The Pivot of Civilization

Margaret Sanger is the mother of modern contraception and the founder of Planned Parenthood. In her 1922 book, The Pivot of Civilization, she outlined her theories of eugenics (control of the human race by selective breeding) and racial purity (3 years before Hitler did the same in Mein Kampf).

The basis of her support of contraception was entirely due to her belief that inferior humans should be killed to enable a superior race to appear over time (Social Darwinism). Sanger did not just entertain popular ideas of her time - she was the champion of the cause. In her book she says: “the most urgent problem of to-day is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.” She goes on to say: “possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon American society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupid, cruel sentimentalism.” Birth control was, in her mind, “the greatest and most truly eugenic method.”

Needless to say, Planned Parenthood today have tried very hard to distance themselves from their founder.

* Notice that the Introduction was written by the Socialist H.G. Wells: some science-fiction does become science-fact.