# Is there a link between legalized abortion and lower crime? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 28, 2005, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290 "2005-06-28T23:47:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/1 "2005-06-28T23:47:06Z")
I’ve been reading the book [Freakonomics](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006073132X/qid=1120002998/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_ur_1/103-9295317-0276655?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) and while I’m not sure that I agree with all of (statistician) Levitt’s conclusions, they are most definitely interesting. One of his most controversial is this (summarizing rather than quoting): Statisticians and other experts predicted a huge serge in the violent crime rate beginning in the mid 1990s based upon past trends and the population explosion. Not only did the crime rate not go up significantly, it actually **DE** creased significantly (particularly among teens and in some other demographics). Most experts attributed this decline to economic prosperity and slightly higher per-capita educational attainment. Levitt attributes it to Roe v. Wade in an argument that, simply put, goes like this: -The women most likely to have abortions are unwed low-income women who, obviously, do not want the child they are carrying -The children most likely to become criminals are those born to unwed, low-income women who do not want the child in the first place With the legalization of abortion, therefore, the ranks of the “most likely to become violent criminals” class were decimated, thus inspiring a decrease in crime. (Before attacking the argument as “reeks of eugenics”, etc., please remember- it’s not _my_ argument.) Do you believe that this thesis has any validity? Why or why not? ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/2 "2005-06-29T15:46:11Z")
It seems plausible. As a pro-choice guy, I’m strongly tempted to jump on Levitt’s bandwagon. However, it wouldn’t be hard to tie the crime-down trend to other trends in the same time period. The rise in ownership of home computers, for example, coincides. The rise in prison populations happened in the same time period, and some would say keeping criminals in concrete boxes for longer sentences prevents them from committing more crimes. I’m not really disputing Levitt, but his chain of logic is not ironclad. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/3 "2005-06-29T15:49:01Z")
It has validity. The first study suggesting this conclusion was released in 2000, if I recall correctly, and caused fierce controversy, but no flaws could be found in the research. However, in considering it we should think less about whether the women most likely to get an abortion are poor and unwed, and more just about the psychology of it. If aboriton is legal and readily available, then the only people having children are those who want children, and presumably the vast majority of those people are willing and able to provide loving homes and meet basic needs for those children. When abortion rights are denied, then you have a large number of babies born to people who really don’t want to have children. And if the parent or parents don’t want a child they’re obviously less likely to devote the amount of energy and effort towards raising a child that’s necessary. Abuse and neglect will be more common. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/4 "2005-06-29T16:04:07Z")
Possible, I suppose. Not sure what numbers he has, so can’t really say much more. Does he have any figures on what the common parental situation of most criminals is? (I.e. 80% of all criminals were born to single mothers or such?) ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/5 "2005-06-29T16:59:15Z")
I do not know, but the studies citing this have received praise from those who review them. It seems likely. ---
**Author:** ![Airblairxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Airblairxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airblairxxx)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/6 "2005-06-29T18:06:15Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > However, it wouldn’t be hard to tie the crime-down trend to other trends in the same time period. The rise in ownership of home computers, for example, coincides. The rise in prison populations happened in the same time period, and some would say keeping criminals in concrete boxes for longer sentences prevents them from committing more crimes. > > I’m not really disputing Levitt, but his chain of logic is not ironclad. Well, I have read the book, although I don’t have it in front of me. Basically, the authors stated that the nationwide crime rate began dropping around 1991, which was 18 years after _Roe vs Wade_. That decision essentially made abortion available to poor women nationwide–the middle and upper classes could more easily procure one, either illegally or by traveling to jurisdictions where it was legal. Those poor women were more likely to be single mothers; poverty and single parents have long been markers for families that spawn potential criminals. The authors hypothesized that since age 18 was around the time where a criminal typically begins to commit major crimes, _Roe vs Wade_ had the unintentioned effect of taking millions of criminals off the street before they were born. The book did touch on a number of different hypotheses that were created to explain this perplexing drop in the nationwide crime rate. Among those was the rise in the prisoner population because of increased prison terms. Damn if I can remember exactly what it said, I think it was something along the lines that yes, increased sentences did help keep criminals in prison and thus off the street. However, it didn’t view this as the main reason for the drop in crime. It cited the five states where abortion was widely legal for at least 2 years before Roe vs Wade in 1973–those states were California, New