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It is likely true that abortions do reduce crime, but this in inself is not a reason why abortion is legal, nor one that should be used to argue in favour of abortion.
The birth rate is down in the U.S. there should be social workers and RNs that can visit young unwed mothers and teach them how to parent and care for their babies. And they should have follow up visits every few months. Young inexperienced parents need extra help and education in child rearing. Communities should develop these.
You'd be surprised at all the services that are already available. Free parenting classes are available in my state for such women and men who are raising children both before a child is born and afterwards. An optional medicaid program in my state and some other states called TCM (Targeted Case Management) provides home visits to low income women with babies. During these visits, the health needs of a baby can be assessed. Also, the nurse can direct these women to other health care services. TCM does provide follow up visits if they are desired by the woman. These are just the parenting resources that are available. The economic resources are an entirely different discussion.
It isn't clear to me what you are saying. I'm not sure if you oppose allowing abortion and want to substitute parenting resources or if you are simply trying to get women to refrain from abortion by giving them these additional resources. On the other hand, these programs do some real good with a segment of women who want to learn to be good mothers.
The reality is though that some women simply don't want to give birth and don't want to parent and no amount of resources will do much to change their minds. I've also seen situations where I've felt some parents were so inept and so incompetent that either placing the child for adoption or getting an abortion was probably doing society a favor.
I personally don't approve of abortion, but the longer I live, the more I see its necessity in some situations.
I am anti-abortion in principle, but seeing the sad faces of kids whose lives are crap and who will grow up in crap and will be crap as adults gives me pause and blurs he lines for me.
2. but seeing the sad faces of kids whose lives are crap and who will grow up in crap and will be crap as adults gives me pause and blurs he lines for me.
3. But not all those kids were "unwanted."
1. Why, exactly?
2. Once again, I already explained here why this argument in favor of legalized abortion is not a good one.
Unfortunately some of those kids are wanted for the wrong reasons: to try to preserve a relationship or to get out from under a parent's roof and set up a household or just to have someone to love and be loved by.
Then the partner leaves or the reality of never being able to just go out and party sets in or mom discovers that babies and young children are not always lovable and teens can be downright nasty.
It all falls apart, especially if there is no job and no money.
I am vehemently pro choice. Always have been. I was raised catholic and studied theology for a long while. When push came to shove, however, I chose to have my child and raise her. I even went to the abortion clinic and made the appointment. I am happy with my choice and can't imagine my life without her. It has certainly made life more difficult, but has brightened up my life in ways I couldn't imagine. Some things have had to be pushed aside for the time being, but she made me a better person.
That does not mean that I am pro life, just because I chose one thing doesn't mean it would be the right call for everyone. I was lucky and still am, with a ton of supportive family and friends. I was able to make things work. Ironically, my best friend of 20+ years had a talk with me on the way to the shore. She was afraid she was pregnant. She is/was the most pro life supporter ever. She asked if she was if I would take her to the clinic and I was the only one she trusted. She wasn't pregnant but , until someone is in that situation you will never know what the right or wrong choice is.
The problem is the lack of funding for Planned Parenthood (which of their work only 2% represents abortions, the rest is preventive and reproductive health checks and BC all at low or no cost). Instead we fund CPCs (crisis pregnancy centers) which rely on fearmongering to make sure a woman doesn't have an abortion. They will lie, aren't qualified in anything (no doctors or RNs on the property). All they do is make promises so the woman will keep the baby, then once she's passed the limit on abortion, they reneg and say "oh well, your problem now, shouldn't have had a child if you can't pay and handle it on your own..." Hoping she will be vulnerable. Then offer a nice, usually Christian couple, who will take the baby.
First of all let me say that I don't advocate or promote abortion. I had an unplanned pregnancy myself and chose to keep my baby and I love her. This Donahue-Levitt hypothesis does however, makes a lot of sense to me. It shows that 18 years after roe v wade legalized abortion in the US the crime rate began dropping sharply and nothing else seemed to account for it. The theory goes that children that grow up unwanted and unloved are more likely to become criminals so that after abortion was legalized those children were simply not born which lead to a sharp drop in crime. They also compare the US to Romania where a law was passed making abortion illegal from 1966-1989 it shows that in that country the children grew up to perform in life more poorly than expected.
I don't think abortion should be used as birth control, but if children are born they should be loved and well cared for. Every child deserves that. How can we as a society help make that happen so they are more likely to grow up to function well in society as adults?
