Liberty Counsel filedan amicus brief to the Florida Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, et al., v. State of Florida, et al., on behalf of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Fiona Jackson Center for Pregnancy, and Issues4life Foundation, in defense of Florida’s 15-week abortion ban since the Florida Constitution affirms “the right to enjoy and defend life” regardless of “race, religion, national origin, or physical disability.”
Liberty Counsel represents this broad group of faith organizations, churches, nonprofits, and individuals who serve members of the African American, Hispanic, and disability communities in Florida and across the United States. They have a strong interest in exposing the racist and eugenic history of the abortion movement, which has had catastrophic effects on their communities.
Previously, Liberty Counsel also filed an amicus brief on behalf of the NHCLC and the Frederick Douglass Foundation at the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dobbs abortion case. In overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Court cited this brief acknowledging that abortion has disproportionally impacted the black community.
In today’s amicus brief, Liberty Counsel states, “Abortion is the modern-day offspring of eugenics. The procedure is in direct conflict with Florida’s constitutional guarantees to life and liberty. House Bill 5 furthers Florida’s compelling interest in ensuring that the rights guaranteed in the Florida Constitution extend to all its citizens, not just the born. By upholding the law, this Court should properly interpret FLA. CONST. ART. 1, SEC. 2 to guarantee the equal right to life of all Floridians and reject modern-day eugenics in this State.”
Liberty Counsel’s brief emphasizes abortion advocacy is based on the eugenics movement which is rooted in social Darwinism and the elimination of so-called “undesirable populations.”
“Charles Darwin himself did not hide his eugenic inclinations, unabashedly revealing in his writings his insidious racist and white supremacist thinking. It becomes clear that he considers every population that is not white and European to be savage. . . . Darwin explains that the ‘highest races and the lowest savages’ differ in ‘moral disposition . . . and in intellect.’ The idea that white people are more intelligent and moral persists throughout. Darwin’s theory applies survival of the fittest to human races, suggesting that extermination of non-white races is a natural consequence of white Europeans being a superior and more successful race. Not only does Darwin believe in white supremacy, he offers a biological explanation for it, namely that white people are further evolved.”
“Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood’s founder, was one of the most outspoken members of the American eugenics movement, arguing that eugenics was ‘the most ad-equate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.’ She accordingly praised sterilization as the ‘remedy’ to the problem of ‘an increasing rate of morons.’ In the first two decades of the twentieth century, a dozen states passed eugenic sterilization laws. And one court upheld eugenic sterilization as a valid exercise of the state’s police power ‘based on the growing belief that, due to the alarming increase in the number of degenerates, criminals, feebleminded, and insane, our race is facing the greatest peril of all time.’”
Sanger once stated, “More children from the fit and less from the unfit. That is the chief aim of birth control,” and “Superman is the aim of Birth Control.” She once gave a talk to the KKK and helped promote the “Negro Project.” In her own words, “[Birth control] means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extirpation of defective stocks— those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.”
Planned Parenthood commits 40 percent of abortions in the United States, which includes death by abortion of an estimated 247 black babies per day. Planned Parenthood has now intentionally located 86 percent of its abortion facilities in or near minority neighborhoods in the 25 U.S. counties with the most abortions. These 25 counties contain 19 percent of the U.S. population including 28 percent of the black population and 37 percent of the Hispanic/Latino population. In 12 of these counties, blacks and Hispanics/Latinos are more than 50 percent of the population. In contrast, blacks are only 12.6 percent of the U.S. population, and Hispanics and Latinos are 16.3 percent. Planned Parenthood’s largest abortion facility in America is situated in the middle of a black and Hispanic neighborhood within walking distance of a nearby school.
Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The Florida Supreme Court must close the sordid chapter on eugenics that deems some humans more valuable than others whether that distinction is made on account of race, ethnicity, or disability. The origin of abortion is founded in the failed ideology that favors certain classes of people. It is past time for the Florida Supreme Court to reject this dreadful history of abortion.”
