Roe Lawyer to Bill Clinton: Don't Hate Poverty, Hate the Poor!

I don't think you are going to go very far in reforming the country until we have a better educated, healthier, wealthier population...

You can start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country. No, I'm not advocating some sort of mass extinction of these unfortunate people. Crime, drugs and disease are already doing that. The problem is that their numbers are not only replaced but increased by the birth of millions of babies to people who can't afford to have babies.

There, I've said it. It's what we all know is true, but we only whisper it, because as liberals who believe in individual rights, we view any program which might treat the disadvantaged differently as discriminatory, mean-spirited and...well...so Republican.

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[G]overnment is also going to have to provide vasectomies, tubal ligations and abortions. . . . There have been about 30 million abortions in this country since Roe v. Wade. Think of all the poverty, crime and misery. . . and then add 30 million unwanted babies to the scenario. We lost a lot of ground during the Reagan-Bush religious orgy. We don’t have a lot of time left.

You Could Do it, Mr. President-To-Be. You are articulate and you've already alienated the religious right with your positions on abortion and homosexuals. The middle-class taxpayer will go along with this plan because it will mean fewer dollars for welfare. The retirees will also go along because poor people contribute very little to Social Security.

And the poor? Well, maybe if we didn't have to spend so much on problems like low birth weight babies and trying to educate children who come to school hungry, we might have some money to help lift the ones already born, out of their plight.

The biblical exhortation to "be fruitful and multiply" was directed toward a small tribe, surrounded by enemies. We are long past that. Our survival depends upon our developing a population where everyone contributes. We don't need more cannon fodder. We don't need more parishioners. We don't need more cheap labor. We don't need more poor babies.

-Ron Weddington, Co-Counsel in Roe v. Wade,
Letter to Bill Clinton Jan. 9, 1992

via Ramesh Ponnuru via Relapsed Catholic

By way of cross-reference, Dale Price commented on this hollow man's 2003 letter to the New York Times.

Such sentiments were once voiced openly, and it is a sign of improvement that such views are now whispered. But such whispers betoken the utter moral corruption of the Democratic Party. I would not be surprised to find such sentiments among the fiscal conservatives of the GOP either.