# Illegitimate babies born to poor, black, single, inner-city women in South are "endangered species"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 30, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323 "2011-10-30T22:21:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Snow\_Pea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Snow\_Pea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snow_Pea)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/21 "2011-10-31T16:22:37Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > It might also help with accuracy if it leaves out “illegitimate,” “poor,” “single,” and “inner-city.” Uh, no. No one is claiming that “they” want to exterminate the children of stable, married, middle-class suburban black couples. The billboards were placed in the inner city area of large Southern cities, where the illegitimacy/abortion rate for poor, single blacks is high. That is the audience for the message. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/22 "2011-10-31T16:39:11Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I wasn’t being ironic. I was being 100% serious and it was to the guy posting before me since he wanted to mention racism. > > Edit: And, really? I get modded for that? I’ve seen plenty of accusations of racism get thrown around in GD without people being modded for it. A little consistency would be nice. Your post was without context. If you do not wish to be “Modded,” then don’t throw out one-liners that are clearly insulting without any context for them. If you have more issues, take it to ATMB. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/23 "2011-10-31T17:49:52Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > It might also help with accuracy if it leaves out “illegitimate,” “poor,” “single,” and “inner-city.” > [@Snow\_Pea](#): > > Uh, no. > > No one is claiming that “they” want to exterminate the children of stable, married, middle-class suburban black couples. > > **The billboards were placed in the inner city area of large Southern cities, where the illegitimacy/abortion rate for poor, single blacks is high.** That is the audience for the message. I don’t dispute that you’re correct about the audience. But again, none of that appears in the linked article. If you know it’s true, cite it. I’d like our side to be able to jump on them for uncited assertions. That’s why it behooves our side to not put uncited assertions out there our own selves. ---
**Author:** ![Snow\_Pea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Snow\_Pea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snow_Pea)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/24 "2011-10-31T20:35:22Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > If you know it’s true, cite it. I’d like **our side** to be able to jump on them for uncited assertions. That’s why it behooves **our side** to not put uncited assertions out there our own selves. “our side”?? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/25 "2011-10-31T21:31:24Z")
> [@Snow\_Pea](#): > > “our side”?? 😕 Sorry, you’ve been drafted. Your uniform will arrive shortly in the mail. ---
**Author:** ![SnakesCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@SnakesCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakesCatLady)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/26 "2011-10-31T23:37:46Z")
How does abortion being legal make black children an endangered species? No woman is forced to get an abortion. Just because something is available doesn’t mean you have to partake of it. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/27 "2011-10-31T23:49:58Z")
Herman Cain has _really_ nice teeth. So according to this article, fewer than 1/10ths of abortion clinics are in black neighborhoods…but from what I’ve heard in college, minority women make up about 1/3 of the clients. [Anyway, his stance isn’t new](http://www.theroot.com/views/why-black-abortion-rate-so-high). ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/28 "2011-11-01T00:29:09Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Sorry, you’ve been drafted. Your uniform will arrive shortly in the mail. Oh, yes. It’s a beautiful brown, with epaulettes! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/29 "2011-11-01T01:02:38Z")
> [@SnakesCatLady](#): > > How does abortion being legal make black children an endangered species? No woman is forced to get an abortion. Just because something is available doesn’t mean you have to partake of it. No, but there was a time in America where [“eugenics” was a serious cause sometimes put into practice,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States) and, to many (not all) eugenicists, “eugenics” meant “discourage negroes from breeding,” among other things. However, as for [Margaret Sanger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Race), whom Cain was talking about: > [@](#): > > Sanger believed that lighter-skinned races were superior to darker-skinned races, but would not tolerate bigotry among her staff, nor any refusal to work within interracial projects.[81] Although Sanger’s views on race appear archaic from a modern viewpoint, her contemporaries in the African-American community supported her efforts. In 1929, James H. Hubert, a black social worker and leader of New York’s Urban League, asked Sanger to open a clinic in Harlem.[82] Sanger secured funding from the Julius Rosenwald Fund and opened the clinic, staffed with African-American doctors, in 1930. The clinic was directed by a 15-member advisory board consisting of African-American doctors, nurses, clergy, journalists, and social workers. The clinic was publicized in the African-American press and African-American churches, and received the approval of W. E. B. Du Bois, founder of the NAACP.