York, Washington . . . I think Alaska and Hawaii? Anyway, those states saw their crime rates begin to drop two years before the same phenomenon began to spread nationwide, and in approximately the same proportions. Pretty hair-raising stuff, and pretty convincing. And while the authors didn’t bring up the home computer thesis, it seems to me that the crime rate began to drop too early for the rise in home computers. Especially when you consider that the kinds of households that were likely to spawn a criminal–single-parent, low-income–are the kinds of households where it was pretty unlikely to find a computer in 1991. ( **Sage Rat** : the book doesn’t use figures or charts, which is probably why it’s on the bestseller list. The book is extensively footnoted, however. And the assumptions it uses regarding typical family situations of the criminal class are commonly accepted and not groundbreaking.) What I find fascinating is that both anti-abortion and pro-choice advocates are both repelled by this conclusion. The anti-abortion types don’t want to hear of any societal good that comes of abortion, and the pro-choice side wants the issue discussed only in terms of letting the decision whether to have an abortion rest solely with the pregnant woman. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/7 "2005-06-29T18:22:47Z")
I also don’t have the book in front of me, but there was similar correlation in other countries that legalized abortion. correlation is not causation, but stack a few on top of each other an the argument gets convincing. By the way, it isn’t too convincing in Freakonomics - which is a popcorn book. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/8 "2005-06-29T19:00:51Z")
There’s a few problems with this theory that are highlighted in [this](http://members.aol.com/steveslr/charen.htm) article. Allow me to summarize: > [@](#): > > They tested this hypothesis by examining crime rates in the years after Roe vs. Wade became law. Eighteen years after Roe, they conclude, crime began to drop. Moreover, in the five states that legalized abortion in 1970, three years before Roe, crime rates began to fall three years earlier. Levitt and Donohue further found that those states that had high abortion rates in the mid-1970s experienced greater decreases in crime in the 1990s than states that had low abortion rates in the 1970s. > > Not so fast, says Sailer, businessman, gadfly and intellectual jack-of-all-trades. If Levitt and Donohue are correct, the kids who managed to get born despite legalized abortion should have been more law-abiding than previous generations. Instead, they launched the greatest youth crime spree in American history. According to FBI statistics, the murder rate for 1993’s crop of 14- to 17-year-olds (who were born in the freely available abortion years of 1975 to 1979) was 3.6 times that of the children born between 1966 and 1970 (pre-Roe). > > If abortion reduces crime, Sailer continues, then the lower crime rates should have shown up first among the youngest (the wanted babies). But instead, the crime rate drop began among those ages 35 to 49. > > The 800-pound gorilla that Levitt and Donohue ignore, Sailer insists, is the crack epidemic that transformed urban neighborhoods in the 1980s. > > Looking at black males born between 1975 and 1979, Sailer notes that their youth murder rate grew 5.1 times. And although black women have abortions at three times the rate of white women, the black juvenile murder rate grew relative to the white rate, from five times worse in 1984 to 11 times worse in 1993. [Here’s](http://www.amconmag.com/2005_05_09/feature.html) another artiucle pointing out someo flaws in the argument. > [@](#): > > Although Levitt’s research has been praised by normally hardheaded gentlemen such as George Will and Robert Samuelson, few have probed its statistical complexities. Overall crime-trend data are frequently questionable. For example, the city of Atlanta long understated crime to attract the 1996 Olympics. The FBI’s homicide statistics, however, are more trustworthy because, as Arthur Miller might have said, attention must be paid to a dead body with a hole in it. > > According to Levitt’s logic, murder should have declined first among the youngest and last among the oldest. Did it? Unfortunately for Levitt, the opposite is true. The murder rate for Americans age 25 and over started falling way back in 1981 (when the youngest person in this cohort was born in 1956) and fell fairly steadily for two decades. Indeed, in contrast to his theory about post-Roe individuals being especially law-abiding, the adult murder rate has only begun to creep back up now that people born after Roe have begun to make up a noticeable fraction of those 25 and up. From 1999 through 2002 (the latest year available, when a 25-year-old would have been born four years after Roe), the murder rate among 25- to 34-year-olds has risen 17 percent, while continuing to drop among the under-25s. > > But the acid test of Levitt’s theory is this: did the first New, Improved Generation culled by legalized abortion actually grow up to be more lawful teenagers than the last generation born before legalization? Hardly. Instead, the first cohort to survive legalized abortion went on the worst youth murder spree in American history. > > Abortion became legal in 1970 in California, New York, and three smaller states. Let’s compare the murder rate of 14- to 17-year-olds in 1983 (who were born in the last pre-legalization years of 1965-1969) with that of 14- to 17-year-olds a decade later in 1993 (who were born in the high-abortion years of 1975-1979). Was this post-Roe cohort better behaved than their pre-legalization elders? Not exactly. Their murder rate was 3.1 times worse. > Their murder rate was 3.1 times worse. The second article really craps all over this theory. In conclusion, the drop in crime was related to drugs (specifically crack). The is little reliable statistical data to suggest that abortion had anything to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/9 "2005-06-29T19:15:53Z")
