Putting those fetuses to work

Disgraced former CongressmanTom DeLay tells college Republicans that it’s not NAFTA, not economic inequality, not years of failing policies that have brought us to our current immigration crisis. Nope, it’s abortion rights. (Forward to the 3:45 minute-mark on this video to watch DeLay say this with a straight face.)

If you believe abortion, if you believe that doesn’t affect you… I contend it affects you in immigration. If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 40 years, we wouldn’t need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today. Think about it.

Right! If all those white women hadn’t had abortions, we’d have plenty of good, upstanding white folks to fill the jobs the scary brown people do now!
Seems like a crazy, fringe perspective, no? All sorts of places are linking to DeLay’s comments as if this is news. But this has been a relatively popular talking point of the radical conservative, forced-pregnancy movement for quite awhile. The “abortion-causes-illegal-immigration” view has even been endorsed by Republicans in the Missouri state legislature:

“Suggestions for how to stop illegal hiring varied without any simple solution,” the report states. “The lack of traditional work ethic, combined with the effects of 30 years of abortion and expanding liberal social welfare policies have produced a shortage of workers and a lack of incentive for those who can work.”

That’s right. They use the specter of illegal immigration to justify suggesting the state roll back its reproductive rights and social welfare programs. I only wish Tom DeLay were the only one spouting this crap.