<PT. V> Abortion Rights in America: A closer (Freakier) look at how more abortions lowers crime.
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<PT. V> Abortion Rights in America: A closer (Freakier) look at how more abortions lowers crime.
29) The "Legal Eagle" YouTube channel is a great resource, too <65th OP>
This is the fifth installment of “Abortion Rights” in America.
More abortions, lowers crime! This fact was discovered by none other than Stanford Law Professor - John J. Donohue III, and the University of Chicago economist - Steven D. Levitt. If this sounds familiar to you, one reason might be because Steven Levitt is the co-author of the very popular Freakonomics-Book Series, which has also evolved into one of the most popular podcasts in the world. The podcast is hosted by Levitt’s Co-Author, Stephen Dubner https://freakonomics.com/series/freakonomics-radio/ .
Another reason, this might sound familiar is because, in Part III of Abortions and America I did share a 4 minute clip on “Abortions and Crime: Freakonomics movie" - to better understand how legalized abortions in the 1970s brought down the crime rate in America in the 1990s>.
Of course the original book was published in 2005, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. When it first came out, it took the world by storm. It was on the NY Times best seller list for weeks on end, and led to Levitt and Dubner writing two follow-up books to this one, and also making it into a movie/documentary. It’s a book I have revisited a number of times (even if it is just for a specific chapter). It remains one of the most topical books around, and created a cottage industry for pop-culture economics essays and books.
There are a number of really fascinating topics in the Freakonomics book, such as
Sumo Wrestlers in Japan fixing matches (Chapter 1)
Real Estate Agents selling their private house (that they live in) for more money, But, not Yours! (Chapter 2)
Why Drug Dealers still live with their moms (Chapter 3)
I find all these topics incredibly engrossing. But, the one chapter/topic that caused this book to really take off and be made famous world-wide, is
“Where Have All The Criminals Gone?” (Chapter 4)
Chapter 4 starts out by debunking every theory on how crime was lowered in the 1990s. NYC was the model city for lowering crime, and Levitt and Dubner completely eviscerated it. If Rudy Giuliani didn’t have bigger problems on his hands, I’m sure he’d still be surly about this fact. I’m aware a number of my readers are already familiar with this book, and this topic. But, the funny thing about history is that, oftentimes the more distance we have from an event or experience, the less clearly we remember it.
The Freakonomics guys explanation of the link between “Crime & Abortion”, definitely deserves a revisit.
For those of you even a little bit curious by this topic, I definitely would encourage you to check out/revisit pages 137-145 (of the updated paperback version of the book), to really sink your teeth into the analysis and description Levitt and Dubner have given it. They covered a lot of ground, powerfully and succinctly.
“One study has shown that the typical child who went unborn in the earliest years of legalized abortion would have been 50 % more than average to to live in poverty; he would have also been 60% more likely to grow up with just one parent. These two factors - childhood poverty and single-parent household- are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future. Growing up in a single-parent home roughly doubles a child’s propensity to commit crime. So does having a teenage mother. Another study has shown that low maternal education is the single most powerful factor leading to criminality”.
(P.138-39) Levitt, Dubner Freakonomics
The authors go on to point out how in the 1960s, the tide against abortion was starting to turn. New York and California were two of the first five States to make abortion legal again. For States that still outlawed abortions, they did start to make exceptions (that used to be considered) reasonable even for the pro-life republican party.
On January 22, 1973 - The Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Case changed everything. This landmark ruling affirmed a women’s right to terminate a pregnancy nationwide. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion for “Roe”, which runs very contrary to Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion on Dobbs v Women’s Health Organization (June 24, 2022).
The “Dobbs” ruling, immediately overturned women’s federal protection to have a right to an abortion, and has left it up to the States to decide. Constitutional Law Scholar Rodger Citron highlighted these differences in his illuminating piece contrasting “Roe” to “Dobbs” (along with a brief “Bio” on both Justice Blackmun and Justice Alito). In my prior piece Part IV Abortions and America, Professor Citron’s essay is prominently featured as to show how and why the Supreme Court got the “Dobbs” case so wrong.
As I mentioned before in prior essays, the outlawing of abortion in America, in itself is not only bad politics, but it is bad policy. The Freakonomics authors do an excellent job of providing a brief history lesson on abortion in America.
“In the early days of the nation, it was permissible to have an abortion prior to “quickening” - that is, when the first movement of the fetus could be felt, usually around the sixteenth to eighteenth week of pregnancy. In 1828, New York became the first state to restrict abortion; by 1900 it had been made illegal throughout the country. Abortion in the twentieth century was often dangerous and usually expensive. Fewer poor women, therefore had abortions. They also had less access to birth control. What they did have, accordingly, was a lot more babies”.
(P.137) Levitt, Dubner Freakonomics
While the Freakonomics guys give a great overview of the history of abortion, as well as the incentives society has to keep them legal, the Legal Eagle YouTube Channel gave an amazing summation of How the Supreme Court killed “Roe V. Wade”. Devin Stone the lawyer and YouTuber who runs the channel, provides extensive breakdowns of landmark court cases as well as some non-fictional and fictional court cases popular in movies.
In Stone’s video on how the Court killed “Roe”, he shows the hypocrisy of Alito’s majority opinion in “Dobbs”, where Alito made claims of no precedent being present for America to allow abortions on a federal level, consequently ignoring nearly fifty years of precedent that “Roe” actually set.
Precedent was also discussed at length in Rodger Citron’s piece, which I unpacked in Part IV Abortions and America.
Not only did Stone eviscerate the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in its total abandonment of “precedent”, he also highlighted the potential trajectory of the Supreme Court if they continue to rule in a similar vein. This was all covered in a space of less than thirty minutes.
While the majority of the current justices on the court, have acted in ways that have little regard for the will of the majority of the American people, that doesn’t mean that this is exactly settled law. Our country has a tendency of reacting quickly to major disruptions. And when major disruptions occur, there are often consequences to be paid for them.
November 8th, 2022 should be an interesting day in America, (to say the least).
Peace & Love
-JPJ