“Declining crime rates could result from… selective abortion on the part of women most at risk to have children who would engage in criminal activity…” – Steven Levitt
At first glance this may sound like a sick joke, but what looks like bad humor is actually somebody’s idea of serious work. Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, posits that crime rates went down in the 90s because more women killed their babies in utero after child killing was “legalized” in the 70s. He writes:
Greater numbers of abortions are likely to reduce the size of a cohort, which can have a straightforward, but ultimately temporary, effect on overall crimes rates: if abortion decreases the number of births in a cohort, when that cohort reaches the late teens and twenties, there will be fewer young males, and thus more crime.
Of course, the racial (and eugenics) implications of Levitt’s theory are enormous. Since black women are three times more likely to kill their babies and blacks, on average, commit more crimes, following Levitt’s logic, declining crime rates are attributed more to the deaths of black babies. I don’t think the pro-aborts want to latch on to this one.
I did a search on Levitt’s 1999 article and found it at EconPapers. Click here for a PDF copy of “Legalized Abortion and Crime.”
I don’t know if Levitt thought about the implications when he decided to publish his ideas, but Steve Sailer, who often writes about race, sure has. In Pre-emptive Executions?, Sailer eviscerates Levitt’s flawed findings and offers a much more rational explanation for crime reduction. Although some dismiss Sailer as a racist, at least he understands that Levitt’s strange and racially-loaded ideas are “morally repugnant.” He writes:
Although Levitt desperately wants to avoid talking about race in relation to abortion and crime, blacks make an ideal test case for his theory because, as Levitt himself has noted, black women have about triple the number of abortions per capita as white women. So Levitt’s theory suggests that black teens should have “benefited†more than whites from abortion. Instead, black 14- to 17-year-olds were an apocalyptic 4.4 times more murderous in 1993 than a decade earlier. The black-white teen murder ratio grew from five times worse in 1983 to 11 times worse in 1993, according to the FBI.The embarrassing truth, as Levitt admitted to me when I debated him on Slate.com in 1999, is that when he dreamed up his theory with John J. Donohue, he looked at crime rates in 1985 and 1997 and paid little attention to the vast crack epidemic that laid waste to urban America in between.
Sailer’s analysis of crime rates sounds “right,” more intuitive. Levitt, by his own admission, sought a “novel” explanation for falling crime rates, one that doesn’t ring true. Think about the logical leap you’d have to make to conclude that crime has decreased because of something akin to retroactive capital punishment. The fact that more criminals are locked up is the most likely reason crime rates fall, not that there are fewer criminals alive!
Another plausible argument is that legalized child killing has increased crime. That sounds right. Sailer writes:
The liberal politics and permissive social attitudes that made legal abortion popular in New York, California, and Washington, D.C. (where it was de facto legal before Roe) likely also contributed to the crack epidemic. D.C., for example, enjoyed both the highest abortion rate in the U.S. and, in later years, a popular mayor, Marion Barry, who was himself a crackhead.
The last line was unexpected but sadly true, and it illustrates the absurdity of abandoning standards of decency and the havoc it wreaks on society.
Update: I think this is an online debate on Slate.com between Steve Sailer and Steven Levitt. It looks like Part I, II and III of “Does Abortion Prevent Crime?”
Related: The Roe Effect and Babies Having Fewer Babies.
Readers respond to this Opinion Journal article.
Update II (4/21): Steve Levitt responds:
I think it is only fair to an author that if you are going to criticize a theory, you first invest the time to read what the author has written. Everything on this blog is a response to someone’s criticism of my work, not the work itself. It completely misses the point. My research is not an endorsement of abortion, baby killing, eugenics, etc. It is not a pleasant theory, but the data overwhelmingly support it. And it makes sense. As some of the people posting say, if you kill everyone there will be no crime. Essentially that is my point. I’m not saying it is good or bad, I am just saying that if you abort 1 million fetuses a year, it should be no surprise crime is lower when that generation reaches its peak crime years. That is not an endorsement, it is a fact.LaShawn, if you are interested, I will send you a copy of the book and/or the academic article. I am confident that after you read it you will have a different opinion. If you are serious about the truth, give me a chance.
