An intelligent pro-life friend pressed me the other day, asking for clarity about the destruction of the pro-life movement. I had pointed out that support for immigration restrictions kills millions of children overseas, and thousands of “pro-lifers” who are saving children with one hand are killing far more children with the other hand. They work hard in front of abortion clinics, saving thousands of children; then work hard to tighten the border, killing millions of children. Explain, he demanded. Why do I say that a large portion of the most pro-life movement today works for Planned Parenthood?
I think he wanted a bumper sticker. But I want him to understand the problem, thoroughly. If I had betrayed a movement accidentally, I’d want to understand what happened, so I could reverse some of the damage. Here are the questions to research. If you pursue the data yourself, you are less likely to think I’m lying and distorting. So here’s my outline; Google the data yourself.
Six steps.
First: get an orientation.
(Optional but highly recommended. 30-45 minutes.)
Read my “Introduction to Eugenics.” American Life League has taken my name off it, but it’s still available on line, at www.all.org/abac/eugen02.htm. You don’t need to read the booklet, but it will make it much easier to assemble pieces sensibly in your mind. The master race ideology – eugenics – is the source of the rabid and hateful anti-immigration movement, and is also the source of the abortion movement; they are cousins in contempt and careless death. For decades, International Planned Parenthood Federation was housed within the offices of the Eugenics Society in London. In particular, make sure you see and understand the links between global population control, funded by America and Europe, and its back-up policies of restrictive immigration in the funder nations. Get a grip.
Second, understand the eugenics initiatives of the 1920s ...
... their three major legislative initiatives. They started forced sterilization in 29 states. They passed anti-miscegenation laws in many states. And they pushed through the “Johnson Acts,” tinkering with laws to restrict immigration. Our immigration laws today are a reform (under Reagan) of a reform (under Pres Johnson) of those laws. The bland assumption that of course we can decide arbitrarily whom to admit and whom to exclude, without any accountability, is based on the 1920s eugenics campaign. Why and how did we tighten the borders? Get a clear picture of the American Eugenics Society, the Eugenics Record Office, and the Johnson Acts.
Third, immigration restrictions here kill people there.
Nail that down tight in your mind. “BS!” you retort. “Name one!” Make sure you have a firm understanding of the impact of immigration restrictions on what happens overseas. The anti-immigrant legislation of the 1920s was written to keep out many people, but that generation of arrogant killers had a particular animus against the “feeble-minded” Jews. American eugenicists were proud allies of the German eugenicists. When Hitler was preparing his Final Solution, and foresighted Jews were beginning to flee, America deliberately and firmly shut the door against them. Our immigration policies here killed Jews in Europe. Oh, yeah, you squawk? Please, friend: read the story of the St Louis, which sailed from Hamburg with Jews aboard, sailed past Miami, was refused entry, and returned to Hamburg. The Holocaust Museum has a list of the passengers who saw the lights of Miami and then sailed east to die in Nazi death camps.
Fourth, Golden Venture
Update the St Louis story a little, and get a firm grasp on the Golden Venture story. For decades, China has killed far more babies than we do, with their one-child-only forced abortion policy. The United States has debated whether to support the Chinese policy. When people flee from China, to save a child, or planning to have others in the future, will we welcome these refugees? President Reagan and Rep. Chris Smith (R, NJ), chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus for many years, fought hard to open that door a crack. Bottom line: pro-lifers understood in the 1980s that restrictive immigration policies supported forced abortion policies. If you don’t understand that story, you are putty in the hands of a killing machine.
Fifth, Tiananmen Square
refresh your recollection of Chinese history. 25 years ago, there was a drive for freedom, focused in Tiananmen Square. The month before the tanks rolled into the square, Planned Parenthood’s magazine, People (not the celebrity magazine, but a British publication) focused a whole issue on how well the Chinese were handling the population explosion. There were 17 articles praising different aspects of China’s policies. For generations, Planned Parenthood was the link between focused depopulationist eugenicists and sloppy Western feminists. Even now, it’s easy to discern the alliance between sincere “pro-choice” activists and advocates of forced abortion. The deep and painful irony is that sloppy Western pro-lifers have imitated sloppy Western pro-choicers; today, forced abortion has as many allies among pro-lifers as among pro-choicers. Read People magazine, pre-Tiananmen.
Sixth, John Tanton
Peruse the life and work of John Tanton. He is the key figure in the American anti-immigration movement of our time. He founded and/or supported and/or inspired the key organizations that “pro-lifers” gone over the right edge quote freely – FAIR (Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform), CIS (Center for Immigration Studies), Numbers USA, English Only, etc. He is not the devil incarnate; but he does provide a clear snapshot of a nation-deforming transition. Just as Margaret Sanger took an idea (eugenics) from the rightwing of imperial Britain and made it appealing to the left, so Tanton took an idea from the left (Planned Parenthood and Sierra) and made it appealing to the right – even to history-free pro-lifers. If you understand Tanton’s goals and tools, the immigration fight gets clear. He started in Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club and ZPG (Zero Population Growth), but was frustrated by their lack of progress toward a stable eugenic world, so he switched over to immigration work.
Bottom line is simple: inhospitality is inhospitality.
When you read the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, it might be startling that Jesus provides a list of roads to hell, and all of them involve sins of omission. The reason is actually pretty simple: most of the colossal damage we do, including murder, is disguised in our minds. We don’t bomb Nagasaki’s Catholic community; we deter Japan. We don’t kill babies; we choose to be pregnant later. We don’t kill the poor overseas; we protect our borders. Am I my brother’s keeper?