Nine Reasons Why Abortions Are Legal
Abortion is never an easy decision, but women have
been making that choice for thousands of years, for
many good reasons. Whenever a society has sought to
outlaw abortions, it has only driven them into back
alleys where they became dangerous, expensive, and
humiliating. Amazingly, this was the case in the
United States until 1973, when abortion was legalized
nationwide. Thousands of American women died.
Thousands more were maimed. For this reason and
others, women and men fought for and achieved women's
legal right to make their own decisions about
abortion.
However, there are people in our society who still
won't accept this. Some argue that even survivors of
rape or incest should be forced to continue their
pregnancies. And now, having failed to convince the
public or the lawmakers, certain of these people have
become violent extremists, engaging in a campaign of
intimidation and terror aimed at women seeking
abortions and health professionals who work at
reproductive health clinics.
Some say these acts will stop abortions, but that is
ridiculous. When the smoke clears, the same urgent
reasons will exist for safe, legal abortions as have
always existed. No nation committed to individual
liberty could seriously consider returning to the days
of back-alley abortions ? to the revolting specter of
a government forcing women to bear children against
their will. Still, amid such attacks, it is worthwhile
to repeat a few of the reasons why our society trusts
each woman to make the abortion decision herself.
1. Laws against abortion kill women.
To prohibit abortions does not stop them. When women
feel it is absolutely necessary, they will choose to
have abortions, even in secret, without medical care,
in dangerous circumstances. In the two decades before
abortion was legal in the U.S., it's been estimated
that nearly a million women per year sought out
illegal abortions. Thousands died. Tens of thousands
were mutilated. All were forced to behave as if they
were criminals.
2. Legal abortions protect women's health.
Legal abortion not only protects women's lives, it
also protects their health. For tens of thousands of
women with heart disease, kidney disease, severe
hypertension, sickle-cell anemia and severe diabetes,
and other illnesses that can be life-threatening, the
availability of legal abortion has helped avert
serious medical complications that could have resulted
from childbirth. Before legal abortion, such women's
choices were limited to dangerous illegal abortion or
dangerous childbirth.
3. A woman is more than a fetus.
Some people argue these days that a fetus is a
"person" that is "indistinguishable from the rest of
us" and that it deserves rights equal to women's. On
this question there is a tremendous spectrum of
religious, philosophical, scientific, and medical
opinion. It's been argued for centuries. Fortunately,
our society has recognized that each woman must be
able to make this decision, based on her own
conscience. To impose a law defining a fetus as a
"person," granting it rights equal to or superior to a
woman's ? a thinking, feeling, conscious human being ?
is arrogant and absurd. It only serves to diminish
women.
4. Being a mother is just one option for women.
Many hard battles have been fought to win political
and economic equality for women. These gains will not
be worth much if reproductive choice is denied. To be
able to choose a safe, legal abortion makes many other
options possible. Otherwise an accident or a rape can
end a woman's economic and personal freedom.
5. Outlawing abortion is discriminatory.
Anti-abortion laws discriminate against low-income
women, who are driven to dangerous self-induced or
back-alley abortions. That is all they can afford. But
the rich can travel wherever necessary to obtain a
safe abortion.
6. Compulsory pregnancy laws are incompatible with a
free society.
If there is any matter that is personal and private,
then pregnancy is it. There can be no more extreme
invasion of privacy than requiring a woman to carry an
unwanted pregnancy to term. If government is permitted
to compel a woman to bear a child, where will
government stop? The concept is morally repugnant. It
violates traditional American ideas of individual
rights and freedoms.
7. Outlaw abortion, and more children will bear
children.
Forty percent of 14-year-old girls will become
pregnant before they turn 20. This could happen to
your daughter or someone else close to you. Here are
the critical questions: Should the penalty for lack of
knowledge or even for a moment's carelessness be
enforced pregnancy and childrearing? Or dangerous
illegal abortion? Should we consign a teenager to a
life sentence of joblessness, hopelessness, and
dependency?
8. "Every child a wanted child."
If women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to
term, the result is unwanted children. Everyone knows
they are among society's most tragic cases, often
uncared-for, unloved, brutalized, and abandoned. When
they grow up, these children are often seriously
disadvantaged, and sometimes inclined toward brutal
behavior to others. This is not good for children, for
families, or for the country. Children need love and
families who want and will care for them.
