NEWS FLASH - Abortion Reduces Crime

George Will wrote in this week’s Newsweek http://www.msnbc.com/news/562756.asp that two scientists have conducted an analysis of crime rates and, after correcting for myriad other factors, determined that the legalization of abortion in 1973 accounted for approximately half of the reduction in crime rates starting around 1991, at which time had those fetuses/children (choose your term) not been aborted, they would have been entering their high-crime ages.
Buttressing the conclusion, almost identical reductions (again correcting for other factors) were found in the crime rates of those states which allowed abortions prior to Roe v. Wade.

As Mr. Will (who is anti-abortion) pointed out, this makes logical sense. The poor, teenage mothers, etc., (IOW, those often lacking the ability or resources to steer their children away from crime), are disproportionately likely to have abortions.

As this issue impacts of gobs of issues and ideologies, I’m not going to even try to frame this debate, other than to ask “What do you think?”

Sua

a personal topic for me,considering that I was almost aborted. So of course I am as Anit Abortion as you can get.

My feeling is this. If guys would keep their hose in their pants and women kept their panties up the crime would be even LESS and the moeny for all this nonsense would be even less because people woudn’t be going around having sex before they are ready which caused all this nonsense in the first place.

In case of rape/incest different story. But of all the normal stuff, I say forget it. If the man and woman who made the baby werent responsible enough when they did the deed,they gotta pay the price.

Now as far as the general OP, I disagree. Heck I was raised by a single mom,and here I am a language translator/guest service worker at a hotel in one of the best places on Earth. So that study didn’t prove a thing.

I heard of this study a few months ago. It does make sense, though I’m not sure the information is really useful.

Heck, why don’t we round up everyone under the age of 12 who is living below a certain income level (or whatever other criteria the study is able to determine appropriate) and gas them all. Based on this study, the crime reduction potential should be enormous. But is it really the best solution?

The most interesting part of Will’s article is the last paragraph, where he states:

If this were true, wouldn’t the evidence examined have shown a rise in crime since abortion became legal?

Sagasumono, don’t take it personally. I doubt the study indicated that 100% of those aborted would have been criminals had they lived. It just predicts a higher rate of criminal activity among them than among the general population. Statistics rarely tell you anything about individuals.

I’m pro-choice, but I’m not convinced. You can adjust for a lot of factors, but you can’t adjust for the fact that these mothers opted for abortions. For all we know, women who choose abortions may be more likely to raise honest children then other women in the same socio-economic group.

In any event, the implications may be overstated.

The important political question isn’t what would have happened to those particular fetuses had they been born; the real question is what would happened if abortion were unavailable. IMHO we have no way to judge what people’s behavior would have been under those circumstances. E.g., would other methods of birth control be used more diligently? Would society develop better approaches to providing care to unwanted children?

I think I remember reading that Margaret Sanger promoted birth control as a way to hold down the Black population. This study sounds a bit similar.

Old theory, heard about it years ago. Nice to see the study though.

Don’t really buy it, but it brings up an interesting point in the abortion debate. The harder we make abortion, the harder (and more dangerous) it is for the poor to get them - those whose children are most likely to be dependent on the state. However, even if we make abortion illegal, the rich - even the middle class - will still be able send their daughters (and their son’s girlfriends, or themselves) to a nice “spa” in the Carribean - the abortion holiday.

(The following is a test of the emergency trolling system. This is only a test)

Let’s force all poor mothers to abort their children! Then there would be NO crime!

(This has been a test of the emergency trolling system. This was only a test. In the case of an actual troll, you would have been reminded to slaughter all the poor and not just their children)

You know, I’m not surprised one bit. What better way to screw up a child than to raise him in a family that doesn’t want him?

Sagasumono: I take it you subscribe to the “pregnancy as punishment” school of pro-life thought, then?

Not Punshiment. Responsiblity. To me abortion is like killing someone for a mistake you made.

Just what is the “mistake”?
And are you also opposed to birth control or the morning-after pill?

Also, why the incest exception? If I move to Cheney and have sex with my sister in the back of my F-5000 Powerstroke Cummins Turbo Diesel Quad Extended Club Cab, and she gets pregnant, how is our responsibility any different than if we were unrelated?

Ya know, if you forced everybody to have abortions the crime rate would drop to * zero* in a century or so.

Look at it like this, more people, more crime. Also, more doctors, teachers, police, pan handlers, curtain ring salesmen, cheese graters, Jerry Springer guests etc.

I doubt that because a child is raised in certain circumstances they are more likely to commit crime.

I’ve never really understood the “I was almost aborted so of course I’m pro-life” school of thought.

