As The Denver Post reports:
An anti-abortion group is blasting Bob Schaffer, Republican candidate for a Colorado U.S. Senate seat, over his defense of human rights conditions in the Northern Mariana islands, an American territory where allegations that factory workers must undergo forced abortions are common.Colorado Right to Life accused Schaffer of closing his eyes to reports from Chinese workers on the islands about forced abortions.
“The pro-life movement will no longer give a pass to candidates like Bob Schaffer who look the other way when Chinese women are forced to abort their children,” said Steve Curtis, spokesman for the group and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.
“At best Schaffer was negligent investigating coerced abortion in the Mariana Islands,” he said. “Worse, he has voted for permanent normal trade relations with China, rewarding the regime that forces women to abort their children.”
Schaffer, who visited the Marianas in 1999 while in Congress, said allegations of forced abortions were among the things he looked into on that trip.
“I absolutely did not look the other way on this issue,” Schaffer said, saying he interviewed “dozens” of workers and met with local religious leaders about the topic.
A 1998 report by the U.S. Office of Insular Affairs found squalid living conditions for foreign workers in the Marianas.
A statement given to investigators from a Chinese woman showed what happened to workers who got pregnant.
“According to Miss Y, if the company found out a worker became pregnant, they would fire her and return her to China where she would be ‘forced to have an abortion.’ Knowing this, workers who became pregnant either tried to self abort or find someone in Saipan to perform the abortion. Some women ran away and hid so they didn’t have to have an abortion.”
“I found the reports credible,” Schaffer said. “I’ve not seen them refuted.”
Schaffer said during his visit he tried to determine how often abortions occurred.
“In five days, I did not observe a forced abortion or meet anybody who had any knowledge of them,” he said, adding that no subsequent examples were ever brought to him.
You’ve got to love that last quote: “I did not observe a forced abortion.” Really, Bob? Nobody did a forced abortion in front of you? Well, then, if you didn’t see it with your own eyes, it must not have happened, then. This response is Schaffer’s weakest yet, probably because his own conservative base is now the one leveling the hard questions.
It was only a matter of time before social conservatives took notice of the Schaffer/Abramoff scandal’s obvious and troubling implications for them. If anything, continued silence on the matter would have opened groups like Colorado Right to Life to accusations of turning a partisan blind eye on an issue that couldn’t be more central to their mandate.
Looks like the Dick Wadhams strategy of cornering uninformed reporters into bogus whitewashes of this hugely damaging story…just got a lot more complicated.
for Sweatshop Schaffer. The base is looking a little wobbly.
This is how much right wing pols really care about those social issues they use to get you to vote for them and against your own economic interests.
The Republican party has become the party devoted first, foremost and pretty much ONLY to the care, feeding and defense of the corporations and the corporate elite. They have been enjoying a good run by giving lip service to your issues and getting your votes but that’s the beginning and end of their “Values” concerns. Profit is their only value.
Between Mammon and the God of Abrabram, the GOP picks Mammon every time.
Schaffer is lying about not meeting with anyone who had knowledge of forced abortions. He said he met with the archdiocese, but the archdiocese was one of the groups to testify before the congress about forced arbortions. This means Schaffer did not find the Catholic Church credible on the issue of life.
on another note, he found this credible. What makes this ok?
source that block quote?
It is way too common for an interest group to, at most, just shut up about a candidate in the party they are tied to who violates their core beliefs.
Kudos to Colorado Right to Life for holding true to their beliefs over what is politically expedient. I’ll never support them, but I do respect them for this.
“right to life” groups who also look the other way and support Schaffer even in light of this?
Should have mentioned their honorable stand in my comment.
It took the Right To Life to get this back to the real issue at hand: Bob Schaffer’s direct participation in the whitewashing of human rights abuses.
I don’t think that part is going to go over so well either.
in the Marianas, but recommending it as a model for U.S. immigration policies.
Has he renounced his earlier statement yet? Does he still think it’s a good idea to bring these policies to the mainland?
I made both of those points at my blog this morning. RTL is at least consistent. I don’t agree with them but intellectual consistency should be applauded in political debate.
Hopefully the press will now refocus back on the actual issue – Sweatshop Schaffer’s endorsement of the NM model for US immigration policy.
It’s the slavery stupid!
Couldn’t have said it better. He just dosen’t get it.
were making himself widely available to the press … we could ask him how his favored Marianas Island guestworker program compares with the state House bill on temporary guest workers. Would he side with Doug Bruce? State voters deserve to know.
but I found the second one, written by a former resident of Saipan, of interest here:
http://blogs.denverpost.com/el…
(The other two letters are hoots: the writer of the first, a Schaffer supporter, references the congressman’s trip to “Guam,” rather than Saipan; the author of the third letter admits to not living in Colorado long, but feels qualified to call Schaffer “honest.”)
It’s a great letter, from a Carrie Ann Lucas of Denver, who says she lived on Saipan before Schaffer’s visit. Another point she makes:
But go ahead and read the whole letter (it’s the second of three in the link provided by Canines; all three appeared in the Sunday Perspective section.)
The Post article also includes a look at how sweatshop apologists fare with voters:
Another ad that should give Schaffer chills. See post above about how well Reed fared in what should have been prime territory.
this is an ad from Reed’s REPUBLICAN challenger in the Georgia primary.
The Abramoff baggage has already spawned anti-abortion groups (his base) to denounce Sweatshop Schaffer, and there will be more groups who reject Schaffer’s endorsement of Abramoff’s Sweatshops for obvious human rights violations and possible corruption coordination.
Just remember, this is only the first real issue to be highlighted in this campaign. We have LOTS of issues to discuss, and Bob Schaffer will continue to show Colorado that he’s still more extreme than Dick Cheney.
every time he opens his mouth. Something stupid always seems to fall out. “I did not observe a forced abortion or meet anybody who had any knowledge of them.” I mean, c’mon. This guy is obviously not made for prime time. More hilarity to come, I am sure.
It just defies common logic. It’s like saying I went to London last week and didn’t ever see the London Bridge, so therefore the London Bridge dosen’t exist. C’mon Bob.
you’re looking for the London Bridge brought from London to Lake Havasu City, AZ, in the early 1970′s.
Has anyone seen the report that one might expect should have been done by a sitting congress person going on a “fact finding mission” to a commonwealth accused of human rights abuses?