Conservatives, Immigration And Abortion (conservative-to-conservative article)

[pampango]

http://www.valueexpectations.com/blogs/conservatives-immigration-and-abortion05242010

If immigration is incompatible with the welfare state, then so must be efforts to make abortion illegal.

To reduce this to the absurd, imagine the National Basketball Association if immigration barriers kept Steve Nash (Canada), Tony Parker (France) and Dirk Nowitski (Germany) from plying their trade in the world's foremost basketball league. Not only would all three suffer reduced skills for not playing with the best, the league's health would be reduced thanks to American-born players not facing the world's best players on a daily basis. And NBA fans would get a lower-quality product in the bargain.

Still, there's a compelling, albeit contradictory, argument frequently made against open borders to immigration by well-intentioned conservatives in the United States. They generally argue that open immigration is not compatible with a welfare state offering numerous government services that are often accessed by non-U.S. citizens, and they add that our culture is debased when there are no limits to human inflows.

Interesting arguments for sure, but they mistake the problem. In fact, we don't have an immigration problem of the ambitious coming to America as much as the government offers too many services to too many people irrespective of country origin. But whatever the merits or demerits of the stance on immigration taken by some conservatives, it's fair to argue that their immigration views are contradicted by their stance on abortion. If immigration isn't compatible with the welfare state, then so must be efforts to make abortion illegal.

Indeed, as 19th century political economist John Stuart Mill long ago observed, while "everyone has a right to live ... no one has a right to bring creatures into this life, to be supported by other people." Some conservatives don't like when immigrants reach this country only to heavily access government services, but if so, they might clarify how this is different than irresponsible parents producing children whose upbringing they can't support. Considering the cultural argument so often made by conservatives, would we rather have more children of the indolent contributing to our cultural mix as opposed to foreigners who've risked their lives in search of a better one? Which demographic contributes more to the culture of self-reliance that so many conservatives hold dear?

Mill ultimately made the point that if governments are charged with guaranteeing a certain living wage, then theoretically they also should be able to control how many people are born. A scary thought on its best day, but if conservatives buy into the view that governments should regulate human flows with an eye on costs, then one logical conclusion is that governments should similarly regulate who can and cannot be born, also with an eye on costs foisted on the taxpayer. ... rather than regulate immigration or birth, we should make the U.S. a place where individuals of all stripes can freely prosper so long as they don't migrate or procreate with an eye on living off of others. Until then, it should at least be acknowledged that the conservative argument against immigration, while not lacking merit, is somewhat contradicted by similar stridency against abortion.
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Aside from the required conservative reference to our "welfare state offering numerous government services", which makes you wonder about the sanity of anyone who thinks that our level of "government services" compares well with any other industrialized country in the world, this conservative author takes aim at what he sees as an inconsistency in those anti-abortion right wingers who are also anti-immigration. Of course, his answer is to reduce government services to everyone, immigrant and native alike - hardly a shocking proposal coming from a conservative.

I wonder what the response of the anti-abortion crowd will be to his "cultural argument" that hard-working foreign immigrants are more consistent with the alleged conservative "culture of self-reliance" than are "irresponsible parents producing children whose upbringing they can't support". I thought of the likelihood that he was missing the obvious - that conservatives can be anti-immigration because they are racists, but then I was not sure that "irresponsible parents producing children whose upbringing they can't support" was not code for minorities in America.