The following is from the Sunday, August 29, 1999 edition of The
STUDY OF `ROE' VS. CRIME `EXPLOSIVE'
The whole thing is enough to make John Donohue nostalgic. "Usually
what I write languishes in obscurity," the Stanford law professor says
drolly. Not this time.
Donohue and Steven Levitt, a University of Chicago economist, set out
innocently enough to look at one of the great puzzles of the research
world: Why has the crime rate dropped so sharply, so widely, so
quickly, in the 1990's?
The two sleuths found a clue that no one had considered: Roe vs.
Wade. These two respected scholars came to the widely provocative
conclusion that the legalization of abortion may expain as much as
half of the drop in the crime rate.
To put it simply, those states that had very high rates of abortion
right after the Supreme Court ruling in the 1970s had very large
declines in crime in the 1990s. That's true even when you consider
myriad other things that influence crime rates; from prison sentencing
to policing to jobs. Fewer offenses are being committed today by
those under 25 years old.
Before Roe, as Levitt says, choosing his words carefully, "women who
wanted to abort but were denied that opportunity seem to have given
birth to children more likely to have become criminals." After Roe,
to put it bluntly, some unwanted fetuses at risk of becoming potential
criminals were aborted.
This statistical link -- or leap -- between abortion and crime has set
all sorts of teeth on edge. The research was greeted with respect at
several academic conferences. But when it became public, the two
novices in the politics of abortion were immediately cast as equal
opportunity offenders.
The anti-abortion community is appalled at their notion that
abortion -- which they regard as murder -- reduced crime. As for the
idea that every 10 percent increase in abortion resulted in a 1
percent decrease in crime? Joe Scheidler, the executive director of
the Pro-Life Action League fumed, "It follows logically that to really
eliminate crime, you simply need to get rid of everybody."
The abortion-rights community, on the other hand, would rather give
the whole subject a good leaving alone. Jeannie Rosoff, president of
the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which does research in reproductive
issues, called the study "interesting," "simplistic," not improbable,"
and, finally, "explosive."
Anti-abortion leaders are particularly uneasy at any link between
race, class, abortion and crime. In this case, the women who chose to
have abortions in the wake of Roe were disproportionately teenagers,
minorities and the poor. What does that say? A way to stop the
"breeding" of criminals by class and race and age?
To anyone with a politically sensitive ear, the implication that
abortion can prevent crime carries ugly echoes of the days when Social
Darwinists wanted to improve society by breeding "good families" and
not breeding "bad families."
In the 1920s and `30s, eugenicists supported laws that would put the
government in charge of reproductive decisions. At one point, 31
states had laws to forcibly sterilize the "handicapped" and
"feebleminded."
Levitt and Donohue, whose work has been tainted with the charge of
eugenics, are by no means promoting abortion as a crime prevention
policy. In fact, their research is a counterpoint to eugenics. They
looked at what happened when women, not the state, were finally
allowed to make their own choices.
As Levitt says, their work was not "about class or race but about
unwantedness."
After Roe, women who knew they weren't ready or able to raise children
had a choice. The children they did have were more likely to be
wanted.
Today, the abortion rates are at their lowest point since Roe. That
doesn't mean we're due for a crime wave in 2020. It means there are
fewer unwanted pregnancies today, due in large part to contraceptives.
If there's universal agreement on anything in the world of
reproduction, it's that birth control is a better way to prevent
"unwantedness" than abortion.
Levitt and Donohue set out to answer questions about crime and ended
up raising hackles about abortion. Their thesis may or may not hold
up to further review. But all in all, it has the whiff of common
sense.
As Levitt offers simply enough, "I think children have better outcomes
when mothers want them and have the resources and inclination to have
them."
It's what family planners have said all along. It's not really such a
puzzle.
Return to The Skeptic Tank's main Index page.
Arizona Republic, page B9.
Ellen Goodman
Boston Globe
The views and opinions stated within this web page are those of the
author or authors which wrote them and may not reflect the views and
opinions of the ISP or account user which hosts the web page. The
opinions may or may not be those of the Chairman of The Skeptic Tank.