I kind of jumped on this a little late, but better late than never.
In a nutshell, Bill Bennett got in trouble for saying that if all black babies were aborted, the crime rate in the country would be reduced. Now, honestly - would anyone short of the most rabid, absolutist white supremacist be serious in saying a thing like this? I don't think Bennett fits that category. Compulsive gambler, yes. Racist, no.
And lost (or at least buried) in the coverage is that Bennett was citing another's work. The book Freakonomics theorized that part of the drop in crime in the 1990's was due to Roe v. Wade. Abortions were performed on poorer women in a number that was greater than their proportion to society as a whole. Since poorer children are more likely to commit crime because of their economic circumstance, it stands to reason that crimes drop when there's fewer of them.
Further, the coverage ignores the context of the remark. From www.gopusa.com, here's the transcript of the conversation between Bennett and a caller to his radio 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.
Seems to me that Bennett is using the stated fact that, according to the Bureau of Justice statistics, "In 1997, about 9% of the black population in the U.S. was under some form of correctional supervision compared to 2% of the white population and over 1% of other races."
So, in a theoretical sense at least, the statement is correct. Does it make me racist to say this and support what he said as an argument for the point he was trying to make? You know, free speech and all?
I'm sure it abhors Bill Bennett that abortions are performed at all, let alone the eugenics of killing only black babies. Leave that to lefty heroes like Margaret Sanger.
