Talk:Legalized abortion and crime effect

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Contents 1 Comment 2 Correlation between 'unwantedness' and adverse conditions 3 Merge? 4 Intro paragraph 5 Neutrality of Article 6 Addition points from Freakonomics 7 Sailer's simplistic and flawed argument 8 Ninth Amendment Considerations? 9 1 newborn=100 fetuses 10 Graphs

[edit] 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:

[edit] 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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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".

[edit] 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).

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)