How’s that again? Crack reduced crime? Golly, that’s some leap. ---
**Author:** ![Airblairxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Airblairxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airblairxxx)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/10 "2005-06-29T19:23:33Z")
To add to this discussion: Both of **Brickbacon** ’s articles utilize the work of Steve Sailer. One of the authors of _Freakonomics_ is Steven D. Levitt. He, along with John Donohue, published the original study in 1999. Sailer and Levitt have a dialogue on [Slate.com](http://Slate.com) [starting right here.](http://www.slate.com/id/33569/entry/33571/) I’m reading it now. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/11 "2005-06-29T19:40:24Z")
> [@](#): > > According to Levitt’s logic, murder should have declined first among the youngest and last among the oldest. Can someone explain this to me, 'cause I don’t get it. It’s interesting, and one of those theories which feels right and makes sense…of course, it feels right and makes sense that the sun goes around the earth, so there you go. I’m inherently suspicious of statistics ever since taking an intro course in college. For our final, we had to write a paper where we used stats to “prove” something that was patently ridiculous. I “prooved” that eating rice makes you hit your kids. (Lower socioeconimic class =\> higher per capita consumption of rice =\> higher rates of physical child abuse; leave the first part off and you get an A paper.) ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/12 "2005-06-29T22:19:03Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > The women most likely to have abortions are unwed low-income women Is there a factual cite for this? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2005, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/13 "2005-06-29T22:47:45Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Is there a factual cite for this? I’m not sure- I don’t have the book with me at the moment. I do recall that specifically he was referring to the women most likely to have an abortion after Roe v. Wade, which seems logical, for as stated above (and as dramatized in the movie _Vera Drake_) well-to-do women have _always_ had an easier time getting abortions. Well-to-do-women also have numerically far fewer abortions to begin with because 1- there simply are a lot less well-to-do-women than there are working class and poverty level 2- they don’t have to worry about the financial aspects of child rearing 3- they are generally more educated and thus more knowledgeable about birth control So it would stand to reason. (I’ll look for a cite when I have time.) ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/14 "2005-06-30T00:24:30Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I’m not sure- I don’t have the book with me at the moment. I do recall that specifically he was referring to the women most likely to have an abortion after Roe v. Wade, which seems logical, for as stated above (and as dramatized in the movie _Vera Drake_) well-to-do women have _always_ had an easier time getting abortions. Well-to-do-women also have numerically far fewer abortions to begin with because > > 1- there simply are a lot less well-to-do-women than there are working class and poverty level > 2- they don’t have to worry about the financial aspects of child rearing > 3- they are generally more educated and thus more knowledgeable about birth control > > So it would stand to reason. (I’ll look for a cite when I have time.) #1 on that list wouldn’t effect the **relative frequency** of well off women having abortions, but just the absolute number. And you should add: #4) Well-to-do-women tend to have a personal doctor that they see regularly. In the US, poor, young women tend not to have access to medical care because it is so expensive. Thus they lack access to birth control pills, IUDs, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/15 "2005-06-30T00:55:35Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Well-to-do-women also have numerically far fewer abortions to begin with because > > 1- there simply are a lot less well-to-do-women than there are working class and poverty level > 2- they don’t have to worry about the financial aspects of child rearing > 3- they are generally more educated and thus more knowledgeable about birth control I’d imagine truly poor women are a relatively low percentage of women getting abortions. First of all, there’s the expense. IIRC, an abortion costs between three and five hundred dollars. For some, that kind of cash is very difficult to raise, especially on short notice. Secondly, there are transportation issues. Poor women often don’t have reliable transportation, and abortion clinics are not found in every town. Where I live, the nearest clinic that provides abortions is over sixty miles away. Many clinics will not provide same-day services-- they have 24 hour waiting periods and the like. So, a poor woman in my town would need to either find a reliable friend willing to drive over 300 miles (the two trips combined), or pay a taxi. