Margaret's Shadow
They gave her awards in marble halls,
they called her brave and free
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Margaret's Shadow
[Instrumental Intro]
[Verse 1]
She walked the streets with fire in her eyes
A nurse in white, selling hope in tiny pills and lies
She called them weeds, the children yet to come
The poor, the broken, the black, the “feeble-minded” ones
She drew the map with cold and careful hands
Clinics in the shadows where the weakest made their stand
“We don’t want word to get around,” she softly said
While ministers were paid to smile and keep the people misled
[Pre-Chorus]
Oh Margaret, what have you done?
You weighed a soul and found it wanting
Before it saw the sun
[Chorus]
Margaret's shadow, falling long across the years
Turning wombs to battlegrounds and hope to silent tears
But every heartbeat answers, every tiny hand held tight
We are not your human weeds, we were born to see the light
Born to see the light
[Verse 2]
They gave her awards in marble halls, they called her brave and free
While mothers wept in parking lots and babies ceased to be
Sixty million empty places where a lullaby should play
Her ghost still walks the hallways in the clinics of today
[Instrumental solo]
[Bridge – half-spoken, almost whispered]
She said she hated abortion, called it barbaric, cruel
But taught the world some lives don’t matter
And broke the golden rule
[Final Chorus – key change, soaring]
Margaret's shadow, you will not have the final word
Every child you tried to erase is singing to be heard
We choose the weak, we choose the poor, we choose the ones you cursed
Love is louder than your science, mercy stronger than your verse
We were born to chase the darkness, born to carry life on through
Margaret's shadow fades behind us
Every time we choose the true
[Outro – gentle, resolute]
We are not your human weeds
We were born to see the light
Born to see the light
Born to see the light
[Instrumental Outro]
Who Was Margaret Sanger?
Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) was a nurse, sex educator, and activist who pioneered the modern birth control movement in America. From a pro-life perspective, she stands as one of the most dangerous figures in 20th-century history—a radical eugenicist, racist, and population control advocate whose ideas dehumanized the unborn, the poor, immigrants, the disabled, and racial minorities. She coined the term "birth control," opened America's first illegal birth control clinic in 1916 (in a poor immigrant neighborhood), and founded the American Birth Control League in 1921, which evolved into Planned Parenthood in 1942. Sanger viewed large families among the "unfit" as a societal disease and relentlessly promoted contraception (and sometimes sterilization) as the cure, laying the ideological groundwork for today's abortion industry.
Why Did She Support Eugenics?
Sanger was a fervent eugenicist who believed society must actively discourage or prevent reproduction among those she deemed genetically inferior—"human weeds," "defective stocks," the "feebleminded," and "dysgenic" races. She saw eugenics not as a side interest but as the core purpose of birth control.
Direct quotes from Sanger reveal her chilling worldview:
- "The most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective."
- "Birth control... is practically identical in ideal with the final aim of Eugenics."
- "Eugenics is the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political, and social problems."
- She called for the "gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extinction, of defective stocks—those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization."
From a pro-life view, this is nothing short of genocidal thinking dressed up as "science." Sanger allied with the same eugenics circles that influenced Nazi sterilization programs (though she distanced herself from Nazis later). She supported forced sterilization for the "unfit," endorsing the Supreme Court's 1927 Buck v. Bell decision that allowed involuntary sterilizations—leading to tens of thousands of Americans being sterilized against their will, disproportionately poor, disabled, and minority women.
Why Did She Found Planned Parenthood?
Sanger founded the organization (originally the American Birth Control League) explicitly to advance eugenic population control through widespread contraception. She wanted to stop the "unfit" from breeding while encouraging the "fit" to have more children. Pro-lifers see Planned Parenthood not as a benevolent women's health organization but as the direct fulfillment of Sanger's eugenic dream: an institution dedicated to preventing the births of those society (or elites) deem undesirable.
Though Sanger personally opposed abortion—calling it "dangerous and inhuman," "barbaric," and something she "always condemned"—she laid the foundation for it by normalizing the idea that some lives are not worth bringing into the world. Planned Parenthood began performing abortions after her death (post-Roe v. Wade in 1973), but from a pro-life perspective, abortion is simply the logical endpoint of Sanger's philosophy: if contraception fails, eliminate the child anyway.
What Was Her Agenda, and What Has Been Accomplished in Her Name?
Sanger's agenda was crystal clear: reduce the population of the poor, immigrants, Blacks, the disabled, and anyone labeled "feebleminded" through contraception, sterilization, and cultural propaganda. Her infamous "Negro Project" (1939) targeted Black communities in the South with birth control clinics, recruiting Black ministers and doctors to gain trust. In a 1939 letter to Clarence Gamble, she wrote: "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."
Pro-lifers see this as deliberate deception to mask genocidal intent. The results speak for themselves:
- Black women are 3–5 times more likely to abort than white women.
- In New York City, more Black babies are aborted than born alive.
- Planned Parenthood places ~79% of its surgical abortion facilities in or near minority neighborhoods.
- Over 20 million Black babies have been aborted since 1973—far exceeding deaths from heart disease, cancer, or violence combined in that community.
In Sanger's name, America has seen over 63 million abortions since Roe v. Wade, disproportionately affecting minority and low-income communities. Planned Parenthood, now the nation's largest abortion provider (~350,000 abortions/year), continues her legacy of targeting the vulnerable while reaping billions in taxpayer funding.
Even Planned Parenthood has begun distancing itself: In 2020, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York removed Sanger's name from its Manhattan clinic, admitting her "harmful connections to the eugenics movement" and her role in "historical reproductive harm within communities of color." Yet the organization still performs the very population control she envisioned.
Who Called Her a "Hero"?
Despite her toxic legacy, many on the Left have lionized Sanger:
- Hillary Clinton (2009, accepting Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger Award): "I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision... I am really in awe of her."
- Gloria Steinem: Called Sanger a hero and defended her in TIME magazine.
- Nancy Pelosi, Jane Fonda, Barack Obama (who addressed Planned Parenthood praising its founding principles), and many others have accepted the Margaret Sanger Award or praised her "vision."
- The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery still honors her as a feminist icon.
From a pro-life perspective, praising Margaret Sanger is praising a woman who viewed millions of human beings—especially the unborn, poor, and Black—as expendable "human weeds." Her dark ideology lives on in the abortion industry she birthed, and until it is fully rejected, her genocidal dream continues to claim innocent lives every day.
This is original work is produced by AK Darvinson with a combination of observation, critical thinking, insight, heart, compassion, creativity, and technology. All rights are reserved. Free sharing is encouraged. Commercial use via license only.
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