Bad Reasoning

A report issued recently by the Missouri House’s Special Committee on Immigration Reform puts the blame for illegal immigration on social welfare programs and decades of abortion. That theory, which was inserted into the document by a legislator, argues that the jobs now filled by immigrants would have been filled by Americans had abortion not been legal here.

That is, as I learned early on in school, what logicians call “an unsupported conclusion.” The report’s silliness is a disservice to several important — and unrelated — public discussions.