My response:
Thanks for stopping by, Steve. I would like to read your book. I’ll send you an e-mail with my contact information.I read some of your report but not all of it. I will read the rest. Time will tell if I change my view of your premise. And I hope you noticed that I didn’t accuse you of endorsing abortion. In fact, the post title simply restates your conclusion, and the post itself is about the racial implications of your conclusion and Sailer’s analysis of your theory.
I linked to the PDF copy of your report and responses to Steve Sailer so my readers would have the relevant information and form their own opinions. I will give your book a fair reading and post a review on the blog.
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Levit has forgotten something basic – there is a DECLINING incidence of abortion now, along with an increase of almost everything decent – people rediscovering religion, and abandoning extreme liberalism.
Reduced crime is most likely a result of this increased moral consciousness.
Isn’t this the whole theory behind Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood anyway….. create a perfect society by breeding out the unwanteds, the disabled, the malformed and, most of all, blacks.
Once again we are seeing proof that the radical feminist movement during the 1970’s adopted Sanger’s concept of uber-female feminism over Anthony’s concept of equal-rights feminism.
One would think that for females to engage in true ‘choice’ they would be given information about the founding principles of Sanger’s Planned Parenthood in order to truly understand the nature of their choice. Ban females from seeing the photos from an ultra sound don’t ya know.
And, don’t tell anyone that Planned Parenthood’s founder was a confirmed racist either.
I wrote about Steven Levitt on my blog a few months ago when The NY Times cited his then-upcoming book in a terrible article about Real Estate Brokers. He is a hotshot in intellectual circles, but in my view he is the worst kind of bean counter around. Statistics can be manipulated to say anything to suit any agenda; to paraphrase Ron Silver, I can use baseball statistics to make Babe Ruth look like an anorexic alchohol abstainer.
Correlation is not causation.
abortion rates go up under republicans.
http://liberalslikechrist.org/about/abortionrates.html
Sadly, Levitt’s theory is the one that many law professor’s still use. At least, that’s the one that was taught in law school.
And, of course, we’d eliminate all crime if we just got rid of all the people. The question is not whether Levitt’s hypothesis is true but so what?
You know, I never thought of that! Hmmmm….
…if we kill all the people we’ll have less crime, less pollution, no deforestation (except by elephants and lightning), no spousal abuse, no child abuse…why didn’t someone think of this long ago!
Besides Hitler I mean.
Unfortunately, by the same perverse token, child molesting will reduce unwanted pregnancies.
-T
I link to this and provide some further discussion over at Red State Lawblog.
I am sceptical. Remember, prior to Roe, abortion was legal in some states and available to anybody able to travel to those states. I suggest that attempting to attribute any social outcome to but a single cause is foolhardy.
Mark,
Killing “everything” was thought of long ago, by God. But then, (unfortunately or fortunately depending on one’s outlook), there was Noah.
I don’t get what’s immoral about Leavitt’s paper. He might be right, he might not. But the whole point of his field is to come up with explanations of how people act based on the data. It’s not a moral action.
“Mark,
Killing “everything†was thought of long ago, by God. But then, (unfortunately or fortunately depending on one’s outlook), there was Noah.”
~And the same problems still exist. Point being, change must come from the heart.
Sheena, for a professore, his research is both weak and reliant on moonbat talking points. How’s that for Christ-like?
Morally speaking, diminishing income is not justification for an abortion. If it were, it would put Jesus’ words on poverty to lie (Mar 12:44).
LaShawn, please give Levitt’s argument some real thought. He explicitly points out that he is not arguing for abortion as a means of reducing crime. He is looking for an explanation for why crime rates dropped quickly starting in the early 1990s. In science-speak, he is looking at positive relationships not normative ones.
His data and analysis is rather strong and much more rigorous than Mr. Sailors. The conclusion is also intuitive even if it is morally repugnant. If we abort mainly low-income, at-risk children, then 15-25 years later there will be a reduction in crime levels. It won’t happen right away (which is why your graph is misleading); the time lag is significant while children grow up. As an economist and a pro-lifer, I think Levitt’s argument is academically sound.
Nevertheless, executing at-risk children would never be an acceptable policy even if it lowered crime rates so why is executing at-risk unborn children. The moral case against abortion is strong regardless of the effect on crime.
