Duggars rent Planned Parenthood landmark
Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have moved most of their brood into a rented house in Little Rock, 3 hours from home but close to University of AR for Medical Sciences, where baby Josie grows stronger after her premature birth on December 10.
About their leased abode Jim Bob gave Examiner.com an interesting factoid:
… Duggar… said the house they’re renting was previously owned by the lady who started Planned Parenthood in Little Rock, and that Jordyn learned to walk there….
Melody Cash of Seattle said. “I can’t believe they rented the ‘Planned Parenthood’ house and they have 19 kids – that’s just too funny. “…
I asked Jim Bob to fill me in about the house they’re renting and if all of the kids have been staying there with them.
He said, “Well first, it’s comical that the house we’re renting was actually owned by a lady who started PP in Little Rock. There’s even a plaque outside in the front yard.
That lady would be aptly named Brunhilde Kahlert Cornish, and she more than started PP there. She brought the eugenics movement to Little Rock. According to the Encyclopedia of AR History and Culture…
… Cornish was the founder of the AR birth control movement. She was instrumental in founding the organization that became the Planned Parenthood Association of AR.
Hilda Kahlert was born on January 24, 1878….
She moved to Little Rock in 1901 and married a widowed banker, Edward Cornish, in July 1902. The couple had 6 children between 1904 and 1917….
Cornish’s husband committed suicide in 1928. After his death, she devoted much of her time to reform and social work. In the summer of 1930, she met Margaret Sanger, the founder and leader of the American birth control movement. The 2 developed a friendship maintained by correspondence and occasional meetings. During that summer, Cornish visited Sanger’s Clinical Research Bureau in NY, and she launched the AR birth control movement later that same year.
At Cornish’s initiative, a group of physicians, business and religious leaders, and women active in civic work formed the AR Eugenics Association (AEA). Rabbi Ira Eugene Sanders said, “It was suggested that because the movement might evoke criticism on the part of the rather orthodox and staid community, that we call it the AR Eugenics Association on the grounds that nobody would object to being well born.”
In early 1931, the association opened the Little Rock Birth Control Clinic in the basement of Baptist Hospital. There, poor white women could get contraceptives at a time when men and women urgently sought to limit the size of their families.
What motivated Cornish and her fellow birth control advocates must be understood in the context of economics and the Great Depression. The AEA strongly argued that, as a consequence of the current economic hardships facing many, it was necessary to limit the number of children born into poor families. Information disseminated by this group played on peoples’ fear that the poor were gaining in numbers and that this would add to the financial burden of all taxpayers – birth control was a solution offered to prevent “future charity cases.”…
By 1940, many medical units across the state included birth-control services. The AEA… changed its name to the Planned Parenthood Association of AR in 1942.…
Cornish… was also active in the Democratic Party during the 1940s.
Cornish died on November 19, 1965, and is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Little Rock.
I enlarged the plaque to read it. Historians are glossing over Cornish’s eugenics history just as they do Margaret Sanger’s. The plaque reads:
… Hildah Cornish (1878-1965) was prominent in social and political issues of the day. She was a leader in advocating birth control even though she had six children.
[Cornish House photos via Arkansas Ties]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
For some reason this made me think of Cheaper by the Dozen (the book) where the birth control lady gets sent by some mischievous soul to talk Mrs. Gilbreth into joining her movement, and discovers mid-interview (when the children start materializing one by one) that she’s been the butt of a really good joke.
What a great story. It is fantastic and hilarious that this building is housing the beautiful Duggar bunch. Yet another window through which the ugly truth of Planned Parenthood is exposed for all to see by the presense of a wonderful expression of his love in this family. Awesome.
Love it!!
Courtney,
One of my favorite parts in my favorite movie! You can still rent it. In black and white even! :)
It never ceases to amaze me that people who spend their entire lives telling other people not to procreate would themselves have many children. It is the “do as I say, not as I do” mentality so typical of people who think they are better than others.
In the film – Maafa21 – they show that Cornish’s “clinic” was first a Eugenics Society Clinic and then became a Planned Parenthood Clinic – How interesting is that? Get Maafa21 – here: http://www.maafa21.com
Great article, Jill! If you have not seen watch a video named Maafa 21. Please, check it out.
Jeanne, I have always thought about that too. a LOT of people who advocate small families, or worse, no children at all, choose to procreate themselves and some have big families! Eugenics is all about “more from the fit, less from the unfit.” you and I of course are the unfit, but THEY of course, are the fit.