[83] Sanger’s work with minorities earned praise from Martin Luther King, Jr., in his 1966 acceptance speech for the Margaret Sanger award.[84] > > From 1939 to 1942 Sanger was an honorary delegate of the Birth Control Federation of America, which included a supervisory role – alongside Mary Lasker and Clarence Gamble – in the Negro Project, an effort to deliver birth control to poor African Americans.[85] Sanger wanted the Negro Project to include black ministers in leadership roles, but other supervisors did not. To emphasize the benefits of involving black community leaders, she wrote to Gamble “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.” This quote has been used by numerous Sanger detractors, including Angela Davis and the pro-life movement, to support their claims that Sanger was racist.[86] However, according to New York University’s Margaret Sanger Papers Project, Sanger, in writing that letter, “recognized that elements within the black community might mistakenly associate the Negro Project with racist sterilization campaigns in the Jim Crow South, unless clergy and other community leaders spread the word that the Project had a humanitarian aim.”[87] ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/30 "2011-11-01T01:17:40Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Oh, yes. It’s a beautiful brown, with epaulettes! Nice joke, but check the forum name. A debate point would be nice, if you have one. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/31 "2011-11-01T01:41:20Z")
Can we all agree, at least, on the obvious fact that Cain’s remarks in the story in the OP make him look like an idiot a whole lot more than they make any pro-choicers or birth-control pushers look like bad guys? ---
**Author:** ![SnakesCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@SnakesCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakesCatLady)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/32 "2011-11-01T02:04:28Z")
**BrainGlutton** , I realize bad things have happened in the past. That has absolutely nada to do with women being able to have the choice of bearing a child or not now. If I am not mistaken, eugenics involved rendering women sterile, not terminating a pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/33 "2011-11-01T02:12:21Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Nice joke, but check the forum name. A debate point would be nice, if you have one. Back off, man. There’s always room for bipartisan humor. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/34 "2011-11-01T02:12:33Z")
> [@SnakesCatLady](#): > > **BrainGlutton** , I realize bad things have happened in the past. That has absolutely nada to do with women being able to have the choice of bearing a child or not now. Agreed. But I don’t think Cain is quite alone in imagining (or pretending to imagine) that there’s **still** a racial agenda, today, behind organizations like Planned Parenthood. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/35 "2011-11-01T02:40:30Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Ironically it should be noted Margaret Sanger was pro-life She was also pro-eugenics – what’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![SnakesCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@SnakesCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakesCatLady)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/36 "2011-11-01T02:56:49Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Agreed. But I don’t think Cain is quite alone in imagining (or pretending to imagine) that there’s **still** a racial agenda, today, behind organizations like Planned Parenthood. I’ll give you credit for the “(pretending to imagine)”. I do not understand how an organization that tries to give women control over their fertility can be condenmed. I could say much the same thing about the (white, male) doctors who refused to let me (white, female) get my tubes tied. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/37 "2011-11-01T13:46:24Z")
Maragret Sanger was against blacks having more babies, not because they were black, but because of the horrendous conditions they were forced to live in. She favored contraception, which was illegal at the time. The anti-abortion people I talk to today still bring up how “black women get the most abortions.” Maybe at Planned Parenthood, but I betcha white women get just as many at their local OB/GYN. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/38 "2011-11-01T14:18:00Z")
> [@Snow\_Pea](#): > > “our side”?? 😕 Have I confused you for someone who does not want a Republican to be elected President? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/39 "2011-11-01T14:19:25Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Sounds like it is either a misunderstanding on Cain’s part, or a deliberate lie in order to whip up support. Either way it makes him look like even more of a doofus. He earned himself not one, not two, not even three, but [four\* Pinocchios](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/herman-cains-rewriting-of-birth-control-history/2011/10/31/gIQAr53uaM_blog.html). \*on a scale of one to four ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323/40 "2011-11-01T14:29:58Z")
Well, if they’re an endangered species, I guess we need to find a preserve for them. No other good use is currently being made of Orange County, California . . . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegitimate-babies-born-to-poor-black-single-inner-city-women-in-south-are-endangered-species/601323.md?page=3)