Freakonomics Claim Abortion Drops Crime Rates Refuted Again

Life News ^ | 6/2/11 | Steven Ertelt

[wagglebee]

Boston Globe writer James Alan Fox has yet another refutation of the claim by economists John Donohue and Steven Levitt in their infamous book Freakonomics that legalizing abortion led to a drop in crime rates.

Fox said readers of the newspaper emailed him recently concerning a New York Times piece on crime rate reductions and they advocated the disproved notion that legalized abortion resulted in a reduction in violent crimes. Fox, a criminologist, has responded and says the theory is full of holes:

Despite persuasive logic regarding a reduction in the number of children born to circumstances that would place them at-risk for growing into criminality, the significance of this effect appears to have been grossly overstated. For example, nearly 60% of the decline in murder since 1990 involved perpetrators ages 25 and older—individuals who would have been born prior to the landmark abortion decision. As shown in the figure below, there were substantial reductions during the 1990s in homicides committed by older age groups, especially those in the 25-34 year-old age range.

The abortion-crime link also cannot account for the transient surge in youth homicide during the late 1980s, if not for which the 1990s would not have witnessed such a sizable decline. The rise and then fall in youth homicide before and then after 1990 has much more to do with fast changing patterns of drug trade, gang activity and illegal gun supply than a sudden shift in abortion policy.

Finally, the abortion-crime hypothesis cannot explain the large drop in murder and other violent crime from the first six months of 2009 to the corresponding months of 2010. In fact, nothing really can.

This is not the first time Fox, of Northeastern University, has refuted the abortion-crime theory. He released a study in December 2008 showing a large rise in homicides by black teens in recent years even though black women have the highest abortion rate. The study found homicides by blacks between the ages of 14 and 17 have jumped 34 percent from 2000 through 2007. The number of crimes for white people in the same age range did not increase.

In the book Freakonomics, Levitt claimed legalizing abortion led to a major drop in murder and other violent crimes in the 1980s and 1990s. He theorized that the babies who were victimized by abortion would have been more likely to commit crimes. But Fox’s study shows violent crime in the black community has gone up in the last decade — not down.

“Yes, it’s not nearly as bad as it was in 1990, but it is worse than it was in 2000,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Yet, if Levitt’s hypothesis is true, crime should have gone down significantly in the black community because of a higher abortion rate.

An August 2007 study conducted by a researcher at the University of Maryland shows that legalized abortion has led to higher rates of crime and increased murder rates. That 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. According to Lott, the high court’s decision ultimately resulted in more out-of-wedlock births, a reduction in the number of children adopted and fewer married parents.

Before that, Lott and John Whitley, affiliated with the University of Chicago, wrote a paper in August 2006 challenging the abortion-crime reduction claims.

Meanwhile, in November 2005, Christopher Foote, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and research assistant Christopher Goetz, told the Wall St. Journal 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.

[trisham]

That’s very possible, however the average troll is often quite arrogant and tends to inordinately underestimate the intelligence of its opponents.

[r9etb]

The fact is that a significant percentage of abortions are performed on whites women in their teens and early twenties from upper-middle class families.

And the fact is that black women have far more abortions, per capita, than women of any other race -- something like 36% of all abortions. (source)

Mr. Fox conveniently does not mention race in his discussion; and yet where crime and murders are concerned race matters -- it matters a lot. Blacks are far more likely to commit crimes, and far more likely to murder and be murdered, than people of other races.

To simply lump all races together, as Fox apparently has, acts to mask the racial component of the equation. FWIW, I think it's a cultural, rather than a genetic issue -- but the racial correlation is real and has to be included.

[wendy1946]

Why are you now ADVOCATING the same Darwinism you claim to oppose?

I am not ADVOCATING anything; I was trying to describe the real world for you and several others here because it doesn't sound like you understand it but my own tolerance limit for nastiness and ignorance has just been exceeded and I'm outta this discussion.

