The Relation of Abortion and Crime Rates

A woman has the right to do what she wants with her body and her life without other individuals passing judgment on everything she might do. Abortion is an action that all women ought to have the option to perform in the event that she thinks it is fundamental without being detested for it. Abortion is a major issue in many parts of the world. Different people have different views and opinions on this topic based on different factors, such as their race, culture, religion and many more. It is accepted in many parts of the world, but in many parts of the world, it is greatly frowned upon. Abortion has a lot of positive aspects, one of them being its positive impact on crime rates lowering. In this paper, I will be discussing how the legalization of abortion has resulted in reduced crime rates in the United States.

Until the late 19th century, abortion was only legal until the time when a woman could initially feel the development of the fetus, which is usually around the fourth month of pregnancy. Because pregnancy was greatly frowned upon, a lot of times women took dangerous and illegal drugs to induce an abortion, which proved to be very fatal to their health. The Catholic Church banned abortion completely in 1869. Additionally, Congress passed the Comstock Law which declared that it was illegal to sell abortion-inducing drugs to women. The majority of women could not afford to fly to another country where abortion was legal. Norma McCorvey was a woman in Texas who wanted to get an abortion. After being unsuccessful in trying to get an illegal abortion, McCorvey’s attorneys wanted to challenge anti-abortion laws. McCorvey came to be known as Jane Roe. January 22, 1973, is when the Supreme Court finally legalized abortion throughout the United States. “ On Jan 22, 1973, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, struck down the Texas law banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure nationwide.” (History.com) Many people may argue that abortion is wrong and should be illegal, but the positive outcomes of abortion can help not only the woman but society as a whole.

Abortion plays a major part in reducing crime rates. A study shows that crime rates in America rose till 1991, and then drastically dropped. A new study called “Legalized Abortion and Crime” by Professors John Donohue of the Standford University Law School and Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago proposes that the legalization of abortion in the 1970s is what caused the crime rates to drastically fall. The theory is that if abortion was not legalized across the United States in the 1970s, the children who would have been born would most likely grow up in poverty and uneducated, under the care of a single parent. These factors are most likely to be responsible for a child to grow up and be a part of many criminal activities in fifteen to twenty-five years. “The children who were not born would have been disproportionately likely to grow up in poverty and on welfare with a young and poorly educated single parent. Because these factors are known to breed crime, the children not born would have been prime candidates to be criminals 15 to 25 years later” (Robert J. Barro) Therefore, the absence of these children caused crime rates to decrease. The United States supreme court legalized abortion in 1973 after Roe V Wade, however, some states including New York and California, legalized abortion in 1970. The states that legalized abortion earlier experienced falling crime rates faster than the states that legalized it three years later. “A few states, including New York and California, legalized abortion by 1970, three years before the US Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973. As the theory implies, the early legalizers experienced falling crime rates sooner than the rest of the country” (Robert J. Barro) This proves that abortion can help not only the woman but an entire society as well.

Abortion can help a woman tremendously. Women who decide not to get an abortion are most likely to not complete their education. They are most likely still living with their violent partners, who engage in criminal activities. Often times, these uneducated women who are single parents have to engage in criminal activities to be able to financially support their families and their babies. On the other hand, women who do decide to get an abortion are most likely to continue with their education, which will lead to them getting a professional job. They are also more likely to maintain the use of contraception in the future, which can help reduce crime rates in general. “After two years, the young women who had terminated their pregnancies were far more likely to have graduated from high school or to still be in school and at the appropriate grade level than were those who had decided to carry their pregnancy to term or those whose pregnancy test had been negative. Those who had obtained an abortion were also better off economically than were those in the other two groups after two years” (Mark R. Emerson). This study shows that women who had decided to terminate their pregnancies and decided to get an abortion ended up in a better position than women who did not. Not only does this help reduce crime rates, but it helps women live a better life through continuing their education.

