Talk:Legalized abortion and crime effect

Comment

The last paragraph of the article reads: "Response to Foote and Goetz: Donohue and Levitt admit the programming error made in the original version of the paper and then go on to address the two points that Foote and Goetz make (see here for the reply). Donohue and Levitt contend that even though Foote and Goetz analysis was doing what Donohue and Levitt claim that they were originally doing it produces heavy attenuation bias (the reason they find no statistical relationship between abortion and crime). To remedy this, Donohue and Levitt use the improved abortion measures (that Lott and Whitley originally used) and they make other changes that they now argue are necessary, and they claim that with these new changes the results are smaller by still statistically significant.

"smaller by still statisically significant" is an obvious typo that needs fixing. Will the author please do so?

I remain uncertain that the Correlation subheading and the one-sentence content within is helpful or necessary to the article. Thoughts? Zenosparadox 22:09, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The 'Criticisms' subheading? I am sure people can expand upon the one sentence, but it is a rather large criticism to have conclusions based upon only correlational data. Of course many studies are 'only' correlational in nature since an experiment is not possible for the kinds of data needed - but nevertheless since cause and effect cannot be determined by corrlelational study alone, their conclusions are suspect by default.

Another area of criticism, other than the nature of their study being correlational, is possibily in their methodology - i.e. different states may have different definitions and reporting methods for abortion. There were a few other critiques of their study as well as I remember from an article in Scientific American. I'll see if I can find it and add more to the article. --ShaunMacPherson 17:10, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I just removed it:

Correlation between 'unwantedness' and adverse conditions

It is not a new idea that unwanted children are more likely to suffer from adverse conditions.

And your point is? I guess that's an argument in favor of the theory. If that's your point and you want to see it in the article, then find a source arguing this and put it in the article. Crust 16:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

People that think they need an abortion for the most part are single women with low income. It's a sad fact that poverty breeds crime, PC or not it's true. There's less murders in Hollywood than there is in Harlem. So there shouldn't be a surprise that a rise in abortion would lead to a lower crime rate. Facts and whether it be 'moral' or not are separate issues. 23:32 - Fentoro

Merge?

Shouldn't The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime be merged into this page? It's unusual to have an article on an academic paper anyway, and seems unnecessary duplication. Rd232 ^talk 14:48, 24 December 2005 (UTC) THERE IS A LINK TO THE FILE (AS PDF) BUT THE FILE IS CORRUPT!! PLEASE FIX!!

Articles on influential academic papers, such as X Article, are certainly encyclopedic and I wouldn't have a problem if The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime was a standalone article. But it basically seems to be a less well organized duplicate of this page, so I certainly wouldn't mind a merge at this point. - BanyanTree 05:48, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

The concept of an abortion-crime rate correlation is independent from Levitt and Dohohue's paper. According to this article, Levitt and Donohue were not the first to propose such correlation, so I don't think their paper is synonymous with the hypothesis as a whole. A Defense of Abortion is a seperate article from Violinist (thought experiment). -Severa (!!!) 08:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Intro paragraph

Please Don't Block said in the last edit summary, "(The title of the article is "legalized abortion and crime effect," not "legalized abortion and crime theory." Calling it "effect" sounds like it has been established empirically-- but that is unclear)."

Did you notice that "highly controversial theory" appears in the first sentence -- long before your added sentence appears? The intro article already does a great job saying that this is controversial and not-setteled -- the sentence you're insisting on is redundant and makes it sound like the article is trying extra hard to cast doubt on Levitt. Let's let the arguments and the data stand on their own. --Quasipalm 06:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality of Article

The article is entitled, "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime," yet the majority of the article is devoted to debunking the claims made by Steven Levitt. I dispute the neutrality of this article, as it is a polemic against Mr. Levitt's research instead of an article on "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime."

I agree with you that there is somewhat of a problem of balance. As you say, there is significantly more space devoted to criticism that to support of the theory. The solution is to edit the article! Crust 15:30, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Imbalance in language of third paragraph when describing attitudes towards the theory. Pro stance is characterised as "easily acceptable situation" whereas anti stance is "terrible travesty".

