>Doug Henwood said on 9/17/99 10:21 PM
>
> > Harvard economist Robert Barro writes: "Apparently
> >abortion particularly weeded out the children who would have been
> >likely to follow criminal careers." Coming soon: Roundup for urban
> >applications?
>
>Thank you, Doug! Children of women who would have opted for abortion
>would otherwise have been unwanted children resented by their mother and
>experiencing the same realities that caused her to want to terminate in
>the first place. I'd guess that they'd be in a position to participate in
>economic crime.
I really don't know what you're saying here, but just to make myself perfectly clear (as that great liberal Nixon used to say), I find Barro's phrasing repellent, and a sign that the eugenic impulse is quite alive in the U.S. elite. Human beings are not weeds. I'm all for free abortion and contraception - but to promote the freedom of women, not as a method of "improving" the population.
Doug