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Poverty and crime rates are deeply connected. It has been proved many times that areas with high-income rates have fewer rates of violence and criminal activities than areas with low-income rates. “People living in households in the US that have an income level below the Federal poverty threshold have more than double the rates of violent victimization compared to individuals in high-income households.” (arcgis.com). People living in poverty are denied education and therefore most likely to engage themselves in violence and criminal activities to provide financial support for themselves and their families. Abortion plays a part in poverty as well. It can help reduce poverty which can result in reduced crime rates in these areas. It can help communities, couples, and people get out of poverty. “Decades of research in countries ranging from the United States to Bangladesh show that reproductive policy is economic policy. It is no coincidence that the American middle class rose along with the ability of couples to plan their families, starting at the beginning of the last century.” (Valerie Tarico). Having two or three children instead of eight or ten is critical in thriving in the modern economy. Parents with fewer children can give their complete attention to them and raise them appropriately, with legitimate education in decent bad living conditions, whereas parents with more children can not focus on every one of them constantly, which can then lead to one or more of these children to engage themselves into the crime world.

It has been proven several times that abortion and crime rates are correlated. Professors John Donohue of the Standford University Law School and Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago repeated their study again in 2001. The first study was done in 2001, which showed that crime rates had drastically decreased throughout the United States after the legalization of abortion in Roe vs Wade. In this new research, they used almost an identical analysis method they did in 2001, except this time they added crime rates and abortion data covering from 1997 to 2014. The first study covered from 1985 to 1997. The results the second time were stronger than that of the first time around. This further proves that abortion can indeed help to reduce crime rates. “unwanted children are at an elevated risk for less favorable life outcomes on multiple dimensions, including criminal involvement, and the legalization of abortion appears to have dramatically reduced the number of unwanted births.” (Clark Merrefield). The authors did this research based on many different factors. For example, “the authors examine crime in states that legalized abortion before Roe; crime in states with high and low abortion rates after Roe; differences in crime patterns in states among people born before and after Roe; and differences in arrest rates within states among people born before and after Roe.” (Marrefield). After conducting their research, they found a ten to twenty percent in crime rates affiliated with abortion. This further proves that abortion can result in reduced crime rates. Other authors and researchers throughout time have conducted their own researches to see whether Levitt and Donohue were correct in their findings, and they have commented on Donohue and Levitt’s research.

Ted Joyce and John R. Lott are two individuals who have questioned and challenged Levitt and Donohue’s findings. In their opinion, abortion does not reduce crime rates. In his unpublished paper, Ted argues, “First, I examine closely the effects of changes in abortion rates between 1971 and 1974. Changes in abortion rates during this period were dramatic, varied widely by state, had a demonstrable effect on fertility, and were more plausibly exogenous than changes in the late 1970s and early 1980s. If abortion reduced crime, crime should have fallen sharply as these post-legalization cohorts reached their late teens and early 20s, the peak ages of criminal involvement”. He goes on to say, “Second, I conduct separate estimates for whites and blacks because the effect of legalized abortion on crime should have been much larger for blacks than whites since the effect of legalization of abortion on the fertility rates of blacks was much larger. There was little race difference in the reduction in crime.” It has been proven several times that one of the many benefits that result from abortion is the reduction in crime rates. Even though abortion was legalized in 1973, different states had different views on it. For example, in states like North Dakota and parts of the deep South, it was nearly impossible to get an abortion. Therefore, some states had higher abortion rates and some states had lower abortion rates, even after Roe vs Wade. In his response to Ted Joyce’s paper, Levitt says, “For the period from 1973-1988, the two sets of states (high abortion states and low abortion states) have nearly identical crime patterns...But from the period 1985-1997, when the post-Roe cohort is reaching peak crime ages, the high abortion states see a decline in crime of 30% relative to the low abortion states”. This clearly proves that after abortion was legalized in 1973, the crime rates drastically dropped. Similarly, arrest rates have also lowered after the legalization of abortion throughout the country, which further shows that crime levels did reduce. According to Brian Clowes regarding abortion and crime rates, “Murder rate has decreased by 49%, forcible rapes have decreased by 32%, robberies have decreased by 50%, and aggravated assaults have decreased by 39%.” These are high numbers that clearly prove that abortion has had a positive effect on society.

Abortin has been a disputable theme all through time. many individuals accept that abortion is a necessary activity and that it can have numerous positive impacts on society. On the other hand, many individuals are against it. As I would like to think, abortion is something that ought to be totally the woman’s choice. Be that as it may, it can help a general public from multiple points of view, one of them being reduced crime rates. Numerous researches have been conducted regarding this subject, and it has been demonstrated numerous times that abortion reduces crime rates by reducing poverty and providing better living conditions for the woman and her family.