This article states that the crime rates dropped more steeply in the 4 states that had abortion before Roe v Wade, but the ONLY state that had a steeper drop was New York, Washington was fairly less steep and later then the rest of the country, while Alaska and Hawaii had NO drop in crime. I feel like it would be much easier to merge the two articles as mentioned above. The one addressing the specific Paper is so significantly more detailed and much of the criticism is at that particular paper, that to hope this article become distinct and significantly full is unlikely. At best mostly a duplicate, at worst a lopsided, misinformed article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.232.123.178 (talk) 07:20, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

1. This is an article about an "effect" that is primarily devoted to debunking.

2. Has anyond noticed thst the debunking of crime is almost entirely *murder* rates, not *crime* rates?

This article is a disaster. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shornby (talk • contribs) 16:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Addition points from Freakonomics

There was a part of freakonomics that could be used here about the nation (I forget which one) that had forced pregnacies that led to more crime and eventually the overthrowment of the dictatorship... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.190.62.4 (talk) 18:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

It was Romania. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.6.197.195 (talk) 20:57, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Sailer's simplistic and flawed argument

I don't know how, but maybe it should be mentioned in the article that teen homicide rates skyrocketed because of the drug trade increasing in popularity, which over the years and combined with police activity, made juveniles in demand as drug dealers. This is a norm in the USA now - gangs have 12 year olds deal drugs for them, probably in part because a 12 year old isn't going to be punished nearly as bad as a 23 year old with a few felonies. Peoplesunionpro 18:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Ninth Amendment Considerations?

This might be a reach, but I note a paucity of discussion about the application of the 9th Amendment to the abortion issue. But the amendment was mostly ignored until Griswold vs. Connecticut, of course.

At any rate, I do think the white paper and the Freakonomics would most usefully be covered in the same article. Bill W. 18:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

This is ignored here because the article is about sociological/criminological data, not about the legality of abortion.ScottForschler (talk) 22:27, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

1 newborn=100 fetuses

It is looked reasonable if we put our thoughts in informational space of the communication. Unborn fetus has no chance for communication, meanwhile newborn has chance communicate, very rough overall, with 100 people withing his life. Contacts and influence in the communication seem to be another interesting field for research by this method.87.74.78.43 (talk) 08:19, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

This is completely garbled and irrelevant; please type only useful comments on talk pages.ScottForschler (talk) 22:26, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Graphs

"Data indicate that crime started to decline in 1992. Donohue and Levitt suggest that the absence of unwanted aborted children, following legalization in 1973, led to a reduction in crime 18 years later, starting in 1992 and dropping sharply in 1995."

If it's that noticeable of a reduction, I would expect it to be clearly visible on a graph that shows abortion rates and crime rates. Has anyone done this, either to prove or disprove? — Omegatron (talk) 01:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It is stunningly visible on crime-rate graphs, for instance, those shown here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.255.25.211 (talk) 04:34, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

But it's a lot more complicated that that, as the many follow-up studies show.ScottForschler (talk) 22:24, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Biased

This article seems to obsess over the 90s but completely ignores modern day crime. I doubt this theory disappeared off the map some 20 years ago. YVNP (talk) 13:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect; it cites later studies, and in any case crime rates continue to go down modestly.ScottForschler (talk) 22:25, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Foote and Goetz criticism and reply by Levitt

The details of the error Foote and Goetz uncovered together with Donohue and Levitt's reply are given in another entry (The_Impact_of_Legalized_Abortion_on_Crime#Criticism) and are linked to in this entry. Donohue and Levitt acknowledge that they did indeed have an error in one of their tables ("it is with great embarrassment that we acknowledge that state-year interactions were omitted from four of the eight regressions in the published version of Table 7 of our original paper") - they claim that the error turns out not to be significant, but the fact that the error exists is not in dispute. --Drono (talk) 04:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

why this is a silly argument

The reason why I believe this is a baseless argument and hence article to exist in the first place, is the articles first line. The legalized abortion and crime effect is the theory that legal abortion reduces crime. Umm legalizing any crime will reduce crime, and bringing people into the world will bring the potential for crime. Isn't this a counter productive argument to make, not only because it's obvious but because it's so usless and simple to make? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.32.31.254 (talk) 23:53, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Unwanted babies growing up in unstable environments are more prone to become criminals later on, that's what it's about.

~~anonymous — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.21.3.240 (talk) 07:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

So what about love?

