White House Condemns Bennett's Remark - New York Times

White House Condemns Bennett's Remark - New York TimesOctober 1, 2005
White House Condemns Bennett's Remark
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - President Bush believes that recent comments by William J. Bennett, who served in two Republican administrations, about the abortion of black babies "were not appropriate," a White House spokesman said Friday.

Mr. Bennett, a secretary of education in the Reagan administration and drug czar in the first Bush administration who has become an author and radio host, said in a broadcast this week that "you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." He said that would be a "morally reprehensible thing to do."

Under fire from Democrats and civil rights groups, Mr. Bennett defended his remarks on Thursday as a hypothetical argument that moral questions like the abortion debate could not be linked to pragmatic issues like the crime rate.

"One could just as easily have said you could abort all children and prevent all crime to show the absurdity of the proposition," he said in his broadcast.

Democratic leaders of the House and Senate condemned Mr. Bennett's initial statement and called on the administration to do so as well.