Pro-Life (so they can make us money)

Via August J. Pollak, I saw one of those wingnut arguments that actually has the power to snap your head off its vertebral moorings and send it spinning into the atmosphere:

SAN DIEGO, January 17, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) — A leader of the US’s largest denomination of African-Americans said that America’s Social Security woes are a result of abortion — because baby boomers aborted so many of those who would otherwise be supporting them in their retirement.

“Part of the problem that we're seeing now with Social Security has to do with the fact that 40 to 50 million people who have been killed through abortions have not taken their role as productive citizens,” Church of God in Christ Bishop George McKinney said, as reported by the AP.

What's more, the article cites an op-ed from the Washington Post that, while not specifically linking Social Security to abortion, does link it to the falling birthrate:

There are many reasons birthrates are falling, but Social Security itself is likely a major cause because of the raw deal it creates for parents and the enormous subsidies it provides to non-parents," Phillip Longman explained in his op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday, January 9. “So long as Social Security effectively penalizes people for having the very children the system requires, it contributes to a downward spiral of falling birthrates leading to higher and higher tax rates.

Are you trying to say that the falling birthrate is A DIRECT RESULT of Social Security? That new families doing their family planning think "Hmm, if we don't have a kid, we'll get all that free Social Security money from somebody else's kids!"

That's ludicrous. If anything, families may be having less kids (particularly lower and middle-class families) because of the supreme difficulty, in the supply-side dominated economy of most of the past 30 years, to afford it.

As for the unborn children who would have kept all the seniors and baby boomers fat and happy for the next several decades, it's one of those arguments that is so stupid you get lockjaw trying to refute it. It's like linking veteran's benefits to global warming. It's also an argument that could be made to practically anything, good or bad:

Crime: "If it weren't for abortions, there'd be 50 million more potential murderers and rapists on the loose!"
Iraq: "If it weren't for abortions, we'd have 50 million more potential National Guard recruits! We wouldn't have this shortage!"
Tort Reform: "If it weren't for abortions, we wouldn't have 50 million more potential lawyers filing frivolous lawsuits!"
Abortion: "If it weren't for abortions, we would have 50 million more people in the world arguing against abortions!"
Abortion (the other way): "If it weren't for abortion, we would have 50 million more potential high-risk teenagers about, some of whom might want to get an abortion!"

I used to think that wingnuts could argue anything, but now I'm convinced!

By the way, this George McKinney, who made the comments, endorsed Bush in 04 (no surprise) because of his stands on abortion and marriage. He was recently nominated for Chaplain of the US Senate, according to his bio. The Church of God in Christ apparently has 5.5 million members. He also said this:

Bishop George McKinney, General Board member of Church of God in Christ, in A-P interview McKinney says abortion is a modern 'holocaust.'

It makes it hard to be religiously tolerant, doesn't it?