I feel that one important point is entirely missing in this quite “materialistic” discussion: LOVE. Children who are loved from the beginning are much less likely to become criminals. But children who get too little love, or no at all, are much more likely to grow up to people who are able to commit crimes. That is really logical! It is a simple psychological issue. If a woman is forced to have a child she doesn’t want, because she wants to abort it and isn’t allowed to, she will with a high probability not raise the child in much love, but rather much neglect it and care little about it. It may even be subject to violence from her, men in her life and the environment. It could even be more easily subject to such things as sexual abuse, since the mother is careless about this possibility. Now wonder, than, if the child grows up to become more or less criminal! It is well known that criminals in most cases had a tough and loveless childhood. That is the quite obvious connection here! Jan Erik Sigdell (Slovenia)

Lots of things are "logical" or common sense, but not all such things are supported by empirical data; some are even refuted by them. That's why we need studies like these.ScottForschler (talk) 22:22, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Citations

I removed one "citation needed" from the section discussing the Levitt Donohue study, as it was clear that the source of the claim was that study. Perhaps the other "citation needed" regarding the Foote criticism paper should also be deleted, as the source is also obvious (but I note, not actually in the reference, except on the link to the article discussing of the Levitt Donohue paper, and I'm too lazy to figure out how to put it in). Owheelj (talk) 13:42, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Cosmorwellian???

What does "Cosmorwellian" mean? I clicked on the link and it says that there is no article on that topic. A web search seems to link only to this Wiki page, and others that reference it. Please, will someone either explain this term, or edit the passage so that it makes sense. thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seeker718 (talk • contribs) 22:11, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Merge or move

This article (Legalized abortion and crime effect) should be either merged with (The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime) or moved to a more general title such as Unwanted births and crime (or Unwanted children and crime).

• Merge: At this point this article is essentially a smaller copy of The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime. Since there is no broader content here, there is no point in having the duplicate article. Merging the articles would reduce duplication. Merging the other article into this one would allow expansion on the broader topic (should such occur outside of the context of the Donohue-Levitt article). Using a more general title might also help with the structural problems with the other article. It is structured as a series of responses to the original article. This title would allow more flexibility in structure.

• Rename: If there are to remain two separate articles, then this one should be moved to a more general name. To focus on just one abortion - just one factor that affects unwanted births does not make sense for an encyclopedia article (as compared to a newspaper headline). With the current name it is hard to incorporate other factors, such as availability of contraceptives, unintended pregnancy rate, etc. which affect the number of unwanted children, but are peripheral to "abortions and crime". (e.g. making contraceptives more available would lower abortions, would you then expect an increase in crime, or a decrease since abortions was just one mechanism for reducing unwanted children.)

Which do you favor? (Or do you have a suggestion for further refinement/another option). Thanks. Zodon (talk) 08:11, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems to be semantics to me. I would say merge them under the "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime" article. This phrase seems to more accurately articulate the assertion than "Legalized abortion and crime effect." I have been working as a teaching assistant in criminal justice department at Tulane University, and the professor I work for puts it that way, saying even that he believes that it is the largest single factor in crime reduction in the last forty years. I'll ask him for cites next week when I go to class. 75.223.227.48 (talk) 19:22, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Great. More references would be helpful.

I came up with one to help back up my suggestion above about the fundamental thing being unwanted children, rather than abortions. It is from Levitt's freakonomics blog. Steve Sailer asks an excellent question by Steven D. Levitt Zodon (talk) 21:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Merge both (and maybe Roe effect?) into a more general title per your (Zodon's) comments above and here. Abortion is just one facet of the broader topic and should be covered in that context. - ArtifexMayhem (talk) 22:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Merge - The idea of "Legalized abortion and crime effect" is almost always discussed within the context of the study, The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime. Until the concept gains enough notability to stand on its own two feet, it should probably be contained with the article on that study. NickCT (talk) 15:52, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
• Merge Legalized abortion and crime would be a good concise name for the combined article. --BDD (talk) 19:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• Merge - I agree that this page offers nothing more than the page The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime. ngeorgak 29 Oct 2012 —Preceding undated comment added 18:57, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
• Merge - Both articles talk about the same thing. 132.3.17.78 (talk) 07:02, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

published competing theories

Rick Nevin in his study of the effect of lead poisoning from paint and gasoline on poor urban kids pointed out "the theory about abortion and crime could only explain the decline in crime rates in the 1990s and not the long rise in crime rates from 1960 to 1990 or the variation in murder rates from 1900 to 1960." Nevin's competing theory is that Levitt's "crime prone demographic" (poor urban kids) were heavily exposed to lead in paint and gasoline resulting in lower IQ, poor impulse control, etc. and urban crime went up as lead exposure went up and went down as lead was removed from paint and gasoline (lagged by ~23 years for exposed infants to reach likely crime-committing age). Levitt's co-author John Donohue frequently credits the decline in the 1990s to the decline in the crack trade (and oddly seldomn mentions the abortion effect). Rival John Lott credits 5-7% decline in the 1990s to the increase in states having shall-issue handgun permit laws. Levitt & Dubner claim in Freakonomics that only the abortion theory accounts for the crime decline in the 1990s. Naaman Brown (talk) 03:17, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality

