Republican Leadership Tolerating Forced Abortions Under U.S. Flag

Former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay has a long history in the politics of the Commonwealth of the North Mariana Islands. These Islands, under the flag of the United States, have numerous clothing factories staffed by Asian guest workers (you know, like in Bush's plan for guest workers instead of immigrants) who are paid below the U.S. minimum wage.

For years, reports have depicted these women's lives as closer to slavery than freedom.

Wal-Mart and other major U.S. retailers are currently facing a multi-billion dollar lawsuit filed on behalf of 50,000 female workers from China, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Thailand. These women allege that they were lured to Saipan with the promise of good jobs and a good life and arrived to find prison-like conditions were factories and living spaces were surrounded by barbed wire and guards.

The women allege that they were forced to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in unsanitary factories, were not compensated for overtime, and were paid very poorly. Some of the women were also asked to sign contracts that forbade them to date or marry or otherwise risk pregnancy. There are also allegations of forced abortions.

You would think reports of forced abortions would make Tom DeLay and the President call for an investigation. After all, aren't the Republicans interested in stopping the killing of the unborn?

Or are they just greedy liars who'll say anything to win elections?


Tom DeLay, whose involvement with CNMI businesses ran through Jack Abramoff and Seattle law firm Preston Gates, overlooked such practices, never bothering to investigate them. According to The American Prospect:

Many observers have looked at Saipan and seen ugly manufacturing sweatshops and sleazy bars where girls as young as 14 are forced into prostitution. But not DeLay. To DeLay, Saipan was an inspiration, not an embarrassment. Indeed, the United States, DeLay told the Houston Chronicle in 1998, ought to create a mainland guest-worker program just like the one Saipan offered Chinese citizens, where “particular companies can bring Mexican workers in” and pay them “whatever the market will bear.” The Saipan solution, he added, was “a shining example of a free-market success.”

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