Bill Bennett's racist response to a Pro-life Meme

Former Reagan Administration Secretary of Education and right-wing King of Virtue Bill Bennett rebuked the popular anti-choice Meme that legalized abortion has lead to a looming crisis in social security during today's Morning in America show

CALLER: I noticed the national media, you know, they talk a lot about the loss of revenue, or the inability of the government to fund Social Security, and I was curious, and I've read articles in recent months here, that the abortions that have happened since Roe v. Wade, the lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30-something years, could fund Social Security as we know it today. And the media just doesn't -- never touches this at all.

BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens?

CALLER: Assuming that they are. Even if only a portion of them were, it would be an enormous amount of revenue.

BENNETT: Maybe, maybe, but we don't know what the costs would be, too. I think as -- abortion disproportionately occur among single women? No.

CALLER: I don't know the exact statistics, but quite a bit are, yeah.

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that 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. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky. [Media Matters]

In FREAKONOMICS the authors argue the [non race-based] point that the majority of aborted embryos/fetuses would be raised by their single, poor mothers and that children raised in conditions of poverty & welfare are more likely to become criminals.

One point that wasn't specifically made by the above is that the more children raised by poor single mothers would lead to higher costs from welfare (regardless of race/ethnicity) and, possibly, more people relying on government financial support for a longer period of time than contributing to the financing of government programs via payment of taxes.

via Pam

Tags:abortion;contraception;health insurance; social security; crime; racism

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