RACISM, BIGOTRY, HYPOCRISY, FEMINISM, ABORTION, HATRED, EVIL….. should be written on the branches of the Eugenics tree, as they are all products of eugenics. They tree should be without leaves because eugenics does not celebrate life.
* * * *
I think Jim Bob Duggar is playing a practical joke on the pro-aborts. I bet the PP people are not happy about this. LOL.
Jeanne: It never ceases to amaze me that people who spend their entire lives telling other people not to procreate would themselves have many children. It is the “do as I say, not as I do” mentality so typical of people who think they are better than others.
Then they are not really intent on population control, and certainly not “pro-choice.”
Agreed that we see the “do as I say, not as I do,” stuff, frequently – politicians would usually come to mind for me there, first.
My wife and I have no kids, but it seems to me the Duggars are doing a very good job, and I’m sure it’s rarely if ever easy. Quite a committment.
Have to laugh about comparing the numbers of kids that people have. There have been numerous times when I see or know somebody with 1 kids, 2, 3… and I feel like, “Wow, there is no way YOU should be having kids….”
What a very interesting turn of events here..what irony! It’s like the allies taking over Hitler’s bunker in Berlin…
Cornish must be turning in her grave…
Courtney and Carla,
I had forgotten about the birth-control lady in “Cheaper by the Dozen”. LOL! It’s hard to believe that women back in those days had the nerve to knock on another’s door and enter their house! to discuss such a PRIVATE matter. I wonder how many doors were slammed in the faces, so to speak.
FYI, the book was written in 1948, just six years after Planned Parenthood formed… There was a follow-up book called “Belles on Their Toes” which was also made into a movie.
I think the use of buzzwords and charged phrases are clouding people’s view of eugenics and birth control. Remember Sanger wanted more from the fit and less from the unfit. Cornish had six kids. I assume she considered herself fit. Likewise one could argue that the Duggars are quite fit because they are healthy, intelligent, disciplined and have multiplied. All of which indicate biological fitness. From the PP perspective, a white abortion rate of 13% and a black abortion rate of 49%, is exactly what they are looking for. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/psrh/full/3809006.pdf , Table 1, p.93 last 3 rows, last 2 columns. However, college educated women are much more likely to abort unplanned pregnancies than less educated women which is why PP is so desperate to get their message to preteens through public schools. Right now they have tons of folks they see as unfit who aren’t getting the abortion message.
It is no accident that they break down their percentages by race, education, and income. They use those as proxies for fit and unfit. They know what percentages they want among the groups and they target their efforts accordingly.
The Duggars are the normal decent version of eugenics. Healthy, good people with lots of wonderful children. Planned Parenthood is the dark side of eugenics. They are racists targeting certain groups for diminution by any means necessary including violence against the innocent.
Man, I would have loved to participate in that house ‘cleansing’.
Sounds like a job for ‘Ghostbusters’.
There must have been lots of skeletons in the closets and ghosts in the attic and more than a few bodies buried in the basement.
Brunhilde had bats in her belfry, but she probably took those to the grave with her when she died.
The Duggars are probably not the only ones in that house that go ‘bump’ in the night.
Hopefully the Duggars presence will be redemptive and restorative to the property.
yor bro ken
“Cornish’s husband committed suicide in 1928.”
Two observations come immediately to mind:
1. He was putting as much distance as possible between he and Bruhilde.
2. Being married to a woman like Brunhilde is an indication the man was already imbalanced and her freakishness drove him to complete insanity.
yor bro ken
“The Duggars are the normal decent version of eugenics. Healthy, good people with lots of wonderful children.”
They can afford these children because they have a nice, network show which pays them as well as donations from the pro-life breeders. They have also set up their home as a church which gives them a tax deduction. But unfettered reproduction is so great and that’s why we have armies of street children in Brazilian cities (abortion/contraception is unavailable) and whole families living on garbage dumps in other third world countries where people can’t afford to feed the wonderful babies that they have. Sounds like a plan for America. Soylent Green, anybody. But Jesus provides, eh?
The Duggars are debt free. They aren’t living off welfare or other government assistance. Some of the older children recently went to El Salvador to help rebuild houses.
Artemis, the Duggers were independently wealthy long before TLC came along. They own commercial real estate and other businesses. Also, they’re home has tax exempt status because they hold church there. Not just for themselves, but for their community as well. They pay plenty of taxes for their well earned income.