The majority citations in the article is reference works written by or affiliated with Freak-a-nomics author Levitt. While this is not itself problematic, the article must more make this more clear that this is primarily Levitt's conclusion, as no sources have asserted that this is a mainstream view point. (prior version) --Zfish118 (talk) 17:45, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

This material from the lead is uncited, and challenged:

Moreover, children born under those conditions are usually poor. In particular, it is argued that the United States pro-choice movement, for legal abortion in the U.S., consequence of the Roe v. Wade decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, reduced crime in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Opponents reject the statistics, and argue that abortion has negative effects on society and that decrease in crime is brought about in other ways. --Zfish118 (talk) 18:29, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Not sure this is a correlation. I am sure someone must have brought this up...

Incarceration rates have dramatically increased, housing only about 500k in the 70's to now a whopping 2 million plus. It would seem to anyone with a bit of sense, that the reduction in crime rates is due to more stronger sentencing and locking them up more. You basically have to ignore this to say legalizing abortion is the reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.192.109.61 (talk) 21:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source that makes this argument, then by all means cite it in the article. But be aware that the vast majority of the increase in (US) incarceration is for nonviolent crime. Not sure how that relates to the proposed abortion effect. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:16, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

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Roe v. Wade

Roe v. Wade, a US centric case, is not really relevant to the article, which documents a mostly discredited worldwide hypothesis regarding crime rates decreasing due to the would-be criminals being legally aborted prior to birth. –Zfish118^⋉talk 04:26, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Supreme Court Justice Blackmun's opinion in Roe v. Wade, a case of the Supreme Court of the United States which prohibited many state and federal restrictions on abortion, references the problem "of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it."

References

Transgenerational stress inheritance and birth rates

Putting [Transgenerational stress inheritance] into the picture, one will see it strengthen the hypothesis. US soldier involve 2 major war after world war 2 : [Korean War](1950-1953) and [Vietnam War](1955-1975). There are no free lunch after the war end, [Posttraumatic stress disorder] follows. Since human society are not structure as [Bonobo], legalize abortion does proportionally reduce the number of broken and poor families children. After year 2000, the effect of abortion reduce significantly, poor families simply change their mindset to have less babies.--Tan S.L. (talk) 16:56, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

This content may only be added if it is well sourced. –Zfish118^⋉talk 13:53, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Other countries?

Please add a section about similar studies in other countries. Many countries have legalized abortion in the past fifty years; did they also experience diminished crime?97.118.113.252 (talk) 15:09, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

2009 review by Shah and Ahman

I don't think this is relevant. The review does not mention the Donohue--Levitt hypothesis or crime rates at all. The data presented in that study only shows that abortion rates are similar in countries that have restrictions on abortions and countries that don't, but extrapolating from that that it challenges Donohue--Levitt is original research.--Exjerusalemite (talk) 04:33, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Since there doesn't seem to be opposition, I'll remove that section.--Exjerusalemite (talk) 16:30, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

The subject of the article is the effect of legalization of abortion, not the D-L effect. –Zfish118^⋉talk 03:44, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

It might be appropriate to move the section, but not delete it. –Zfish118^⋉talk 03:45, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - SU22 - Sect 202 - Tue

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 July 2022 and 16 August 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cindyhong123 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Cindyhong123 (talk) 09:25, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

2004 study by Donohue and Levitt

The new section regarding a 2004 study by Donohue and Levitt references a 2003 study published by "Joyce". I'd greatly appreciate if someone could track down the citation for that study! –Zfish118^⋉talk 13:35, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Globalization

The article is almost exclusively about a single author whose research has been restricted to the United States. His methods have been shown to be flawed in multiple instances, so the vary basis of the article is about the notable controversy of his methods. Rather than attempt to "globalize" it, the article should be narrowed to better show the nearly sole source of this alleged phenomenon. –Zfish118^⋉talk 15:16, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Information Literacy and Scholarly Discourse

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