WASHINGTON — William Bennett yesterday defended comments he made on his "Morning in America" radio talk show suggesting that aborting black children would reduce crime, saying he was merely musing about a hypothetical argument and he made plain to listeners he was not stating his own position.

Bennett is under fire for saying Wednesday that "you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." He followed this by adding that such a thing would be "an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do."

Yesterday, he refused to apologize and released a statement saying critics unfairly pulled his comment out of context: "A thought experiment about public policy, on national radio, should not have received the condemnations it has."

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called on him to apologize.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "The president believes the comments were not appropriate."

Civil-rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton said on CNN that Bennett's comments were "blatantly racist. ... [Bennett] stated as a fact that if you did this, it would in fact lower the crime rate, which clearly is him making blacks and crime synonymous."

Material from Reuters is included in this report.