I was conceived by unmarried parents in the back of a 57 Chevy. So of course I’m pro-unprotected premarital sex, or I wouldn’t be here.

I once narrowly escaped being hit by a car while crossing the street, so of course I’m anti-car.

I once got into it with a pro-life person because my son is adopted. Her stand was that I should be pro-life, because wouldn’t it have been horrible if my son were aborted. No, had he been aborted, I would have never known him. It would have been a null situation. He would have never existed. Very likely, there would be another little toddler in my life that I would think was wonderful and I was sure I couldn’t live without. I’m not pro single people having sex and getting pregnant so I can adopt their kids either.

This attitude may be the result of infertility which was a conception but not implantation problem. So if life begins at conception, I’ve figured I’ve lost around 30 children.

Cal-

Oh sure, you’ll get rid of human crime that way. But just this morning in my backyard I saw a bird assault another bird to steal a crust of bread. This sort of blackbird on blackbird crime has gone on long enough. Now what are you gonna do about that?

That is provably false. I do doubt that we will ever be able to predict that a specific individual raised under specific circumstances will become a criminal. But showing that there will be increased percentages of them from groups with certain sociological characteristics has been done.

The article led me to think about abortion in a way I’ve never thought about before - as a social and economic phenomenon. But when you think about it that way, it’s pretty staggering.

27 million potential additional people in the population over the past 28 years.
Say 1/3-1/2 would have been on welfare as children. With 10-15 million additional poor children, would welfare reform have passed and/or have (relatively) worked?
Look at the teacher shortage we have today. Imagine how bad it would have been with about 1 million additional kids in school a year.

Then again, think of the lost productivity, wages, economic growth, etc., from the loss of 27 million potential productive workers.
Would the military be having its current recruiting problems if there were 27 million more potential soldiers, sailors, etc.
And hell, at this point, the oldest of the 27 million would be reaching peak childbearing years.

The mind reels.
Do y’all think, leaving morals aside (which I recognize is hard to do), this reduction in potential population has had a positive or negative social/economic impact on the country?

Sua

december, one point - it’s not nice to shoot the messenger. Decent scientists report, not create. Hell, ignoring socioeconomic factors, the sheer absence of 27 million “potentials” would almost have to mean a reduction in the criminal population - at least some of them would have turned to crime - and, therefore, a reduction in crime.

I don’t think it’s fair to accuse the authors of the report of racism for reporting facts.

huhuhuhuh he said cummins…

Sua,

I tried to write a paper on that very topic about years ago for a class. Couldn’t come up with any data - it had never been studied! But that’s when I heard that this study was happening (or one very like this)

However, I found a couple of things out…

A significant percentage of women who have abortions would have to go on public support to raise their children. These are the people that the Will article points to as the socio-economic class most likely to impact the crime rate.

At least some abortions (and no one had hard figures at the time, and I don’t think anyone really does now) are done because of birth defects. Although people with, say, Downs Syndrome, do lead very valuable lives, few are an economic asset to society. (Note, do not interpret this as "kill all the handicapped - this is an economic assessment only). The pro-choicers were real big on this one, but I doubt that the percentage of abortions done for severe but not quickly terminal birth defects is really that significant.

About 1 in 5 pregnancies is voluntarily terminated. That means 20% more teachers needed, 20% more schools.

I live in an area with a HUGE affordable housing problem. That problem would be that much greater with 20% more people to worry about.

The pro-life counter to this was the productivity increase, and the whole “maybe someone aborted Einstein)” (Yeah, well, maybe this was my month to conceive Einstein, but I was tired and my husband was watching a baseball game).

Like you, I started to think about abortion in a whole new way…social policy, economic impact, etc.

A. Well, 2 people go ot get together,have unprotected sex. The female gets pregnet, she can’t afford the baby,so it’s convient to just kill it. Therefore it’s the same mistake as if someone caught AIDS,which is unprotected sex.

B. I advocate abstence above anything. But I am a strong supporter of birth control as well. I say it’s better not to develop into a fetus in the first place.

IMHO if every woman was to remain on Birth Control ills untill the time she is ready to conceive,it wouldreduce the crime even more so.

So, Sagasumono, does this just apply to abortion, or do you have this attitude in all situations? If someone wants to have surgery to take care of their leg that they broke skiing, are they “avoiding responsibility”? Should everyone that makes a decision that you don’t agree with be refused help? And do you believe that contraception is actually 100% effective? If you believe that abortion is murder, then you should base your arguments on that, rather than bringing up irrelevant concepts such as responsibility.