8mm
Posted on 04/22/2008 4:27:17 PM PDT by wagglebee
Philadelphia, PA (LifeNews.com) -- The economist behind the disproved theory that legal abortions have led to a lowering of crime rates defended his notion. Freakonomics author Steven Levitt gave a lecture yesterday at the Penn Museum and said he's convinced the theory is correct despite several studies showing otherwise.
In introducing Levitt to the audience, Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Rebecca Bushnell said Levitt's level of "celebrity" is "unusual" among academics.
According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, Levitt said he had to come up with unusual ideas in order to separate himself from other economists.
"If you are not as good at doing something as everybody else, you have to be different," he contended.
Perhaps the most unusual idea he devised is the notion that abortion decreased crime -- a topic he defended in the lecture and admitted was controversial.
The newspaper said Levitt spent most of his time talking about the abortion-crime link, saying his study was based on "pretty strong evidence" and that he offended nearly "every person on the planet."
He also shared how he once heard the "only good abortion is an abortion of an economist."
Despite his defense, several studies show the abortion-crime link is a myth.
Earlier this month, a trio of American and British economists reviewed the hypothesis using both American and British data.
The economists evaluated both violent and nonviolent (property) crimes in the U.S. and England and found violent crimes in the UK increasing steadily over the years following legalized abortion.
None of the four crime measurements showed any decrease in crimes immediately following legal abortions. In fact, only one of the four crime levels in the decades following legalized abortion ever dropped below the initial level in the year when both nations legalized abortions.
"Violent crime does not decrease at all over the period. The trends are not supportive of a link between abortion and crime," the economists wrote.
An August 2007 study conducted by a researcher at the University of Maryland showed that legalized abortion has led to higher rates of crime and increased murder rates.
This occurred because a higher percentage of children grew up in single-parent homes during the years following Roe v. Wade.
The findings were published in the April 2007 issue of the academic journal Economic Inquiry and are part of a new book written by researcher John R. Lott. Lott and John Whitley, affiliated with the University of Chicago, first wrote a paper in August 2006 challenging claims that abortion led to less crime.
A third study, in November 2005, saw Christopher Foote, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and research assistant Christopher Goetz, saying the data Levitt used was faulty.
Foote said there was a "missing formula" in Levitt's original research that allowed him to ignore certain factors that may have contributed to the lowering of crime rates during the 1980s and 1990s.
Foote also argues that Levitt counted the total number of arrests made when he should have used per-capita figures. After Foote adjusted for both factors, the abortion effect simply disappeared, the Journal reported.
"There are no statistical grounds for believing that the hypothetical youths who were aborted as fetuses would have been more likely to commit crimes had they reached maturity than the actual youths who developed from fetuses and carried to term," Foote and Goetz say in their report.
What an idiot.
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Now and then just about anybody will say something logical.
Abortion does decrease crime.
Less people less criminals
Less Doctors, Nurses, Scientists, Cops, Soldiers, Mother, Fathers, etc too
Ahh, then Levitt's point becomes clear. If we just get rid of all the humans, then we get rid of all the crime.</satire>
I see a whole bunch of problems here, all the way around.
To start with, there are all kinds of arguments against these studies, both in the US and in other countries, but the ones suggested in the article are obviously incorrect. The most glaring example is criticizing the study because the crime rate didn’t fall *immediately* after abortion was allowed. This makes no sense, and nobody was suggesting that.
But a far more important criticism wasn’t mentioned. This was that after abortion was legalized, it was assumed that 18-24 years *later*, crime would fall. Indeed, it did, but *not* among 18-24 year olds. The drop in crime began with *older* criminals, and the bulge continued *down* to the 18-24 year olds years later.
This strongly implies that there was *no* effect from abortion on the crime rate. That some other factor or factors was causing the crime rate to fall. Even though it’s anybodies guess *why* it would start with older criminals.
Another strong argument against the study was that there should also be a relationship between the ability of women to get abortions and a drop in crime. That is, liberal States should have the most drop in crime, instead of States with more restrictive abortion laws. But this didn’t happen, either.
Now this is a critical argument, because there is something to *compare* it to, namely gun control. States with more gun control have *higher* crime rates, especially violent crime rates. When States institute gun freedom, the crime rates tumble.
And irony of ironies, this also counters any “red-blue” arguments in abortion as well, because those States with the most liberal abortion laws *also* have the strictest gun control. That is, it should have been really obvious if abortion reduced crime in liberal States, because their gun control had artificially *increased* crime.
But this hasn’t been shown, either. A major fault of the studies.
I wonder how many Einstiens and Ronald Reageans and Bill Gates we’ve flushed down the toilet since roe vs. wade.
This is abomination.
Imagine if back in 1973, some law and order type had declared, “Ya know, I think we can eventually bring down the crime rate by killing every third minority or poor white baby.”
That person would rightly have been denounced as a racist barbarian and, if there were any justice, tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.
Yet libs have solemnly and proudly intoned the same formula as they claim retro-active credit for their version of this same “final solution.”
Let's assume that Einstein's IQ was in the top one-tenth of one percent. There have been 50 MILLION Americans killed since Roe v. Wade, that means that 50 THOUSAND "Einsteins" have been murdered, and God knows how many world-changing breakthroughs.
Probably about the same as the number of Saddam Husseins, Al Gores, and Britney Spears.
This is a meaningless stat without a control group.
I do not believe he accused newborns of high crime rates...
I am completely pro-life...but I am willing to admit that the demographics that get aborted at higher rates are the same demographics that commit crimes at higher rates.
This does not justify abortion any more than it would justify carpet bombing inner cities (this would also impact demographics that commit crimes at a higher rate than average.)
Hey newborns aren’t as innocent as they look. Gurgling, drinking milk, sleeping. Their plotting something I tell you.
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