Killer Angel: A Short Biography of Planned Parenthood's Founder, Margaret Sanger [Paperback]

This book while short, does get across the history behind Margaret Sanger and this story does need to be understood by all trying to understand the issue of abortion in the USA. It does have a lot of footnotes, but I think it could have been far more credible if it used more direct quotes from Margaret's own writings. There were too many instances where a synopsys was written on what she said when a direct quote would have had a far deeper effect for the radical views that she held. The author spends a little too much time expressing opinions on why she was such a bad person when the facts speak for themselves. The author repeatedly uses biblical quotations to support these opinions on her as a person. In a couple of situations, the book repeats information from a prior chapter, leading one to believe the book may have put together fom a series of articles. Altogether it was a good effort but could have been far better with a slightly different approach in the same number of pages.

This very short biography (~100 pages) is by Christian author, George Grant. The focus of the biography is the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger.

As is obvious from the title, this is not a flattering examination of Sanger. Grant is not trying to find common ground on which to dialogue with Sanger fans. Rather, he is presenting an exposé. Grant argues that the appellations often ascribed to Sanger (e.g., reformer, heroine, champion, saint) are tantamount to historical revisionism:

"The 'champion of birth control' and the 'patron saint of feminism' was no less horrific in her disdain for the helpless and the hapless than any of the other monsters of progressivism during the first half of the twentieth century--Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Mao. The only difference is that they have all been duly discredited, while she has not-at least, not yet." (p. 75)

And so the end to which Grant writes his brief biography is that "the proper standing of Margaret Sanger in the sordid history of this bloody century be secured." (pp. 7-8)

Grant presents Sanger as one with nonexistent sexual mores, a promiscuous woman, whose sexual life was outdone only by her intellectual life. Her views on sexual liberation and radical socialism led her down the path of Malthusianism and eugenics so that she "had openly endorsed the euthanasia, sterilization, abortion, and infanticide programs of the early Reich....She even commissioned her friend, Ernst Rudin, the director of the Nazi Medical Experimentation program, to serve the organization as an advisor." (pp. 91-92)

Grant offers several disturbing quotations from Sanger throughout his booklet:

- "The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."

- "We can all vote, even the mentally arrested. And so it is no surprise to find that the moron's vote is as good as the vote of the genius. The outlook is not a cheerful one."

- "The dullard, the gawk, the numbskull, the simpleton, the weakling, and the scatterbrain are amongst us in overshadowing numbers--intermarrying, breeding, inordinately prolific, literally threatening to overwhelm the world with their useless and terrifying get."

Grant presents Sanger as a kindred spirit intellectually with those progressives in the first half of the 20th century who, for lack of a better word, have now been condemned as monsters.

Grant completes his study by asserting that the character and vision of Sanger are "perfectly mirrored in the organization that she wrought." (p. 102)

***

Again, this book is not intended to build bridges with those who are fans of Sanger. It is an exposé by an author who believes that the historical record of Margaret Sanger amounts to little more than revisionism. Those who suspect that the details of Sanger's life have been airbrushed will find this book helpful and may be interested in reading two comprehensive works on Planned Parenthood that Grant has written. Everyone else will likely hate this book.

This book is too short, and that's about my only criticism of it. I found it to be eye opening, to say the least. It wasn't just the revelations about Margaret Sanger herself. I already suspected as much about her just from what I'd gleaned over the years. The book opened my eyes about us. About our society. Our people, attitudes and ideas. It helped me into the journey of why abortion, contraception, euthenasia, and now other things like embryonic stem cells, and IVF are just so awful and wrong. Life is sacred. From conception until death. This is just one chilling story about one person who understood this on some level, but even then....didn't care. Eventualy becoming absolutely malevelolent. Her ideas and life are reprehensible. As I said, no real surprises there. But the United States, and Western Europe's willingness to hear her. To bear her. To become ruled by her ideas is mind blowing. This quick read revealed to me the slippery slope of not placing a premium on human life. You can see the seeds in here of so many evils of todays world. When just layed out page after page in such a condensed form, and at such a cadence, you actually feel grimy. You begin to realize how much we actually participate in evil. But not just because of the actions of the dispicable persons who hate life, and are open about it, such as Margaret Sanger, but because of the inaction, and complacency of all of us as a society for allowing evil to just walk right past our Government, our constitution, our inherent value systems, our discernments, and set up shop right under our noses. Shame on her. Shame on us. I pray we can one day turn the tide for life. Life for all. The unborn, the actively living, and the dependent or elderly adult. We all have the one civil right in common, and it seems to be the one most swept under the rug. The right to be. The right to become.

Great, eye opening read, recommended for anyone who isn't aware of how badly we've all been hoodwinked, and had our values dampened by a few horrid people. There's no difference in the ideologies and ideas of Margaret Sanger, and Adolph Hitler. None. It's the same set of principles. And of the two of them, Margaret Sanger was infinitely more successful in the accomplishment of her holocaust.

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