Planned Parenthood is “honoring” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today with its Margaret Sanger Award.

Mrs. Clinton, even for someone who is as strongly pro-abortion as you are, it’s a dishonor to be mentioned in the same breath with Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood in 1916.

Why?

Because, even leaving aside the immense evil that Planned Parenthood engages in through its provision of abortions, Sanger was an ugly bigot who left behind a legacy of racist comments and other shocking prejudice.

Here’s a sampling, courtesy of a press release issued today by the Susan B. Anthony List:

“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” (Sanger’s letter to Clarence J. Gamble, 1939, December)

Margaret Sanger referred to immigrants and Catholics as reckless breeders, writing in her book, Pivot of Civilization, “[They’re] an unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.” (Sanger, p.187).

“The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it,” Margaret Sanger wrote in her 1920 book Women and the New Race (Sanger, p. 63).

It must be remembered that comments like these by the founder of Planned Parenthood were not an occasional aberration. Her conception of eugenics, featuring the extermination of members of “inferior” groups through abortion, was a foundational element of Sanger’s philosophy of “family planning.”

Understandably, Planned Parenthood isn’t eager to publicize Sanger’s beliefs about this. But as the Susan B. Anthony List press release notes, racial bigotry continues to inform the activities of some Planned Parenthood affiliates.

“Last year an Idaho Planned Parenthood employee was disciplined for accepting a donation earmarked for the abortion of African Americans,” the press release states. “According to a transcript of the call, Autumn Kersey, vice president of development and marketing for Planned Parenthood of Idaho, took a call from an actor saying he wanted his money to be used to eliminate unborn black babies because ‘the less black kids out there the better. Kersey responded: ‘Understandable, understandable. ... Excuse my hesitation, this is the first time I’ve had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I’m excited and want to make sure I don’t leave anything out.’”

Said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, “If Secretary Clinton were fully aware of the eugenicist past of Margaret Sanger, I cannot believe that she would be accepting an award in her name. It is in fact shocking that the award still bear’s Sanger’s name. Sanger broadly supported the Eugenics movement, advocating for a superior race that was free of poor, immigrant, and minority citizens. She even spoke at a rally of the Klu Klux Klan. Despite this evidence, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading abortion provider, has done little to distance itself from Sanger’s legacy.”