Was Margaret Sanger a racist?

Was Margaret Sanger really a racist who wanted to reduce the population of Blacks via Abortion rights?

Margaret Sanger may or may not have been a racist, but she opposed abortion, so the full answer to your question is “no”. She’d probably be ashamed at what Planned Parenthood has become.

"Sanger’s family planning advocacy always focused on contraception, rather than abortion.[106][note 10] It was not until the mid-1960s, after Sanger’s death, that the reproductive rights movement expanded its scope to include abortion rights as well as contraception.[note 11] Sanger was opposed to abortions, both because she believed that life should not be terminated after conception, and because they were dangerous for the mother in the early 20th century. In her book Woman and the New Race, she wrote: “while there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization.”[107]

Historian Rodger Streitmatter concluded that Sanger’s opposition to abortion stemmed from concerns for the dangers to the mother, rather than moral concerns.[108] However, in her 1938 autobiography, Sanger noted that her opposition to abortion was based on the taking of life: “[In 1916] we explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way—it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun.”[109] And in her book Family Limitation, Sanger wrote that “no one can doubt that there are times when an abortion is justifiable but they will become unnecessary when care is taken to prevent conception. This is the only cure for abortions.”[110]"

She was heavily reliant on middle class ladies for support, and after a few years of campaigning she worked out what arguments would be useful to persuade those ladies of the need for legal and accessible contraception. The extent to which she actually believed those arguments, if at all, may never be known.

I’d say Sanger was a racist. She was a big believer in eugenics. Eugenics isn’t inherently racist but many of its supporters (including Sanger) introduce racism into it. They decide that “nordic” people are genetically superior to other people, which is unscientific nonsense.

cite?

Sanger was unabashedly in favor of eugenics. Her own writings are clear on that point.

Less clear is her view of racial groups as it relates to eugenics.

She wrote a lot about improvements to “the race” or that something was detrimental to “the race,” but she seems to be referring to the human race as a whole.

If we’re going to quote Sanger’s Wikipedia page, why not do it on race too, since that actually addresses the OP’s question?

Because the question asked specifically about whether she supporting selective abortion of Black babies, not about her views on race more generally. I’m more interested in her views on abortion than on race, so that’s the bit I focused on.

Read the last paragraph, which is so absolutely direct to the point that it cites who made the claim and a quote from someone refuting it.

It doesn’t actually tell us anything about what she thought, though. It just tells us she was keen to avoid as being seen as a black baby exterminator. She may or may not have actually wanted to be one.

I’ve seen the quote about “we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population” used by the extreme anti-abortion side as proof that she wanted to exterminate them but wanted it covered up.

OMG, you actually use Wikepedia as a source?

Wikipedia is an amalgamation of statements, many of which are incorrect.

How original a thought. I’ll pass it along to the hundreds of others here who have used that site for cites, although I’ll correct your original and imaginative spelling of it first. By the way. Do you have any evidence that this particular statement on this particular page is wrong?

So you have no idea how Wikipedia works, or even how to follow a citation link?

I ask merely for information, and to guide the conversation better.

Yes, that does appear to be prevalent on the Internet and was responded to here.