Finally, Levitt notes that increased policing and incrimination also played a part in lowering crime. He also points out that stricter gun control does NOT affect crime levels. His analysis shows about half of the drop in crime is due to legal abortion and the other half is due in part to policing, steeper penalties, better economic growth, and other factors.
It may not sit well with some of us, but Dr. Levitt’s arguments are not coming from some liberal think tank covered in spin; they are coming from some sound state level data.
(Disclaimer: I will be studying Economics at Chicago in the Fall which may include studying under Professor Levitt)
No, no, no, Adam, I am not asserting that Levitt is saying there should be more abortions. I’m taking issue with his theory that the crime reduction in the 90s is attributed to the legalization of abortion in the 70s. And Sailer, following Levitt’s data and logic, comes up with different conclusions. The real issue is which statistics are more reliable and the problems with crime trend data.
(So you decided to do the Ph.D.?)
LaShawn and Dovespa
My problem with Sailer’s abortion analysis is that it seems to rely on a rather dubious assumption. I don’t want to put words in his mouth but that assumption appears to be that the population of women who have given birth to children since 1973 is completely distinct from the population of women who have elected to terminate at least one pregnancy. I can’t cite the specific studies off the top of my head but I believe it has been shown that a very significant number of women who have had an abortion actually give birth to other children at some point in their lives. From what I recall, the majority of these children were born after the first abortion but a non-trivial minority were conceived before the first abortion. I believe that both gentlemen could make stronger cases for their points of view if they studied rates of criminality amongst this “survivor” cohort. I suspect they aren’t significantly different, which would tend to support Levitt’s thesis (less unwanted children who are more likely to committ crimes = lower crime rate).
Thoughts?
It’s amazing and frightening the lengths abortionists will go to justify and promote their evil practice. These type of ideas are going to keep being promoted as we continue to devalue life in our culture.
Crime rates have dropped because of the politics of crime and how crime is recorded and defined by the criminal justice system and those who create crime in our state legislatures.
Bulk of crime is a political construct at one time a woman was a criminal for having an abortion by changing the law not behaviors woman became non-criminals. With regard to crime stats the more police you have the more stats crimes you have because more cops means more reporting..
Now especially in urban venues cops are no longer recording all black activity as criminal.. for example at one time 4 black youths standing on a corner was viewed as juvenile crime now black cops viewed it correctly as adolescent behavior thereby removing these youths and these stats from being recorded as crimes…
I think it is only fair to an author that if you are going to criticize a theory, you first invest the time to read what the author has written. Everything on this blog is a response to someone’s criticism of my work, not the work itself. It completely misses the point. My research is not an endorsement of abortion, baby killing, eugenics, etc. It is not a pleasant theory, but the data overwhelmingly support it. And it makes sense. As some of the people posting say, if you kill everyone there will be no crime. Essentially that is my point. I’m not saying it is good or bad, I am just saying that if you abort 1 million fetuses a year, it should be no surprise crime is lower when that generation reaches its peak crime years. That is not an endorsement, it is a fact.
LaShawn, if you are interested, I will send you a copy of the book and/or the academic article. I am confident that after you read it you will have a different opinion. If you are serious about the truth, give me a chance.
I got this sort of response when I posted the idea that the Social Security situation would have been helped by the presence of these aborted future workers. People also responded that if the babies had not been aborted the women would have ended up having one less child anyway, resulting in a “net zero” effect. (my post, incidentally, was mentioned in Slate)
Thanks for stopping by, Steve. I would like to read your book. I’ll send you an e-mail with my contact information.
I read some of your report but not all of it. I will read the rest. Time will tell if I change my view of your premise. And I hope you noticed that I didn’t accuse you of endorsing abortion. In fact, the post title simply restates your conclusion, and the post itself is about the racial implications of your conclusion and Sailer’s analysis of your theory.
I linked to the PDF copy of your report and responses to Steve Sailer so my readers would have the relevant information and form their own opinions. I will give your book a fair reading and post a review on the blog.
LaShawn (and friends),
Excellent topic for discussion, thank you for such a lively (and civil) debate. Very worthwhile, some very important ideas batted around.
