WASHINGTON, D.C., August 18, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — In recent weeks, headlines from town and cities across America have highlighted the removal of statues commemorating Civil War-era confederate figures from public squares and buildings.

Yet a statue remains in Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Institution commemorating the one person responsible for the deaths of more African Americans that any other in history: Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.

“More than 19 million black babies have been aborted since the 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision legalized abortion in our country,” according to Michigan Right to Life’s website. “On average, 900 black babies are aborted every day in the United States.” Planned Parenthood is responsible for many of those abortions.

In August 2015, a group of Black pastors gathered in front of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery to make known their plea for the removal of Sanger’s bust from the museum.

Their request was rejected and the bust of Planned Parenthood’s founder remains on display today.

Asked about the continued presence of the bust at the museum, Linda St. Thomas, director of public affairs for the Smithsonian, emphasized to LifeSiteNews, “The Sanger statue has been there for many, many years.”

But so too have statues commemorating Confederate figures also been on display around the country for many, many years — until now.

If Sanger had her way, MLK and Rosa Parks would not have been born

Regarding the presence of Sanger’s bust in the Museum’s “Struggle for Justice” display, the pastors wrote a letter to the museum’s director, “Perhaps the Gallery is unaware that Ms. Sanger supported black eugenics, a racist attitude toward black and other minority babies; an elitist attitude toward those she regarded as ‘the feeble minded; speaking at rallies of Ku Klux Klan women; and communications with Hitler sympathizers.”

Their letter continues, “Also, the notorious ‘Negro Project’ which sought to limit, if not eliminate, black births, was her brain child. Despite these well-documented facts of history, her bust sits proudly in your gallery as a hero of justice. The obvious incongruity is staggering!”

“Like Hitler, Sanger advocated eugenics — the extermination of people she deemed ‘undesirables,’” said the pastors. “Ironically, Sanger’s bust is featured in the NPG’s [National Portrait Gallery’s] ‘Struggle for Justice’ exhibit alongside two of America’s most celebrated and authentic champions of equal rights — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. If Sanger had her way, MLK and Rosa Parks would not have been born.”

Sanger ‘was no hero’

Planned Parenthood locates 70 percent of its abortion facilities within or near black and Latino communities, suppressing the growth of minority populations, and so the pastors point out, “This explains why elective abortion remains the number one cause of death among black Americans, higher than all other causes combined. We will not remain silent while the National Portrait Gallery venerates someone who sought to eradicate our very existence. Ms. Sanger was a racist, elitist, and her beliefs led to massive destruction of unborn human life. She was no hero.”

Black activist Star Parker told LifeNews in 2015, “Margaret Sanger is a racist who wanted to end the black population through birth control and abortion. She founded Planned Parenthood. But The Smithsonian, funded by our tax dollars, celebrates this woman, even mentioning her advocacy of eugenics! They don’t even hide it! It is breathtaking in its idiocy.”

Sanger’s statue belongs with those of Hitler, Stalin and Dr. Mengele

Bishop E.W. Jackson, president and founder of the Ministers Taking a Stand that wrote the letter, told CNSNews.com that the National Portrait Gallery's response to the pastors “avoids the issue and whitewashes Sanger.”

“If they must recognize her ‘historical significance,’ place her with busts of Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Goebbels, Pol Pot and Dr. Mengele,” continued Bishop Jackson to CNSNews. “This would put her in her proper historical context with the infamous and evil figures who committed genocide.”

The hypocrisy of Planned Parenthood in one tweet

“Planned Parenthood, the American abortion provider that mercilessly takes the lives of approximately 200,000 innocent people of color every year, took to social media earlier this week to condemn racism in the wake of civil unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia,” the Babylon Bee reported.

Anti-choice groups & white supremacists have something impt in common: They both want to control women’s bodies. https://t.co/2A3NYyuQBl — NARAL (@NARAL) August 16, 2017

The posting continued, ‘Planned Parenthood stands with people of color and allies in the face of such appalling attacks fueled by hate,” said the update posted to the Facebook and Twitter pages of the organization, which overwhelmingly targets minority communities with its facilities and abortion services, resulting in unborn babies of color being aborted at a rate multiple times higher than that of white babies.”

The Smithsonian’s response to the black pastors’ group

Smithsonian director Kim Sajet said, “I received your letter regarding the legacy of Margaret Sanger and respectfully decline to remove her portrait from the museum. The Struggle for Justice gallery brings attention to major cultural and political figures from the 19th century to the present day who fought to achieve civil rights for disenfranchised or marginalized groups.”

Sajet added, “Her association with the eugenics movement shadowed her achievements in sex education and contraception, making her a figure of controversy, one whose complexities and contradictions mirror her times. There is no ‘moral test’ for people to be accepted into the National Portrait Gallery.”