Bob Schaffer came under heavy fire from two anti-abortion groups, Colorado Right to Life and American Right to Life Action, this past April after alegations that he brushed aside evidence of extensive human rights abuses (including forced abortions) taking place in sweatships in the Mariana Islands.
Schaffer has said he found largely satisfactory conditions for factory workers when he visited the islands on the 1999 trip paid for by the California-based Traditional Values Coalition. The organization, which bills itself as "the largest nondenominational, grassroots church lobby in America," often worked as the political arm of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose clients included garment manufacturers in the Marianas.
Factory workers were often smiling during his visit, Schaffer has said. And in a recent interview with The Denver Post, Schaffer said the guest-worker system in the islands — a territory of the United States — could serve as a "model" for immigration policy on the mainland.
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Schaffer's appraisal of the Marianas Islands contrasts with a litany of government reports, investigations by human-rights groups and findings by journalists in the 1990s that portrayed near-slavery conditions where, in addition to forced abortion, allegations of child prostitution and the prohibition of religious activities were common.
I think that the ad presents a fairly salient message, and does an effective job of hitting Bob in a number of sensitive areas: both the general vulerability of the GOP on issues of the economy, as well as the GOP's gradually increasing alienation from the faith based community. My sense is that this controversy has fallen fom most Coloradan's political consciousness, and its about time they be reminded of it
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