I am not a mathematician, but suspect that:
1. A nearly infinite number of variables contribute to trends, there may be a handful that have more than a very incremental effect. And
2. Scientific hypotheses in social sociences are virtually worthless, as it is impossible to control all variables. Any given behavior may or may not negate the possiblity of another, and some may be necessary and/or sufficient grounds for others, or for the absence of others.
A complete cataloging of a range of behaviors would be statistically impossible. Thus, none of this kind of analysis can be anything more than suggestive (and perhaps) predictive. But as thought experiments, still valuable (see first comments above).
Another angle, LaShawn, is perhaps there may be some minor causative factor, explained best by James Taranto’s “Best of the Web” over the past few months in the form of “The Roe Effect”.
Specifically, most who would never abort tend to be more morally conservative; further, they would tend to more actively raise their progeny within a transcendental, moral framework. Since they will most likely have more children than abortion advocates.
Another factor, much as we hate to admit it, is indeed race. But not simply by virtue of melanin content: instead, by virtue of the enslavement of the black race by Johnson’s “Great Society”. Black men were made unecessary except as “donors”. The Government took responsibility for caring for mom and all the kids. Heathcliff Huxtable was no longer needed. Daddy Government would take care of you. No moral dads, no moral guidance (athletic super-heroes notwithstanding: “I want to thank my grandmamma and mamma who raised me single-handedly”). No moral guidance, no self-control; and on and on until we see an overrepresentation in crime statistics of blacks.
It’s a horrible, horrible combination: the government-sponsored destruction of the black family and community, and abortion. But don’t worry–we whites are catching up quickly, especially in the family arena.
That’s the interesting thing about human depravity: it’s an equal opportunity thing. None of us is exempt. And when the family goes, so does civilization.
Guys, I just spent last evening reading Freakonomics (and it took me only a few hours — really quick read). There was only one thing really annoying about the book, and that was the excerpts from the NY Times Magazine article from 2003 on Leavitt. But the co-author of Freakonomics wrote it, so I guess he wanted the filler.
Anyway
#1 – They do discuss the whole correlation/causation problem
#2 – They do dissect the various explanations that were given for the crime drop
#3 – There’s an entire chapter on the crack epidemic (from an economic standpoint, of course) — this was extremely interesting
Interesting to me is how little adoption was addressed in the chapter on abortion and crime — in passing, they mention one of the “side effects” of legal abortion was the drop in the number of available babies to be adopted, and thus the rise in the adoption of foreign babies (and an excerpt from the NY Times Mag says Leavitt adopted a foreign-born baby, too, so I guess he knows about this from personal experience).
The only other connection to adoption was about the educational outcomes of adopted kids — which seem unaffected by adoptive parents until the kids actual reach adult age and go to a good college and get a nice job.
The one thing I always wondered about these analyses was what the role adoption had here — they keep going on about how a resented child will be ill-cared for, so obviously when abortion became legal these women would have the abortions. But if these children are so resented, why did the mothers ever keep them in the first place? Makes me wonder just how “unwanted” these kids were…
LaShawn, yes, I did choose the PhD route.
In case Sheena checks back here, I’d like for her to look at the abortion rates when compared to who controls the legislative branch instead of the executire one. Very different results. More importantly, the President and the legislature don’t have much influence on the number of abortions since even minor restrictions are ruled unconstitutional (partial birth for example). Comparing how many abortions happened before Roe and after Roe should give you a feel of the impact on liberal policies and abortion rates.
This is Steve Sailer. I invited Dr. Levitt to debate me in Slate.com in 1999 over his abortion-cut-crime theory. He accepted and you can read our 1999 exchange here: http://slate.msn.com/id/33569/entry/33571/
A few weeks ago, Levitt’s publicist suggested to him that he resume the debate with me in order to publicize his book. He refused, claiming, according to her, that he didn’t have time.
Judging from his placing an aggrieved comment here, he now seems to have time on his hands for defending his abortion-cut-crime theory, so allow me to state for the record that I am available to debate him any time, any place.