They’re debt free and frugal. Shocking, I know.
I just read the story about Josh and John David helping to save the life of a little 6 year old girl that was in a car accident. Good to know John is a volunteer firefighter and knows CPR!
In fact, its important for EVERYONE to learn CPR. I wish I knew it….
Thankyou Lauren…I was going to point that out too. If only Artemis would check facts BEFORE hyperventilating!
What a wonderfully ironic story! Sometimes I think God has a really good sense of humor!!
Liz, I agree that it’s a good idea for the average citizen to be certified in CPR, and CPR training isn’t limited to fire fighters and health care workers. Your local American Red Cross chapter or local hospital may offer CPR classes
open to the community.
Unfortunately for the Duggars, that irony of the eugenics connection has a tragic component to it, and the ghastly skeletons from the closets of their rented house are still likely to harm their little Josie’s and her family’s lives.
The current practice of rationing the much needed oxygen breathing help to preemies with weak lungs still dominates the daily routines in most modern intensive care nurseries, like the one that now treats Josie. This practice is based on a medical study from over fifty years ago that blamed this oxygen for the then recent epidemic of baby-blinding among preemies from what is now called retinopathy of prematurity, or ROP. Today, ROP still blinds in many countries more children than all other causes combined, and it is a serious threat to Josie because her status as micro-preemie puts her in the group with the highest risk for both the blinding and for permanent brain damage from insufficient oxygen.
The American doctors who designed that study believed wrongly that the blinding was caused by “defective germ plasm”, the prime target of the then still influential eugenics movement. They proposed therefore in May 1949 in their flagship journal “Archives of Ophthalmology” to prevent the problem by “selection of parents”, and to solve the existing cases by being “not so zealous in preserving these defective persons of which the world has a sufficient quantity already”. You find the eugenic context of that decision described in detail at http://retinopathyofprematurity.org/20oxygeneugenics.htm .
At the time, the most effective means for helping preemies to survive had been for many decades to give the preemies additional oxygen, so these crypto-eugenicist doctors rigged their study, held in 1954/55, to falsely blame that oxygen for the blinding. They withheld this life-saving gas from all the preemies in all the study hospitals for the first two days and thereby killed the most vulnerable among them who had the weakest lungs and also the most immature eyes. Then they enrolled only the survivors of this biased sampling into their study and found predictably that the rate of blinding among these was drastically reduced.
They announced this bogus result of oxygten withholding with great fanfare, and neonatologists around the world began immediately to withhold this breathing help from their hapless patients. They did so although this contradicted decades of experience that oxygen saved preemies’ lives, and although real scientists are supposed to replicate any such startling studies before they accept their results.
That eugenicist oxygen-withholding killed tens of thousands of preemies before some more scientifically inclined doctors realized the carnage. They advocated relaxing this Draconian withholding of needed treatment, but the practice was by then so entrenched that a slighly less severe version of it continues to this day and keeps many preemies from getting all the oxygen their brains need to properly develop.
At the same time, the knowingly misleading results of that old eugenicist study prevented nursery doctors from acknowledging the mountain of evidence that the damage to the preemies’ eyes is caused by the typically over-bright fluorescent nursery lighting. Fluorescent lamps were introduced in the US just before the first preemies developed ROP. The same parallel occurred again in Europe and other industrial countries after World War II when fluorescent lamps became available there and the there never previously observed ROP broke out as an epidemic, just as in the US. For more on this connection between ROP and fluorescent light, see http://retinopathyofprematurity.org/01summary.htm .
All this shows that the eugenicist skeletons in the closets of the Duggars’ present house are not yet as dead as they are held to be, and that they still have the potential to inflict great harm on their innocent little Josie. Everyone hopes, of course, that Josie will escape the worst of this hidden legacy, but the harm from these old skeletons to newborn preemies will not end until they and their damaging crypto-eugenic doctrine on ROP are removed from their closets, exposed to sunshine, and then laid to rest.
Respectfully submitted, with all my best wishes for Josie and her family, Peter Aleff
Courtney, I thought of that too! :-)
Peter, I never knew any of that regarding eugenics and peemies. When my son was in the NICU I was told that they tried to wean them all off O2 as soon as possible to prevent blindness!