I searched this thread prior to writing this post, and I was happy to find that the book Freakonomics was at least mentioned.
I want to reiterate the point someone else made that in discussing this topic one must separate the moral argument and the result of factual or demographic argument.
One must look at the demographics, and the particulars within demographic subgroups before one can attain understanding.
In Freakonomics, the authors started with the result that was being seen. Crime rates were dropping. They wondered why, and took two things into consideration. 1) most crime is committed by males between the ages of 16 and 24 (some studies say 18 and 24) and 2) what happened 16 to 24 years prior to 1994 that might account for this unexpected drop n the crime rate. To be specific, what happened between 1970 and 1978 that explains the result being seen?
The authors concluded that the legalization of abortion had the unintended consequence of lower crime rates. Furthermore, because so many pregnancies were no longer carried to term, there were fewer in the specified "crime committing" demographic in subsequent years, so crime rates continued to drop and continue to do so today. the unborn do not have children, and so there end up being fewer 16-24 year old males in each succeeding generations.
If you do not understand this, go back and re-read, or better yet, read the chapter in Freakonomics. It is probably available in your public library.
This is a purely demographic explanation of the ongoing drop in crime rates since 1972. Of course the answer is a bit more complicated. Lower birthrates in general contribute to the result, for example.
Why males 16-24 and why the crime rate for 25+ drops off? Because, it is noted, that as men settle down, get married, start families, find serious work to support their families, they just grow up and behave more responsibly. So goes the speculation. Stiffer prison sentences may have something to do with crime reduction as well.
I'm a pro-life person myself. Which means that is is the liberal policy of unlimited abortion is primarily responsible for the reduction in crime rates starting 1994. I'm surprised the libs arent crowing about their success in reducing crime.
Actually, assuming that the lower crime rate is primarily the result of abortion on demand, lower crime rates are an unintended consequence. I highly doubt that anyone EVER considered or even speculated what ended up happening.
I'll be honest and admit I am pro-life, but can see the need in some cases such as when the mother's life is in danger. Teenagers probably wouldn't take the initiative to ask for help and some might not know they need it. It would probably be a good idea for every mom receiving Medicaid or government assistance to be required to take parenting classes and receive home visits.
Also, if social workers could visit with all moms under age 21 or 22 while in the hospital post-delivery, it would be a good time to evaluate the mom's mental state and confidence level in taking care of her child. Would it not be better to be proactive in preventing child abuse. The cost of states doing this would be a drop in the bucket compared to the cost to society later.
I am quite familiar with TCM because for a time, my spouse was the head of the program in this county. Let me explain how it works. The name of every child born on Medicaid is placed on a list. The list is given to the TCM program. The federal government pays the county about $250 to $300 for a TCM nurse to visit a mom on Medicaid with her new baby. Actually, Medicaid will pay to have s nurse see a child that--if my memory serves me--is up to about 18 months of age. The payment of $250 to $300 is quite an incentive to the county, so the TCM nurses go out of their way to see all the women in this situation that they can. Most of these women show up a the county WIC clinic because this program is paid for too and provides them with tangible material things their baby needs. TCM nurses catch many of these women at WIC clinic and visit with them there. A single visit is approximately one hour in length, but a great deal of assessment and information is provided. As I said earlier, follow up visits are compensated as well if requested by the mother. Most mothers do not make such a request. Follow up visits are not made when the women don't want them, simply because the women are pretty good at making themselves "unavailable" when they don't want to be seen and the nurse has other women that need to be seen.
You talk about mothers being required to take classes and receive home visits. Perhaps, regulations could be written in a way to require this., but its currently optional. Bear in mind that these women don't all want these services. Nor, do they all want pregnancy classes. A mental health evaluation would be even more controversial. What the average woman in this situation wants is to be treated like any other pregnant women. Plus, ignorance abounds in our society. Good Lord, my wife encountered women who didn't even seem to realize Medicaid was a government program. Some women mistake the TCM nurse for a social worker trying to investigate them for abuse or neglect of their infant and try to avoid a visit for that reason.
What, in essence, you seem to be saying is that the system ought to police low income pregnant women and make them take certain services. There are a whole raft of issues that go along with this. I'm not sure we'll ever get to that point.
