John J. Donohue III (professor of law at Stanford University) and Steven D. Levitt (professor of law at University of Chicago) say: "Legalized abortion contributed significantly to recent crime reductions." Their study was published in the second quarter, 2001 Harvard's Quarterly Journal of Economics.1 According to the authors, "Crime began to fall roughly 18 years after abortion legalization." Since 1991, homicide rates are down 40 percent, violent crime and property crime are down 30 percent. After controlling for other factors, Donohue and Levitt conclude: "Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime."
Donohue and Levitt say that poor women and teenage girls are "substantially more likely" to have abortions, and children born to such mothers have a higher than normal probability of committing crimes between the ages of 18 and 24. However, they go beyond these assumptions and examine the affects of abortion across racial boundaries. It turns out that abortion has not been uniformly used by all races, ethnic and social groups. Abortion has had only modest effects on the fertility of white women, but large reductions in teen fertility and teen out-of-wedlock fertility among blacks. Donohue and Levitt come to the conclusion that, "Given that homicide rates of black youths are roughly nine times higher than those of white youths, racial differences in the fertility effects of abortion are likely to translate into greater homicide reductions." In other words, by reducing the number of black babies born in the United States, abortion has lowered the crime rate.
Abortion proponents have always said that it is better that children not be born rather than be "unwanted." Abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood have been peddling abortion to minorities as a means of reducing births among these groups. Abortion is a modern, politically correct form of eugenics - elimination of undesirables, such as minorities who are more likely to commit crimes. If you are a minority, you should be outraged that the liberals have convinced your teenaged daughters that abortion is the solution to unaccountable behavior.
In contrast to what the liberal agenda says, the Bible says that all people have equal worth, since all are created in the image of God.2 Although liberalism teaches that certain "unwanted" humans have less inherent worth than others who are wanted, the Bible states that all human life has worth in God's eyes,3 which is also reflected in the Declaration of Independence.4
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Harvard's Quarterly Journal of
Economics 116: 379-420.Last updated 06/08/01