MrBates2
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- Joined
- Feb 18, 2012
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This was one of the primary themes of Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Review, in which Montgomery Mulford wrote that “I am of the belief that the acceptance of birth control by society, and its frank teaching, can help diminish criminal activity!”
This theme still resonates strongly with many people today. The best-known study of the abortion-crime connection was performed by John J. Donohue III and Steven D. Levitt in 2001. In Harvard University’s Quarterly Journal of Economics, they concluded that “Legalized abortion contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. … Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.” The authors noted, “Crime began to fall roughly 18 years after abortion legalization,” and that the social benefit of this decrease in crime is about $30 billion annually.2
Donohue and Levitt wrote that, since 1991 ― 18 years after Roe v. Wade legalized abortion ― murder rates have fallen faster than at any time since the end of Prohibition in 1933. They added that the five states that legalized abortion earlier than 1973 [New York, California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska] also experienced earlier declines in crime. Finally, they found that states with especially high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s had equally dramatic crime reductions in the 1990s.3
Levitt went on to co-author the 2005 bestseller Freakonomics, in which he reiterated his thesis that the legalization of abortion is responsible for half of the recent drop in violent crime.
Prominent pro‑abortion groups and leaders immediately seized on the results of the Donohue‑Levitt study and used them as justification for promoting and funding the practice of abortion. For example, Canadian abortionist Henry Morgentaler, in an op‑ed piece heartlessly entitled “It’s Better for Us that They Died,” declared moral vindication and grumbled that he had been saying for decades that abortion would reduce crime.4
This theme still resonates strongly with many people today. The best-known study of the abortion-crime connection was performed by John J. Donohue III and Steven D. Levitt in 2001. In Harvard University’s Quarterly Journal of Economics, they concluded that “Legalized abortion contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. … Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.” The authors noted, “Crime began to fall roughly 18 years after abortion legalization,” and that the social benefit of this decrease in crime is about $30 billion annually.2
Donohue and Levitt wrote that, since 1991 ― 18 years after Roe v. Wade legalized abortion ― murder rates have fallen faster than at any time since the end of Prohibition in 1933. They added that the five states that legalized abortion earlier than 1973 [New York, California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska] also experienced earlier declines in crime. Finally, they found that states with especially high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s had equally dramatic crime reductions in the 1990s.3
Levitt went on to co-author the 2005 bestseller Freakonomics, in which he reiterated his thesis that the legalization of abortion is responsible for half of the recent drop in violent crime.
Prominent pro‑abortion groups and leaders immediately seized on the results of the Donohue‑Levitt study and used them as justification for promoting and funding the practice of abortion. For example, Canadian abortionist Henry Morgentaler, in an op‑ed piece heartlessly entitled “It’s Better for Us that They Died,” declared moral vindication and grumbled that he had been saying for decades that abortion would reduce crime.4
