Laurie and Debbie say:

Zuzu at Feministe picks up on a Washington Post story about how a panel of the Missouri legislature (and specifically only the Republicans on that panel) is pinning the nation’s current immigration troubles on abortion.

See, all those aborted babies make a labor shortage. And so the evil Mexicans come pouring in over the border. If we had good American workers, we wouldn’t have this problem, say the Republicans on the panel.

Zuzu makes excellent points about how this is woman-blaming, and also about how the Post accepts the Missouri legislators’ numbers without question. We want to expand a little:

What the panel is calling for is a large cohort of women, all of whom will cheerfully have lots of children, none of whom will get a real education, and none of whom will have any objection to working long hours for less than minimum wage with no benefits. (Remember, these same legislators are almost certainly opposed to raising the minimum wage or extending to jobs that are not currently covered.)

This is nothing new. Providing women with work, income, contraception, and education reduces the birth rate and raises the standard of living. So if you want lots of local cheap labor, with no language barriers and no cultural differences, keep your women barefoot, pregnant, and hopeless. Follow this link (which Zuzu also references) for horrifyingly detailed how-to directions.

abortion, immigration, illegal immigration, labor, minimum wage, welfare, feminism, Body Impolitic