Thankfully, my son needed very little oxygen support. He was under a hood for the first day, and that was that. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
“…pro-life breeders…”
—————————–
I’ve been called a lot of names while standing for life causes….but this one made me think…
At first, it sounded offensive BUT if you think about it…having kids/raising children is a gift from God. And being called a “breeder” is a heck of a lot better than being called a ‘baby-killer’…
RSD,
They are confusing us with their pets. Not surprised.
Lauren… don’t believe that drivel. It’s to prevent retinopathy. Unless you think I’m conspiring to kill preemies…
We don’t withhold lifesaving oxygen. We just recognize it is a serious drug with serious consequences and don’t abuse it either.
We don’t “ration” it, we “titrate” it, which means we are paying VERY close attention to the child’s needs and adjusting the oxygen accordingly, in some cases moment by moment.
I don’t know if you remember me talking about my aunt and uncle who had eleven children. Their oldest, my cousin, had a little girl 21 years ago who was only 1 lb. 3 oz. (At the time, a SERIOUS miracle that she survived at all!) … she was left permanently blinded by the oxygen they used. She is alive, the joy of her family. She is severely developmentally delayed but she goes to work with my cousin every day…. my cousin works in a home for unwed mothers in Alabama teaching them valuable life skills and assisting them to determine if they wish to keep or put their baby up for adoption. (Either is acceptable, but they have different coursework and support available depending on the situation and the young women are free to change their mind at any time…)
Sorry, but I spent last night in the NICU doing just that… titrating oxygen for a little girl with serious health issues. I sure as heck did NOT stand there for 12 plus hours hovering over her every change in status to injure her!
Oh, and I WAS a preemie born with insufficient lungs (they called it hyaline membrane back then) almost 38 years ago (sheesh I’m getting old! Maybe I’ll ignore Feb 25th this year! LOL). They drugged my mom for three days because I was “going to die”.
Well, I didn’t… and they didn’t have things like surfactant back then and my mom didn’t have steroids ahead of time to speed lung development.
Is Mr. Aleff aware that we are seeing studies every day that show that excessive use of oxygen and/or intubation and oscillation can also cause permanent damage to the lungs themselves? I worked with a home health nurse whose previous life had been 20 years as a nurse with a neonatal pulmonologist (who also happened to be her husband) trying to figure out why the things we were doing to get preemies better were having such bad long term results. Excessive oxygen was causing COPD like issues due to the small aveoli in the lung being damaged.
Posted by: Artemis at February 8, 2010 6:25 PM
They can afford these children because they have a nice, network show which pays them as well as donations from the pro-life breeders.
They have also set up their home as a church which gives them a tax deduction.
But Jesus provides, eh?
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Artheeclueless……again,
The Duggars already had at least 13 children BEFORE they were ever offerred the opportunity to do the TV show.
They were homeschooling all their children, owned their home, their cars and their land and were debt free.
I know these things because, unlike you, I had the opportunity to enjoy the Duggar’s hospitality and their kindness to strangers.
After only exchanging a few emails with Jim Bob, he extended an invitation to give my daughter and I a tour of the Arkansas State Capitol building when we were passing through Little Rock on our way to Knoxville, Tennessee.
Jim Bob and Michelle and his children were staying in Little Rock while the state legislature was in session. Jim was a state representative.
After the tour Jim Bob inivited my daughter and I to their home to have supper with them. After dinner and some guitar playing and visting with Michelle and the children they asked if we would stay the night with them. We happily accepted the invitation.
You artemis have not a clue about what motivates people like the Duggars because your bigotry blinds you to the truth.
My daughter and I were virtual strangers and they gave us food and sheleter and showed us real selfless ‘love’ knowing that we were not in need and could have just as easily stayed at a mote. But they wanted to enjoy our company and they made room for us in their home and in their lives.
My daughter will cherish that evening for the rest of her life.
I pray that someday you to will have the opportunity to enjoy such an thoroughly delightful experience.
yor bro ken
Thank you, Elizabeth, for your comments. No one accuses you of conspiring to kill preemies just because you follow what has long been the universally accepted medical practice of rationing oxygen for preemies. If you are a doctor or nurse you have been taught that this is done to prevent retinopathy of prematurity.
However, if you check the background of this “accepted knowledge” you find that the 1954/55 study which alleged to link oxygen to the blinding was a scientific fraud committed for very transparently eugenic reasons which some of the study designers had even promoted in writing. Please note that the results of this bogus study were never replicated, despite several attempts. Yet, they were immediately applied in neonatal practice around the world without any critical evaluation, and without acknowledging the well-known and notorious dangers of false certainty.
