing whatsoever
compassionate, benevolent, ennobling, benign, or empowering about
abortion. It is a violation of a child’s fundamental human rights.
Rather than partnering with Planned Parenthood and like-minded
NGOs to promote abortion worldwide with hundreds of millions of
taxpayer dollars, the United States should affirm the inherent
value, dignity, worth of both victims of abortion, mother and child.
We need to promote nonviolent, life-affirming solutions to women
both here as well as abroad. Women deserve better than abortion. We
should always and in every way affirm the precious lives of both.
And on that score, Margaret Sanger and far too many others would
disagree.
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