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How does this study separate abortion from the fact that the common use of effective birth control methods coincides with Roe v Wade? Abortion is only a small part of there being fewer unwanted children in our country. It seems to be an accepted notion in law enforcement that the amount of violent crime in any given place corresponds with the number of males of a certain age group existing in the population. Their number has been suppressed in recent decades due to the lowering of the birthrate. That's the result of all forms of birth control.
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?
In regards to Romania, it is worth noting that as far as I know, contraception there was banned in addition to abortion under the Ceaucescu regime. Banning contraception in addition to banning abortion is obviously idiotic.
Secondly, I would like to point out that elective abortion is always used as birth control, since it is meant to prevent someone's birth.
Thirdly, in regards to your thesis here, it certainly makes sense. Whether or not it is completely accurate, well, I am not 100% sure, since I have heard arguments against this claim, and since I myself did not extensively research and study this issue yet.
However, even if I fully accept your assertion here at face value, then this in itself is not a good reason to justify legalizing abortion/keeping abortion legal. After all, from a politically anti-abortion perspective, this argument in favor of legalized abortion is similar to arguing in favor of legalizing infanticide in the event of a shortage of adoptive parents, which I think that very few people actually support doing. (After all, in the event of a shortage of adoptive parents, unwanted children which don't get adopted could become criminals later on.)
There might certainly be good arguments in favor of legalized abortion. However, this doesn't appear to be one of these arguments.
Also, as a side note, if considers abortion to be morally unjustifiable and wants to reduce crime, then good ways to do this would be to make contraception more accessible, to implement comprehensive sex ed everywhere, and to create a stronger social safety net.
The only way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies by providing our children with education about human reproduction and access to reliable methods of contraception. This is made difficult by the push from those who believe just about every contraceptive available is somehow an abortifacient and those who try to block access to contraceptives through group insurance.
Actually, abortion bans could reduce the number of abortions as well, considering that not every woman which would have gotten an abortion if doing so was legal will actually get an abortion if an abortion ban is in place. I am well-aware that banning something does not completely end it, and this also applies to things such as banning rape, child abuse, assault, theft, infanticide, domestic violence, et cetera. However, if one considers something to be morally unjustifiable, and if a ban will reduce the frequency of these things occurring, then it makes sense to support such a ban.
I certainly agree with you that we need to implement comprehensive sex ed everywhere and that we need to make effective and reliable contraception easy to access for everyone who needs it.
Also, I don't think that even religious nutjobs consider condoms to be abortifacients.
Not to mention making it easier to collect child support.
The problem with this part is while it could reduce the abortion rate, some pro-choice premises and arguments actually appear to logically lead to the conclusion that child support laws should be made less harsh, rather than more harsh:
I've been saying that for years.
People claim that we're aborting the next Einstein or Mozart, but I beg to differ. Children who aren't wanted, aren't nurtured and encouraged.
I worked in psychiatry for many years, and it was a common theme for the insane and the criminally insane. 'My mother never wanted me.'
'Every mother a willing mother. Every child a wanted child.'
-Dr. Henry Morgentaler
This argument doesn't work in cases where the father wants to raise the offspring but the mother does not and aborts this offspring instead.
Frankly, I would have preferred that they be raised in better settings.
However, if that is not possible, then with hindsight having them be aborted, killed as infants, or something along those lines would all probably be better than having them do what they actually did.
I read about it thanks for the input . It sounds like a slippery slope . I mean who decides what is a desirable trait in a human and what is not? I wonder though if many woman looking for a man to marry subconsciously factor in what type of child the man will produce ? How many times have we heard a comment by a married pregnant woman that she hopes her baby will look like her husband or be as smart as him or something like that?
Are you saying that some women turn to abortion because they don't want their baby to be like the man they had sex with ?
Well, to be fair, one might be able to make a case that getting abortions in order to prevent disabled offspring from being born is a form of eugenics. For instance, I think I heard that around 90% of Down's syndrome embryos/fetuses are aborted.
I've read "SuperFreakonomics" by Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner. In fact, Levitt and Dubner says it has more to do with decreasing crime rates than any other factor does. Longer prison sentences for criminals, more police on the street, and other targeted interventions statistically account for much less of a reduction in the crime rate.
Stephen Levitt is an adoptive father (like I am) and he makes it clear that even though the legalization of abortion accounts for this decrease in crime, he still does not personally agree with abortion. Many of us adoptive parents would like to end or limit abortion and instead see these children placed for adoption right after birth.
In the real world though that just doesn't happen. Perhaps, even the worst mothers are so biologically connected with their children that while they will abuse and neglect them, they won't consider placing them for adoption. Maybe the government benefits available to many unwed mothers are such an enticement they won't place a child for adoption because of the economic consequences of doing so. Finally, maybe the pressure from family and friends to not place a child born out-of-wedlock for adoption is so strong now that a woman faces more ostracism for giving a child up for adoption than she does if she keeps it and does a bad job of raising it.
In any event, what I've sadly concluded is that while adoption sounds good on paper its never going to work as a solution to this problem. That leaves society with few options. I suppose we should do an even better job promoting birth control than we do. However, regretably we need to allow abortion to remain a choice for women who don't want to parent.
Many conservatives take the attitude that you can make abortion illegal and somehow things will magically work out. Is a simple variation of the idea that life begins at conception and ends at birth. For too many children born in these circumstances, it doesn't work out.
As I already explained above, I am skeptical that your argument in favor of legalized abortion in order to prevent the births of more unwanted children is a particularly good one. After all, an argument along those lines can also be used to justify other things which I am extremely skeptical that you support.
How does this study separate abortion from the fact that the common use of effective birth control methods coincides with Roe v Wade? Abortion is only a small part of there being fewer unwanted children in our country. It seems to be an accepted notion in law enforcement that the amount of violent crime in any given place corresponds with the number of males of a certain age group existing in the population. Their number has been suppressed in recent decades due to the lowering of the birthrate. That's the result of all forms of birth control.
Sure, contraception lowered the birth rate, but the arguments raised in the links in the OP are valid, especially since more abortions are done in the demographic at greater risk for criminality. That demographic is less likely to have access to or to use effective contraception, has a higher unintended pregnancy rate, and has a higher abortion rate.
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