While you are waiting (and I fear we might all end up waiting a long time for Dr. Levitt to agree to another round with me) you can read my article in The American Conservative showing what’s empirically wrong with his assertion at
http://amconmag.com/2005_05_09/feature.html
You can also see my subsequent blog items on the controversy, additional graphs on the topic, and crime trend data allowing you to make up your own mind at:
http://www.isteve.com/abortion.htm
Allow me to add an excerpt from my “American Conservative” article on why Levitt’s assumption that legalizing abortion increased the quality of upbringing enjoyed my children doesn’t seem to have been borne out by the historical evidence:
Still, the social effects of abortion demand closer study. Although Levitt claims that legalized abortion should have improved the conditions under which children were raised, it made adoption rare. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, “Before 1973 about one in five premarital births to white women were relinquished for adoption. By the mid-1980’s (1982–88), this proportion fell to 1 in 30.â€
Even worse, the national illegitimacy rate soared, from 12 percent in 1972 to 34 percent in 2002. The growth didn’t begin to slow until the mid-1990s, when the abortion rate declined. Increased illegitimacy is socially devastating, not just because of the long-run harm to the child of being raised without a father but because of the immediate effect of freeing young men from the civilizing clutches of marriage.
Why did the abortion rate and the illegitimacy rate both skyrocket during the ‘70s? Isn’t abortion supposed to cut illegitimacy? Roe largely finished off the traditional shotgun wedding by persuading the impregnating boyfriend that he had no moral duty to make an honest woman of his girlfriend since she could get an abortion. The CDC noted, “Among women aged 15–29 years conceiving a first birth before marriage during 1970–74, nearly half (49 percent) married before the child was born. By 1975–79 the proportion marrying before the birth of the child fell to 32 percent, and it has declined to 23 percent in 1990–94.â€
The most striking fact about legalized abortion, but also the least discussed, is its pointlessness. Levitt himself notes that following Roe, “Conceptions rose by nearly 30 percent, but births actually fell by 6 percent …†So for every six fetuses aborted in the 1970s, five would never have been conceived except for Roe! This ratio makes a sick joke out of Levitt’s assumption that legalization made a significant difference in how “wanted†children were. Indeed, perhaps the increase in the number of women who got pregnant figuring they would get an abortion but then were too drunk or drugged or distracted to get to the clinic has meant that the “wantedness†of surviving babies has declined.
The sheer waste of it all is staggering.
Wow. The other Steve makes an appearance at LBC. Thanks for commenting, Steve. The first two links you mention were included in the post itself when I wrote it so readers would have the relevant information.
This comment thread is getting interesting.
LaShawn,
Maybe you should approach MSNBC about setting up a 30 minute set for you to have people like the two Steves on, for a debate. And you could participate/mediate. I would LOVE to see that.
I think you’d do a great job, and it would be interetsing.
Dan
Jim You Stated:
“Another factor, much as we hate to admit it, is indeed race. But not simply by virtue of melanin content: instead, by virtue of the enslavement of the black race by Johnson’s “Great Societyâ€. Black men were made unecessary except as “donorsâ€. The Government took responsibility for caring for mom and all the kids. Heathcliff Huxtable was no longer needed. Daddy Government would take care of you. No moral dads, no moral guidance (athletic super-heroes notwithstanding: “I want to thank my grandmamma and mamma who raised me single-handedlyâ€). No moral guidance, no self-control; and on and on until we see an overrepresentation in crime statistics of blacks.”
But your casual links of welfare to the current state of black America are misguided and poorly thought out.
You arbitrarily assume that a government system of providing for families eliminates the need of a father and therefore has enabled the destruction of A HIGHER PERCENTAGE of black families than would normatively happen in our American society.
I submit that thi may be a variable, but not the cause as you imply.
Why? Because it completely disregards the greater framework of the black experience, inlcuding Jim Crow, residual psychological effects of slavery, the devaluation of the African-American on every front by the American system and the most important, the elimination or reduction of capital infusion into African American communities to create wealth, independent businesses and an ‘integrated economic system’ which is far more important that integration itself.
To state that simply because a ‘welfare’ system was created and therefore blacks have no moral fabric just doesn’t make sense. I could go on but I think the point is made.
As far as the topic at hand. The assumption that ‘abortion’ equals less crime also makes certain assumptions:
1. That individuals who have abortions don’t have the same amount of children any way. So a teen aborts one child, and later only has one child. If she only planned on having one child (or plug in the number) then as mentioned above, the net effect is 0. The only argument that then could be made would be that the mother had a child at a later age, and therefore is more mature and can raise a child to NOT committ the crimes and therefore the statistics drop.
