Ever since Freakonomics was published, and sold, which it sold very well to be honest, there has been many debates about one theory that Steven D. Levitt used to explain why the crime rate dropped in the 1990’s. That theory is that the Supreme Court case of Roe V Wade, which legalized abortion in all fifty states. Steven Levitt stated in Freakonomics that the legalization of abortion had the biggest percentage of why the crime rate went down. Yet, I would like to question this theory myself. One big controversy that I have with this theory is that Mr. Levitt did not put in to factor the crack issues that were occurring during the time. The 1990’s was the biggest boom for the crack industry, becoming the major reason of why people were committing homicide during the decade. So how does one truly know if those fetuses that were aborted would have joined the crack fiasco (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113314261192407815-HLjarwtM95Erz45QPP0pDWul8rc_20061127.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top). Another issue that I have with this abortion theory is that it is being conducted as a total, complete whole of all people in the United States. In the 1970’s non-white females were at their peak of abortions. One would expect that the crime rate should be the lowest then in the 1990’s for non-whites, but in the years of 1993 and 1994 homicide was at its peak for young black male adults. Even though the statistics prove this to be true, Levitt and his partner of this theory, John
They will claim that less than 4% of abortions in the U.S. are Late-term(Rich and Bourassa). That it’s not harmful to the women because less than 0.3% of abortions end in hospitalization ("ABORTION AFTER THE FIRST TRIMESTER."). Most people will say that it’s right to have any kind of abortion when you have been raped. The statistics on abortions because of rape is only about 1%("Abortions In America." ). Therefore, a very small portion is actually because of rape. The only way a late-term abortion is performed by many doctors is in a case where the woman's life is in danger("ABORTION AFTER THE FIRST TRIMESTER."). Also going along with that it is a law in most places. Whether you support it or not these reason aren’t very valid because they can be fought against.
In every society whether it was legal or legal, abortions were used to control fertility. In the United States it was practiced legally until about 1880, by then most states had banned it except to save a woman's life. It was widely practiced through the entire period it was illegal. In the 1890’s there were an estimate of two million abortions per year and, one to two million annually during the 1920’s-30’s. Whether a
They also found that “the most sub common sub reason given was that the woman could not afford a baby now because she was unmarried (42%)” (SOURCE 8). Over time research has suggested that race and gender is a constant factor in attitudes towards abortion (SOURCE 19-26). Although early studies show that race was heavily influential, it has decreased throughout the
Advocates of criminalization also stressed society’s obligation to halt the declining birthrate among white Americans. And many stressed the need to protect the sanctity of motherhood and the chastity of white women; abortion, after all, supported the separation of sexual intercourse from reproduction (Solinger, 2015, pg. 5).
In the United States alone, over one million babies are aborted, making the counties abortion rate one of the highest among other countries. This means that one out of every four pregnancies end in abortion, one out of three American women will have an abortion by the time they are 45, and half of women seeking to abort a baby have already aborted one in the past (“U.S. Abortion Statistics.”). Since the 1930’s, the population growth in America has been the lowest because of abortion. Two generations of Americans have technically been murdered because the aborted children will not be able to have the families and lives of their own (Steven Ertelt.).
After reading Bonnie Steinbock’s article, I will be arguing against her conclusion that some abortions
Assuming that abortions have continued at the same rate since 1996, a cumulative total of at least 39.7 million legal abortions have been “performed” in America from the late 1960s through 1999. If all these abortions had instead been live births of children who lived normal lives, the population (taking into account the small fraction of natural deaths that might have been expected) would today be about 38.9 million — or fourteen percent — larger than the actual population of 275 million.
“The U.S. has the highest abortion rate of any western industrialized nation.” (Incidence of Abortion section). Abortion has long been a controversial issue over the years. Throughout the nation lies many known and unknown statistics involving abortion. Many of those who choose abortion do so based upon many similar reasons. There also happen to be many individuals who view abortion in the same manner. The individuals and majority feel abortion to be wrong for a handful of reasons. Each year women decide for a number of reasons to end their pregnancy in the result of an abortion, and although the decision is still commonly viewed as wrong, is there any justification to how it could be accepted?
