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"ABORT BLACK BABIES, REDUCE CRIME," SAYS BENNETT, REPUBLICAN |
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by Willis Rodney Bennett's "thought experiment": One less potential criminal to have to worry about. Speaking on his conservative radio show Morning in America on Friday, William Bennett, education secretary under Ronald Reagan, drugs czar under the first George Bush, and author of "Teaching Children Moral Clarity" proposed his version of a 'pre-emptive strike against crime': "If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose; you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." This was meant purely as a "hypothetical proposition," Bennett added. Like an earlier suggestion to assassinate disagreeable foreign heads of state, particularly President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, which was proposed by fellow right-wing idealogue Pat Robertson, the White House has responded mildly to the latest race-laden controversy. "The President believes the comments were not appropriate," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said on Friday. "They weren't disgusting comments, atrocious comments, outrageous, insane, completely absurd or even all that terrible," McClellan continued. "It was simply not appropriate and extremely regrettable that such thinking will inevitably divide our supporter base along pro-life lines and possibly hinder our efforts to raise pre-2008 corporate campaign contributions. Also, gosh darn, that's not a very nice thing to say out loud!" The Rev. Al Sharpton said of Bennett, "He's a man who thinks black and crime are synonymous. I personally believe that if we aborted only Mexican babies in America, the crime rate would plummet dramatically over the next ten to twenty-five years." Alberto Gonzalez, the first Mexican-American Attorney General of the United States and a staunch Republican ally, responds that Mexican babies are not the problem, "What this country really needs is to abort all Middle-eastern fetuses before they become anthrax-mailing airplane-hijacking terrorists and subway bombers. Planned Parenthood of Baghdad, or something along those lines." "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" links the drop in crime to a drop in the number of children born into poverty after Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion. But authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner did not assume that those aborted fetuses would have been black. "Race is not in any way central to our arguments about abortion and crime." At a Halliburton-sponsored fundraiser in Vermont, Vice President Dick Cheney attempted to orient questions back to an on-message Republican platform. "Obviously I believe abortion is wrong, and I think Bennett does too. Who has the right to kill a baby? [applause] But we don't think hard-working American taxpayers should be subsidizing a bunch of pregnant ghetto freeloaders on our social welfare programs either, so the solution is to outlaw abortion and force young, single mothers living in poverty who may or may not have drug addictions to raise their unwanted children with the least amount of welfare assistance possible and no birth control options available because abstinence is the only option, and let everyone buy lots of guns without firearm regulations while sending these unwanted kids to underfunded public schools, then we will spend the money we have withheld from poor families, abortion centers and education programs to invade foreign nations --preferably those with lots of oil, and this a better way to control crime." [applause] "It was just a hypothetical thought experiment!" says William Bennett, shocked by the unprecedented attention his morning talk show comments have received. "What I do on our show is talk about things that people are thinking ... we don't hesitate to talk about things that are touchy. I'm sorry if people are hurt, I really am. But we can't say this is an area of American life and public policy that we're not allowed to talk about - race and crime." The story as represented above is written as a satire or parody. It is fictitious. |