Bennett: Reduce Crime by Aborting all Black Children

Last Thursday, former Republican secretary of education William J. Bennett declared on a radio program that aborting all unborn black children will reduce crime. Democratic Congressional leaders quickly attacked him for making such a ridiculous statement. Bennett rebuked them, saying their attacks towards him were "ridiculous, stupid, totally without merit". He also said:

"I was pointing out that abortion should not be opposed for economic reasons...Immoral policies are wrong because they are wrong, not because of an economic calculation. One could just as easily have said you could abort all children and prevent all crime, to show the absurdity of the proposition."

Bennett was referring to an argument about whether abortions contributed to lowering the crime rate made by Steven D. Levitt, author of "Freakonomics". Bennett is making his stance on his statement clear; he was being hypothetical. Why he would even bother saying such a ludicrous thing in the first place still remains a mystery.

This controversial statement can be compared to Dr. Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal, made in 1729. Swift, author of the classic satirical novel "Gullivers Travels", wrote that the answer to the peasants of Ireland's starvation at the time was to eat their infants. His "modest proposal" was in fact a satire to amuse the upper class, but some people took his ironic essay seriously and criticized him for his "bad taste".