In this study they estimated mortality rates from 1998 to 2005. Their data was gathered from reports posted out by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. They looked at pregnancy-related mortality, common maternal comorbidities, and the characteristics of women. The data they found was over a ratio of 100,000 births and 100,00 abortions. In the discussion part of their study and one of their recognized strengths they explain that expressing information like mortality risks into ratio format is easier to understand. Pregnant women considering their options should be entitled to have accurate information about their risk factors (Raymond & Grimes, 2012). They found that 10.4 deaths occur per 100,000 live births and 0.6 deaths occurred per 100,000 abortions. All together their results conclude that according to national data sets, legal abortion in the United States remains much safe than
When it comes to sensitive topics, there are few that draw on people’s emotions as much as abortion. Why it this so? It is the nature of the topic. Abortion is a topic in which people’s views are just as diverse as the population itself. Most people avoid writing about such topics altogether, especially when they are in support of such an act. However when economist Steven D. Levitt and writer Stephen J Dubner wrote chapter 4 of “Freakonomics” titled “Where have all the Criminals Gone?” they did just that. The chapter details historical examples of bans on abortion, possible reasons for the sharp decline in crime in the US, and a strong final argument for why abortion is the reason the crime rate dropped so suddenly. The emotionally
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy at any stage that does not result in birth. What a lot of people don’t realize is a miscarriage is also considered an abortion even though it is not medically induced; it is called a spontaneous abortion because it is not a medical procedure. Recently a study was done and it showed that the number of abortions worldwide have gone down considerably because of family planning, having reasonable birth control methods introduced, the prices for them lowered and the availability of them are accessible by the younger generation. More and more we are seeing young women using abortion as a birth control method, this is making the
This theory exemplifies the law of diminishing returns, as the original shock impact of lack of children is reduced as the effect becomes more and more normalized, and abortion decreases its own consumer base as time passes. Looking at the number of abortions since Roe, it quickly becomes evident that there is a definite decline in the rate of abortions before there is a decline in the number of abortions, because although abortion rates decrease over time for a variety of factors (including institutionalized push-back and anti-abortion propaganda), the rising population up until Roe offsets what otherwise would have been a decrease in abortion numbers[Fig 4.1.1].
Although abortions can be seen in a negative light, with the argument of killing a living organism, a woman should not be forced, pressured, or burdened to keep and raise a child who she does not want or cannot support. Studies have shown that “families and society will benefit from having children that are planned, welcomed, and properly spaced” (Sanger, Alexander 6). Disregarding this option to women imposes injustice to themselves, and also the newborn baby, as every child should be a wanted child. Prohibiting and restricting abortions does not stop women from having them, as it only “forces abortion underground and makes it the privilege of the wealthy, while further disenfranchising poor women, who generally bear the brunt of such policies” (Ginsburg 253). The difference of class statuses can alter how an abortion is processed, as “for poor women, illegal abortions are typically done by unqualified practitioners- the woman herself, backroom abortionists- and the result in increased maternal deaths as well as maternal and fetal physical deformities” (Ginsburg 253). Women of higher status and authority may not enter such drastic measures for abortions, because they may have the resources to implement the abortion in a safer situation. It has been stated that, “Most Americans favor government regulations that officially discourage abortion and that make abortion difficult to access
(1993), every year the number of woman who chooses abortion is about 1.5 million in United States. Almost half of American women get unplanned pregnancy, and 54% of these end in abortion (Finer LB & Zolna MR, 2011). Nearly one fifth of pregnancies end in abortion (Jones RK &
The late Dr. Bernard Nathanson, formerly a leading abortionist and co-founder of NARAL Pro-choice America, wrote in 1979 that the argument that women could die from dangerous, illegal abortions in America “is now wholly invalid and obsolete” because “antibiotics and other advances have dramatically lowered the abortion