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/16 "2005-06-30T01:22:33Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > I’d imagine truly poor women are a relatively low percentage of women getting abortions. > > First of all, there’s the expense. IIRC, an abortion costs between three and five hundred dollars. For some, that kind of cash is very difficult to raise, especially on short notice. > > Secondly, there are transportation issues. Poor women often don’t have reliable transportation, and abortion clinics are not found in every town. Where I live, the nearest clinic that provides abortions is over sixty miles away. Many clinics will not provide same-day services-- they have 24 hour waiting periods and the like. So, a poor woman in my town would need to either find a reliable friend willing to drive over 300 miles (the two trips combined), or pay a taxi. Poor women who are pregnant and want to terminate it tend to scrape up the cash to pay one way or another. And poor women tend to live in urbanized areas where there are abortion clinics. And they probably can find a way to get transportation. The guy who knocked them up would find it a bargain to pay rather than get nailed for child support for the next 18 years. Hmm… [http://womensissues.about.com/cs/abortionstats/a/aaabortionstats.htm](http://womensissues.about.com/cs/abortionstats/a/aaabortionstats.htm) “Race - 63% of abortion patients are white, however, black women are more than 3 times as likely to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2.5 times as likely.” On average, blacks and Hispanics tend to be poorer than whites. The above stat suggests the poorer people are, the more likely they are to get abortion. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/17 "2005-06-30T03:12:24Z")
The Hispanics statistic surprises me since most Hispanics are Catholic. I don’t know why it does. I used to work with a women’s counselling service and quickly learned that abortion totally moves across all social classes and belief systems. (At least two of the women who protested one of the Montgomery clinics showed up at other clinics owned by the same man, one for herself and one for her teenaged daughter, both attributing the pregnancy to “rape by a black man” [the black part evidently making the soul of the child just that much less worthy] and both times were surprised to be outted; both received the procedure on the proviso that they never return as protestors lest “certain confidential medical records accidentally be made public”.) ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/18 "2005-06-30T04:59:28Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Poor women who are pregnant and want to terminate it tend to scrape up the cash to pay one way or another. Pun intended? 😉 > [@](#): > > And poor women tend to live in urbanized areas where there are abortion clinics. The majority may, but there are vast numbers of poor women in rural areas-- Appalachia, for example. > [@](#): > > And they probably can find a way to get transportation. Perhaps, perhaps not. But I think you would agree that the chances of having transportation are higher for a woman of means, wouldn’t you? > [@](#): > > The guy who knocked them up would find it a bargain to pay rather than get nailed for child support for the next 18 years. Again, perhaps. But what if the woman doesn’t know for sure who the father is, or the father refuses to believe its his child? You can’t preform a DNA test on a fetus. The woman could make no demands until the child was born, and then she _still_ might not get anything if the father is not employed. > [@](#): > > Hmm… > > [http://womensissues.about.com/cs/abortionstats/a/aaabortionstats.htm](http://womensissues.about.com/cs/abortionstats/a/aaabortionstats.htm) > > “Race - 63% of abortion patients are white, however, black women are more than 3 times as likely to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2.5 times as likely.” > > On average, blacks and Hispanics tend to be poorer than whites. The above stat suggests the poorer people are, the more likely they are to get abortion. There’s a difference between being below the technical poverty line and being _truly_ impoverished. People on public assistance, for example, may be poor, but they’re not necessarily in desperate want. Those are not the people to which refered in my first post. ---
**Author:** ![RandomLetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@RandomLetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandomLetters)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/19 "2005-06-30T14:33:02Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > How’s that again? Crack reduced crime? Golly, that’s some leap. Well, during the crack wars of the late 80’s-early 90’s, most of the murder spike was because of young criminals killing each other over drug related matters. Dead people can’t commit crime. Also, this caused a lot more attention to be focused on inner cities - heavier police, and more projects to reduce urban blight after the problem of inner cities became more noticiable. Also - does anyone see the racism present in Levitt’s theory? It seems to me his theory suggest that by reducing the numbers of African Americans (black women have a considerably higher abortion rate) you can reduce the crime rate. While it is true that African Americans have significantly higher violent crime rates than other groups in America, there has to be a better answer than partial genocide. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290/20 "2005-06-30T15:07:51Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > The Hispanics statistic surprises me since most Hispanics are Catholic. Which is one of the reasons for me to strongly suspect these statistics show a corelation between being lower income and having an abortion. **Something** is making it more likely that Hispanic women are getting abortions. Certainly it isn’t religious beliefs, since as you say Hispanics are more likely than whites to be Catholic. [http://www.speakinoutnews.com/031203/church.htm](http://www.speakinoutnews.com/031203/church.htm) “According to the new National Study of Youth and Religion, Black youth are far more likely to attend religious services regularly than their White peers. The gap is largest among high school seniors, with Black students nearly 50 percent more likely to go to church at least once a week.” This would tend to suggest amongst younger people (those who are most likely to get abortions), blacks aren’t more “godless” than whites. So religiousity doesn’t explain why blacks are much more likely to have abortions. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-link-between-legalized-abortion-and-lower-crime/310290.md?page=2)