Amid all the rallies and protests over the removal of the many Confederate statues all around the country, Mayor Bill De Blasio has announced a plan to conduct a review of symbols of hate on New York City property. Connecting with those claims, many are calling for the removal of a statue in New York City that seems to promote the dark history behind reproductive health.

Planned Parenthood was founded on Oct. 16, 1916 by Margaret Sanger. It was created to be the first birth control clinic in the United States. The problem many have in regards to Sanger is that while she was a women’s rights activist, she was also an extremely vocal eugenics activist. Eugenics is defined as “the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).” Many have spoken against Sanger, saying that she believed that African-Americans should be eliminated. In 2011, Herman Cain said, among other things, that Sanger’s original plan for Planned Parenthood was to “help kill black babies before they were brought into this world.”

Today, many women are protesting and calling for the removal of the statue of J. Marion Sims, which sits in front of the New York Academy of Medicine. In a Facebook post speaking about their protest of this statue, The Black Youth Project 100 said the following: “J. Marion Sims was a gynecologist in the 1800s who purchased Black women slaves and used them as guinea pigs for his untested surgical experiments. He repeatedly performed genital surgery on Black women WITHOUT ANESTHESIA because according to him, 'Black women don't feel pain.' Despite his inhumane tests on Black women, Sims was named 'the father of modern gynecology,' and his statue currently stands right outside of the New York Academy of Medicine. #FightSupremacy.” In a video, Seshat Mack, the protest organizer states that we must confront our white supremacist past in order to make progress. “When we say that this country and its institutions are literally built on the bodies of black people, we’re not exaggerating, and we’re not lying.”

While not directly speaking to the statue’s removal, but to the history of reproductive health, is the testing of many birth controls and surgeries on many Latino and African-American women. When hormonal birth control first came out, they were testing it in Massachusetts by telling them they were participating in a fertility study. Catholic physician and gynecologist, John Rock, did not tell his patients it was meant to keep them from getting pregnant and after suffering from many of the side effects (i.e, blood clots, mood changes, and bloating) they dropped from the “study.”

Along with biologist Gregory Pincus, these two gentlemen who helped to raise birth control from the ground, saw that Puerto Rico, who had a problem with overpopulation could use something to keep fertility low. That being said, it meant that there were no restrictions on birth control or abortion and many were forced to have “La operacion,” which was a sterilization procedure. After those in Puerto Rico dropped out, they began to look for women to force to take the pill. They took women locked up in a Massachusetts mental institution and forced them to take it. They also told women at medical schools in Puerto Rico that they had to take the pill or be expelled.

While there is a lot in our history that is dark and there are many that choose to ignore it, we cannot allow for it to be celebrated in society. If we allow for the mistreatment of many to be honored by a statue, then we are allowing for history to repeat itself.