2. Hypothetically, let’s say ever child aborted would then be an additional child in the family. So if one was aborted, and the mother had three children, then the addition of the aborted one would equal four. Potentially the authors scenario may be true as each child would represent a reduction in family wealth, and an increased difficulty of raising the child in terms of attention. Then it would make sense that the child ‘may’ be more likely to commit crime, or 1 out of 4 children might committ crime.
However, being that this is speculative, we know that the ‘black middle class’ is growing, growing from where? The lower class, and if we are assuming that it is a much higher percentage of lower class blacks that committ crime then we simultaneously have to acknowledge under this scenario, the disproportionate number of blacks aborted who did not reach middle class. This alone skews the whole equation, because as the middle class increases, so the theory goes there are more blacks whom have hiring power and diversity interest, and therefore provide more programs and hire more individuals like themselves…eventually reducing the number of lower class blacks and moving them into middle class.
That is not accounted for either.
So overall, at face value, the assumptions of the report make sense. But in reality, sociology and cultural change and growth is unpredictable. Final example, what if Dr. Martin Luther King was aborted? What would the cultural impact of that have been?
For those interested, here is the CDC’s abortion statistics from 2000 (last report I believe).
Organizations like Planned Parenthood prey on the urban communities and young black women in particular.
It gives a whole lot of credence to the believe that it truly is the eugenics organization the founder wanted it to be.
Steve says:
“…if you kill everyone there will be no crime”
Except for, you know, the mass murder of killing everyone.
Do you really want human life to be devalued to the point where abortion becomes as commonplace as a trip to Walmart?
Abortion Stats:
Link spilling over into sidebar. Had to delete. – Admin
The crime rate is going down because were getting tougher with violent crinimals with 3 STRIKES YOUR OUT and longer time in prison for serious crime now the best thing we can to is to limit the number of appeals that death row inmates can file from many to one or zero.
Levitt’s fiction is truly lethal he dares to predict the lives of the unborn and of course since in this equation his subjects are black baies of course he invokes the black criminal angle…
Only in America….
“Kill all the Blacks! Kill all the Reds! And if there’s War Between the Sexes, then there’ll be no people left!”…Joe Jackson from “Real Men’.
Wow. The leading cause of death in Black America is abortion, I have been told. I am a little too flustered to say what I would like to say in a thoughtful, incisive manner, because this issue hits WAY too close to home for me. I guess I’d have to call this notion “Pre-Genocide”. I’d better stop before I say something unbecoming a man of God.
Wonder what the correlation between the past thirty years of abortion practice since the 1970’s to the looming practice of massive euthanasia of elderly over the next thirty years will be?
We are faced with the problem of having cultivated an over-population of elderly and an under-population of new-borns. Over the next thirty years or so there will be a void in the workforce which cannot be filled by a lackluster production rate. In other world, we are not reproducing babies to care for the rising rate of elderly.
In the long run, maybe this is why the current structure of Social Security, Medicare and Abortion are such distructive policies.
Perhaps this is one reason why the Bush policy towards immigration might be useful, assimulate as many people as possible into the society today so that we have enough workers to care for tomorrow’s huge elderly problem?
Ironic that, at the end of the day, those who advocate abortion throughout their youth will most likely be euthanised in their old age because there will not be anyone available to care for them.
Susan, as nihilistic as those people are, they’ll probably take themselves out first. All the same, pathetic selfishness
It seems there is another highly correlated relationship to violent crime that Leavitt should consider.
http://realtytimes.com/rtcpages/20010706_lead.htm
“In his peer-reviewed study, researcher Rick Nevin, vice-president with ICF Consulting’s Housing and Community Development Group, found:
Variations in childhood gasoline lead exposure from 1941 to 1986 explain about 90 percent of the variation in violent crime rates from 1960 to 1998.
Variations in childhood paint lead exposure from 1879 to 1940 explain 70 percent of the variation in murder rates from 1900 to 1960.
Lag times between lead exposure and variations in crime rates are due to exposed populations reaching the young adult ages (15-25) most associated with violent criminal behavior.”
Do Leavitt’s applications of economic principles refute the above conclusions in any way? Not having read the book (I intend to) I am wondering what other possible correlative events he may have considered?
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