[Jim Robinson]

FR is a pro-life site. If you continue pushing abortion here, your account will be closed.

[wagglebee]

And the fact is that black women have far more abortions, per capita, than women of any other race -- something like 36% of all abortions.

I'm well aware of this. However, the fact is that two-thirds of abortions ARE NOT on blacks.

Mr. Fox conveniently does not mention race in his discussion; and yet where crime and murders are concerned race matters -- it matters a lot. Blacks are far more likely to commit crimes, and far more likely to murder and be murdered, than people of other races.

Do you also post over at Stormfront?

[wagglebee]

I am not ADVOCATING anything; I was trying to describe the real world for you and several others here because it doesn't sound like you understand it but my own tolerance limit for nastiness and ignorance has just been exceeded and I'm outta this discussion.

YES you are advocating the abortion of MILLIONS of innocent Americans because they will either vote a certain way or they may have certain health conditions.

[BykrBayb]

there’s an obvious potential problem with wanting to pass draconian laws.

If you can't advocate passing what you call "draconian laws," what are you advocating?

[BykrBayb]

Thank you.

[metmom]

That other five percent of cases involve questions of rape or genetic compromise and the like; all you could hope to accomplish by banning those abortions is the destruction of the Republican party and the conservative movement.

How ironic. The biggest proponent against evolution is in favor of abortion in cases of genetic compromise. It's still survival of the fittest, only in this case, man is being set up to determine what the fittest is.

Are you really willing to turn over to some government bureaucrat the authority to make that decision?

Do you consider abortion murder? Do you consider either murder or abortion morally wrong?

[P-Marlowe]

my own tolerance limit for nastiness and ignorance has just been exceeded

There is nothing nastier or more ignorant that attempting to justify the killing of children because they are "genetically compromised."

I suggest you re-evaluate your philosophical position. Perhaps it is because you are ignorant. We can deal with that. But if your position on the killing of "genetically compromised" babies is one you have actually thought through and not something you just posted on the fly, then I suggest you find a new forum to post your genetic supremacist ideas.

Just because you were born with an 85 IQ is no reason to promote the killing of babies doomed to have an IQ of 84 or less. You are not that special. All men are CREATED equal. IOW all men, even the genetically compromised, have as much value in their Creator's eyes as people like you who who think you were born genetically superior.

[trisham]

I hope that wendy reads all of these posts, even if she chooses not to reply.

[wendy1946]

Jim,

I am not pushing abortion and I do not plan any further involvement in discussions of the topic on FR based on this experience. What concerns me is that in 30 years of involvement in Virginia politics all I’ve ever seen the issue do is get good candidates for public office defeated by vermin and this leads me to believe that draconian laws are the wrong approach, and that what is actually needed to get rid of the 95% of abortions that you really want gone is economic initiatives. That is actually taking place in Germany and Russia at present. That’s what I tried to get across here but nobody could tell that from all the straw men standing around.

[wagglebee]

Excellent post P-M!

[wagglebee]

I am not pushing abortion and I do not plan any further involvement in discussions of the topic on FR based on this experience. What concerns me is that in 30 years of involvement in Virginia politics all I’ve ever seen the issue do is get good candidates for public office defeated by vermin and this leads me to believe that draconian laws are the wrong approach, and that what is actually needed to get rid of the 95% of abortions that you really want gone is economic initiatives.

One the one hand you claim to not be pushing abortion, then on the other you claim to be in favor of 5% of abortions and ALL genetic abortions (for Down Syndrome, etc.).

You sound EXACTLY like the leftists who say they are "personally opposed, but."

[Jim Robinson]

Draconian laws? Well, it’s obvious you are not one of us.

zot

[little jeremiah]

genetic compromise and the like;

Wow.

[wagglebee]

Thanks Jim!

[BykrBayb]

Thank you Jim. God bless you.

[trisham]

Thank you, Jim.

[trisham]

Thanks for the ping!