The oxygen concentrations that can damage the lung alveoli are usually much higher than anything a preemie would realistically get or need, but withholding this breathing help from those preemies with the weakest lungs deprives their brain of that life-saving gas and causes long=term brain damage, and in some cases even death.
Even the pediatric literature on this topic acknowledges some of the deaths and brain damage the early and very Draconian oxygen withholding caused among preemies in the first ten to fifteen years after that rigged study. See, for instance, my chapter “2.7: Initial death toll from the bogus oxygen study” which are posted at http://retinopathyofprematurity.org/26allegedstudyresults.htm
Despite some later relaxation of those initial super-tough restrictions, the current nursery policies still do not allow the preemies the optimal amounts of oxygen many among them need to escape brain damage or even to survive.
Unfortunately, most doctors trust their doctrine so much that they cannot impartially recognize the fraud in that crypto-eugenic bogus study, or admit that the oxygen has nothing to do with the blinding. The eugenicists who designed that study tried of course to hide their true intent when proclaiming their rigged study results, and they succeeded in duping their gullible colleagues as well as their duly indoctrinated successors.
In fact, oxygen had been successfully administered since the 1890s and had never caused any damage to either the eyes or the lungs of any preemie, whereas the first victims of ROP were born in 1940, right after the introduction of fluorescent lamps at the New York World Fair of 1938/39.
I invite you to examine in detail the material I collected about this and other frauds in research on preemies, as posted on my website retinopathyofprematurity.org. It is easy to simply deny anything that contradicts what you have been told for many years, but please note that all the statements on that site are fully documented with citations from the clinical literature, and that no one has ever been able to refute any of the facts presented there.
You may also find it an eye-opener to read the details of the 1995 LIGHT-ROP study in which some cynical pediatric retinal surgeons knowingly over-exposed all the preemies to excess light, including their allegedly protected control group, to falsely proclaim the safety of their nursery lighting and so to continue the need for expensive pediatric retinal surgery. You may want to deny that such gross and callous frauds are possible, but the study authors’ own words, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, show that their study was dishonest and harmful to preemies.
So, instead of calling this expose “drivel” you may first want to examine what it says. Remember, only open minds can learn!
Peter Aleff
I love the Duggar’s. I would be blessed and honored to have them as my parents. The world hates them because they are christians. What is wrong with having children and LOVING AND TAKING CARE OF THEM? I am so sick of people bashing the Duggar’s.
“The oxygen concentrations that can damage the lung alveoli are usually much higher than anything a preemie would realistically get or need,”
You obviously didn’t read what I said. The nurse I worked with was dealing with ACTUAL preemies who were demonstrating ACTUAL complications after ACTUAL administration of oxygen. So don’t tell me that they wouldn’t get or need the amount of oxygen involved… they DID need it. They DID get it. And they DID have complications from it that this HIGHLY ethical nurse and her husband spent a lifetime studying and working to fix.
When I work shifts in the pediatric ER, when we get children in who are having breathing issues, one of the first questions we ask is: Was he/she a preemie? Was he/she intubated? That is because this affects the child’s long term health.
What precisely is your MEDICAL training? Because your inflammatory and poorly researched site does not cite any. We are extremely careful about lighting around our preemies. The only time lighting is anywhere NEAR the child is when they are jaundiced and require it to bring down their bilirubin levels (which, if NOT brought down DO cause brain damage). When we use those lights we use special protection to protect babies eyes from them. We are hypervigilant on this point.
I’m sorry your son had complications from being a preemie. You seem hintent on seeing evil and coverups where there are none. That is not uncommon when a medical situation does not turn out “perfectly”. I pray you find healing.
The TRUTH of the matter is, neonatologists, in conjunction with researches and organizations like the March of Dimes have worked tirelessly to improve outcomes for preemies… not just in terms of how many live but in terms of lowering the number of complications these children face for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that all preemies will live and we cannot guarantee that none of them will have complications. Please remember that even 20 years ago, many of the children we save today would not have survived.
Am I the only one thinking the Duggars moving into a PP Landmark is a bad idea?
You could spray that house with holy water and have a priest perform an excercism over it and I am still not getting anywhere near that house.
Mike