Last week I read chapter four of Freakonomics, which explored the factors that affect crime. The authors looked into what can be done to deter crime. Their main point of the chapter was that the best to decrease crime in a region was to limit the population of future criminals. This is why the authors point to abortion as the leading variable against crime. If abortion is legal an easy to access then mothers who do not think they can raise a child well will receive abortions. Children that are born have a higher likelihood of being raised by parents who are able to care for them and therefore will be less likely to be criminals when they are older. Christopher L. Foote and Christopher F. Goetz examined the study regarding abortion and crime in more depth in their piece called The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime: Comment. They found some errors and inconsistencies in Donahue and Levitt’s paper on abortion and crime.
Foote and Goetz challenge the results found by Donahue and Levitt by explaining valid reasons. Some major problems they found in the data involves information that varies by state. A mother could get an abortion in one state but live in another. There is no guarantee that the women getting abortions in one state will live there their entire life or that they would have given birth in that same state if abortion was not an option. The tests that these authors run do not result in the same conclusions that Donahue and Levitt came to about the link between abortion and crime. Foote and Goetz believe the final tests they run are the best options, but the results do not agree with previous tests. In fact, one test they run actually shows a reverse relationship than expected. They saw that abortion exposure may raise criminality. The authors also mention how various waves of crime throughout time and throw off the data. For example, the crack epidemic of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s perhaps little could have been done to prevent crime from occurring during this period of time.
I do not think this study completely dismisses what was written in Freakonomics or what Donahue and Levitt found in their study. With these situations it is incredibly difficult to obtain the perfect data. Some studies are going to find certain results and others will find problems with that study. No one will be able to completely prove anything with the subject. Either way, both sets of authors make fair points about the relationship between abortion and crime.
johndonovanecon 