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A Haunt of Demons Shuts Its Doors … The Fall of Margaret Sanger’s ‘Clinic’
Mott Street, New York — Walking this iconic street that runs through the Little Italy section of New York City on a recent Sunday afternoon, I was struck by an array of images and ironies, some of them beautiful, others not so.
Our morning began with Mass at the historic Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. The church’s address is 263 Mulberry Street, between Prince and Houston, with the primary entrance on Mott (where there’s an inspiring sculpture of Padre Pio in the confessional). The church has a remarkable history. It’s the original Cathedral Church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, founded in the early 1800s, at a time when Catholics were not welcome in the city and faced severe discrimination. At one point in the 1830s, Protestant agitators surrounded the edifice. It was quite a clash. To this day, the church is surrounded by a high brick wall once erected as a barricade to protect parishioners from invasion during a time of virulent, violent anti-Catholicism.
By the mid-20th century, the parish became increasingly Italian, as did its pastors. The names of the deceased priests on the wall inside the entry way attest to that, as they started changing from names like “O’Reilly” to “Martino.” I didn’t catch the name of the Italian priest at the Mass we attended at noon, but to say that the place had an Italian vibe would be insufficient. In fact, it was an Italian Mass, fully done in Italian. We were fortunate enough to be there on the day of a baptism. The place was teeming with noisy Italian children buzzing about in little suits and pretty dresses and riding scooters outside.
A testimony to the Italian-ness of the parish is the fact that an altar boy named Martin Scorsese served here in the late 1940s. Scorsese would grow to make this area still more iconic when as a filmmaker he made movies like Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, and The Irishman.
Indeed, just a few blocks from the entrance of Old St. Patrick’s is the illuminated entrance to Little Italy. This is, of course, home to the New York Mafia. Walking through here, one’s mind races to images from the extraordinary trilogy of The Godfather movies and celebrations like the annual San Gennaro Festival.
One’s attention also is quickly taken by the wall-to-wall restaurants, gelatos stands, espresso bars. We hopped into one of the oldest cafes. The cappuccino was superb, as were the pistachio cannoli.
It’s hard not to be happy walking around New York’s Little Italy on a perfect afternoon like this. But I was about to be even happier.
As we left Little Italy and headed up the street, I took a right onto historic Bleecker Street. I knew what was around the corner. For years, I shuddered every time I walked by it. I was always particularly appalled because the “it” was attached (in a cruel irony) to the Fulton Sheen Center, where I had spoken and stayed on several occasions. When I did, I never ceased to marvel that the “it” abutted this center named after the greatest figure in American Catholicism. The only solace that I took was that perhaps the folks visiting the Sheen Center would pause to pray for the end of the “it” next door.
The unspoken “it” was the infamous original Planned Parenthood “clinic” founded by none other than Margaret Sanger herself. In fact, it sat on a corner that bore the name Margaret Sanger Square. It was here that the racial eugenicist pondered her craft of “breeding a race of thoroughbreds,” of “race improvement,” and ridding the gene pool of its “human weeds” and other “defectives,” “morons,” “imbeciles,” and “idiots” that she strove to ensure never left their mothers’ wombs.
Sanger died several years before Roe v. Wade was passed on Jan. 22, 1973. Once that landmark court case was issued, Maggie’s heirs got to work. Truly only God knows how many unborn babies were killed inside that building that became a haunt of demons. We know only that it was a ghastly, unholy number.
I’ve written about my face-to-face encounters with that building several times before. Those encounters were always one on one, man versus bricks. I would stand in silent, solemn prayer that the place would be shut down one day. I got some dirty looks, especially from the abortion “escorts” who wanted no one like me in their way as they grabbed the arms of mostly black women to hastily shepherd them inside to kill their unborn children.
Of course, the dirty looks that I received were nothing compared to the torrent of hate — invectives, shouts, curses, spitting — heaped upon pro-lifers who bravely gathered outside the Sanger “clinic” on Saturday mornings to pray for the women and their children who ventured inside. Personally, I’ve prayed with such groups outside the abortion clinic on Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh. I can tell you that prayer verses in the “Hail Mary”/Rosary, such as “blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,” elicit shrieks and howls from “pro-choicers.” And oh yes, we’ve heard howls.
If you ever have any doubts that spiritual warfare exists and abounds, then simply go outside an abortion clinic on a Saturday morning and watch the spectacle before you. The evil is palpable. It’s chilling.
As my wife and daughter and son-in-law turned right on Bleecker Street on Sunday morning, I prepared myself for the site to come. How ironic it was, I thought. I was in New York that weekend with my wife visiting our daughter’s newborn, premature baby in a NICU. Just a few hours earlier, my wife and I were awed at the beauty of our three-and-a-half-pound grandson, giving thanks not only to the heavens but to the excellent hospital staff providing such splendid care and keeping him alive. The whole wonderful staff of nurses and doctors were doing such amazing work to make sure that precious little boy lived. It was the very best of life at work.
And yet, right around that corner was another staff of “nurses” and “doctors” dedicated to the opposite goal. They were fully focused on terminating unborn babies. Their objective was not to keep them alive but to ensure their deaths.
But lo and behold, I was about to be greeted by a glorious surprise this Sunday afternoon: Sanger’s Planned Parenthood Clinic was gone. The doors were closed, literally boarded. Margaret Sanger Square was no more. The street sign had been changed to “Mott Street.” It actually was shut down several months prior. This was my first time personally witnessing its glorious closure.
The reasons for the clinic shutting are many. Unfortunately, one reason for the closing of many of these clinics is that young women are now doing abortions themselves, at home, with pills and do-it-yourself kits. They need not to get on the subway to have an abortionist do the dirty deed for them. (READ MORE: The Nation Must Face the Abortion Pill Legal Monster)
Moreover, a few years ago, even pro-choice liberals finally, at long last, under enormous pressure for their hypocrisy, conceded that Margaret Sanger — racial eugenicist — was not someone they should celebrate, especially during the days of Black Lives Matter and critical race theory embraced by liberals. Thus, they finally, in July 2020, disavowed and lifted Maggie’s sordid name from the clinic. Even then, the doors remained open for “business.” Until last spring, when this den of evil shut down.
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!” states the Book of Revelation 18:2. “She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.” Isaiah 13:20 declares: “Babylon will never rise again.”
Let us hope that Margaret Sanger’s “clinic” on 26 Bleecker Street likewise never rises again.
Image licensed under CC BY 4.0.
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