I'd like to prevent more abortions too. However, I think the real key is creating a culture where its "not cool" for young unmarried single mothers to parent. If families would instruct their daughters that its not acceptable to bring their newborn infant into the family home and raise it than that might make some difference. Essentially, I advocate a culture that pushes adoption more than we are currently doing. However, things seem to be moving in the opposite direction. It took my wife and I about 9 years to adopt two newborn infants. Even at that, I'm constantly told how lucky we were to be able to do that. Realistically, only a very small percentage of babies are placed for adoption and so I think my idea is not going to work. That ship has already sailed and probably did so more than 30 years ago.
Your ideas are fine in theory, but the system you advocate won't work in our current social/cultural/legal environment.
Unfortunately, this leaves us in a tough spot. The alternatives seem to be: (1) Keeping abortion safe and legal; (2) Tolerating more abuse and neglect of babies and small children; (3) Management of pregnant women and young mothers in a more structured or Totalitarian fashion.
Alternative 1 (Abortion) wins by default.
Last edited by markg91359; 05-06-2014 at 07:04 AM..
In Freakonomics, the authors ... concluded that the legalization of abortion had the unintended consequence of lower crime rates. Furthermore, because so many pregnancies were no longer carried to term, there were fewer in the specified "crime committing" demographic in subsequent years, so crime rates continued to drop and continue to do so today. the unborn do not have children, and so there end up being fewer 16-24 year old males in each succeeding generations.
...
I'm a pro-life person myself. Which means that is is the liberal policy of unlimited abortion is primarily responsible for the reduction in crime rates starting 1994. I'm surprised the libs arent crowing about their success in reducing crime.
Pro-choice "libs" are not crowing about the unintended effects of abortions, including crime reduction, because few believe abortion is such a great idea. Most believe that the government has no business interfering in the decisions a woman makes about her own body, that these decisions are best made with her medical provider, and that this medical provider should have qualifications beyond a ready supply of coat hangers.
That the government does not have the right to butt into your personal business would seem to be a conservative value to me.
In fact, why conservatives are not pro-choice remains a mystery to me. Pro-choice not only gets the government out of your personal business, it aligns well with other conservative values.
Conservatives express a low opinion of "moochers" and push for decreasing funding for food stamps and other government programs that subsidize the existence of low-income people. The current flap over subsidizing medical insurance/medical care is a prime example. Low-income women get a large percentage of abortions. Given the cycle of poverty, this would decrease the number of citizens the government would need to support.
Conservatives claim that they have a moral objection to abortion as they believe it is murder. However, conservatives support the death penalty, sending soldiers off around the globe, and lax gun regulations that result in people getting murdered on an hourly basis.
One would think that if conservatives oppose murder they would be anti-war as well as advocates for strict gun regulations, and ending the death penalty. One would be wrong. You would be surprised at how few conservatives show up at anti-war rallies. (Also surprising at how few anti-war rallies there are, but that's a topic for another thread.)
Now I have nothing against conservatives. Some of my best friends are conservatives.
But getting the government out of your private business, reducing the number of low-income citizens seeking government "handouts," and reducing crime would all appear to be conservative goals. So why the opposition to abortion?
Can anyone explain what is going on here?
Please don't argue that conservatives have a moral objection to murder as they are just fine with murder in any number of situations.
Moderator cut: This comes very close to being too much about politics. Any response that focuses on the political leaning comments will be deleted as thread hijacking. That is not the topic of this thread.
It does not have my approval. Making laws on what MIGHT happen, especially given all the other unknowns that are in play in child rearing, is as ridiculous as one group of people making laws based on their religious beliefs that are forced on people who don't share those beliefs. I have never had an abortion but I have no children by choice. Would you criticize me because I might have given birth to the next Mozart, but didn't take the chance?
We live in a democracy, not a theocracy. Far more Americans believe that abortion should be available in certain circumstances than believe it should be banned. That was true the year of the Roe V Wade decision and has never changed. Gallup's most recent polling confirms that: Majority of Americans Still Support Roe v. Wade Decision
You extrapolated greatly from my post. I believe in a woman's right to choose. Deciding to have the baby is among those choices.
Following a bell curve, on the left sociopath and on the right, saint, you are just as statisically likely to abort a genius saint, as you are to abort a sociopath.
As far as your "democracy vs. theocracy", that's one HECK of a stretch from what I wrote. I wrote absolutely NOTHING of the sort as to either tightening or loosening laws.
However, thank you and I respect all of the reasoned opinions I've read so far. As you were.
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