A Colorado Community Newspapers article by staff writer Robyn Lydick uncritically repeated the baseless claim of Douglas County Republican Party official Rick Murray at a GOP event that "[s]ince Roe v. Wade we have flushed 48 million babies down the toilet. So we have these jobs filled with illegal immigrants. Drawn your own conclusions." Murray's statement echoed a baseless claim, as noted by Media Matters for America, made by other conservatives such as convicted Watergate felon and Prison Fellowship Ministries founder Charles W. Colson.

The article, published on May 31 in the Highlands Ranch Herald and on June 7 in the Castle Rock News-Press and Douglas County News-Press, reported that “organizer Rick Murray commented that illegal immigration was a result of legalizing abortions.” It further noted that Murray made the comments at the conclusion of a May 25 GOP breakfast discussion about immigration reform, at which state Sen. Ted Harvey (Highlands Ranch) and state Rep. Frank McNulty (Highlands Ranch) spoke. As the article reported:

At the closing of the meeting, organizer Rick Murray commented that illegal immigration was a result of legalizing abortions.

“Since Roe v. Wade we have flushed 48 million babies down the toilet,” Murray said. “So we have these jobs filled with illegal immigrants. Draw your own conclusions.”

Lydick did not report whether Murray was asked to substantiate his assertion and did not provide a response from abortion-rights advocates about the remark. Moreover, the article did not mention reaction to Murray's assertion from either of the two Colorado legislators who were present.

As Media Matters noted, during the April 11, 2006, broadcast of his daily BreakPoint radio commentary, Colson claimed that legalized abortion created a labor shortage, forcing the United States to solicit undocumented workers from other countries to fill jobs that might have otherwise been occupied by the “40 million sacrificed since 1973,” when the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion. Additionally, an August 24, 2005, RenewAmerica website editorial by Nathan Tabor, a former congressional candidate in North Carolina, baselessly claimed, “Legal Abortion in America is at least partially to blame for the human flood of Illegal Immigration streaming daily across our borders. Some will immediately dismiss this suggested linkage as being too far-fetched and preposterous.”

Further, several Republicans in the Missouri General Assembly drew criticism when, as a November 13, 2006, Associated Press article reported, they “claim[ed] in a new report on illegal immigration that abortion is partly to blame because it is causing a shortage of American workers.” As the AP noted:

The report from the state House Special Committee on Immigration Reform also claims “liberal social welfare policies” have discouraged Americans from working and encouraged immigrants to cross the border illegally.

The statements about abortion, welfare policies and a recommendation to abolish income taxes in favor of sales taxes were inserted into the immigration report by the committee chairman, Rep. Ed Emery.

All six Democrats on the panel refused to sign the report. Some of them called the abortion assertion ridiculous and embarrassing.

A press release issued by NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri questioning “the actuarial certitude of the [Missouri House] Special Committee” noted that the panel had derided the “work ethic” of those in need of social services and had concluded that “30 years of abortion and the expanding liberal social welfare policies have produced a shortage of workers”:

We question the actuarial certitude of the Special Committee, but more than that, must express our entire contempt for the implicit assumption that women's reproductive capacity is to be tethered to the creation of “employable workers in labor-intensive trades such as agricultural, food and hospitality services, and certain areas of construction.” This sort of thinking is the province of dystopian fiction, not the province of a legislative body that theoretically represents women.

The Special Committee lamented the lack of a “work ethic” and “welfare dependency” and concluded that “30 years of abortion and the expanding liberal social welfare policies have produced a shortage of workers...” Apparently, the Special Committee has concluded that poor people on public assistance who were not aborted (possibly because there is no federal or state funding for poor women's abortions) are too lazy to work. Presumably, the aborted fetuses would all have been industrious engines of commerce. The Special Committee and its pro-life contingent need reminding that women's function is not to create drones for the state and that all children have a right to be wanted by their parents.

From the Colorado Community Newspapers article “Harvey blasts Bush policies,” by staff writer Robyn Lydick:

Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, and Rep. Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, spoke at a Republican breakfast May 25.

McNulty gave a quick rundown of his five bills.

Harvey, however, took the opportunity to hold forth on John McCain, sex education, unions and a proposed type of visa for immigrants, before blasting President George W. Bush for his policies regarding undocumented immigration.

[...]

At the closing of the meeting, organizer Rick Murray commented that illegal immigration was a result of legalizing abortions.

“Since Roe v. Wade we have flushed 48 million babies down the toilet,” Murray said. “So we have these jobs filled with illegal immigrants. Draw your own conclusions.”