9. Choice is good for families.
Even when precautions are taken, accidents can and do
happen. For some families, this is not a problem. But
for others, such an event can be catastrophic. An
unintended pregnancy can increase tensions, disrupt
stability, and push people below the line of economic
survival. Family planning is the answer. All options
must be open.
At the most basic level, the abortion issue is not
really about abortion. It is about the value of women
in society. Should women make their own decisions
about family, career, and how to live their lives? Or
should government do that for them? Do women have the
option of deciding when or whether to have children?
Or is that a government decision?
The anti-abortion leaders really have a larger
purpose. They oppose most ideas and programs that can
help women achieve equality and freedom. They also
oppose programs that protect the health and well-being
of women and their children.
Anti-abortion leaders claim to act "in defense of
life." If so, why have they worked to destroy programs
that serve life, including prenatal care and nutrition
programs for dependent pregnant women? Is this respect
for life?
Anti-abortion leaders also say they are trying to save
children, but they have fought against health and
nutrition programs for children once they are born.
The anti-abortion groups seem to believe life begins
at conception, but it ends at birth. Is this respect
for life?
Then there are programs that diminish the number of
unwanted pregnancies before they occur: family
planning counseling, sex education, and contraception
for those who wish it. Anti-abortion leaders oppose
those, too. And clinics providing such services have
been bombed. Is this respect for life?
Such stances reveal the ultimate cynicism of the
compulsory pregnancy movement. "Life" is not what
they're fighting for. What they want is a return to
the days when a woman had few choices in controlling
her future. They think that the abortion option gives
too much freedom. That even contraception is too
liberating. That women cannot be trusted to make their
own decisions.
Americans today don't accept that. Women can now
select their own paths in society, including when and
whether to have children. Family planning,
contraception, and, if need be, legal abortion are
critical to sustaining women's freedom. There is no
going back.
If you agree with this, you can help. Circulate this
statement among your friends, and support our work by
contacting your local Planned Parenthood affiliate.
Thank you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updated November 2004
© 2004 Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc.
All rights reserved.
For medical questions, or to schedule an appointment
with the nearest Planned Parenthood health center,
call toll-free 1-800-230-PLAN
or 1-800-230-7526.
Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers provide
culturally competent, high quality, affordable health
care to millions of diverse women, men, and teens
every year. Planned Parenthood welcomes everyone ?
regardless of race, age, disability, sexual
orientation, or income.
These documents are for informational purposes only
and are not intended to constitute medical advice,
diagnosis, or treatment.
Facts About Birth Control
REVERSIBLE PRESCRIPTION METHODS
Progestin-Only Methods
The Shot (Three Months) - Depo-Provera
The Shot is injected every 12 weeks. It contains a
hormone that is similar to the progesterone made by a
woman's ovaries. The shot is also known as DMPA. The D
stands for "depot," the solution in which the hormone
is suspended. The hormone is medroxyprogesterone
acetate. The common brand name for the DMPA shot is
Depo-Provera.
How the Shot Works
DMPA works in two ways. Usually, it keeps the ovaries
from releasing an egg (ovulation). Less often it
thickens the cervical mucus, preventing sperm from
joining with an egg. It also affects the lining of the
uterus, which, in theory, may prevent implantation of
a fertilized egg.
How Well the Shot Works
DMPA is one of the most effective reversible methods
of birth control. Of every 100 women who use DMPA,
only three will become pregnant during the first year.
Fewer than one will become pregnant with perfect use.
How the Shot is Used
After taking your medical history and giving you a
physical exam (if needed), the clinician will give you
the shot. Protection against pregnancy is immediate if
you get DMPA during the first five days of your
period. Otherwise, use a backup method of
contraception for the first seven days.
Do not have an injection if there is a chance that you
are pregnant. Be sure to tell your clinician if you
think there is any chance that you are.
You should have a follow-up visit for another
injection at the end of 12 weeks. Be sure to tell any
health care provider you may see that you are using
DMPA.
Advantages of the Shot
can be used by women who cannot take estrogen
nothing to put in place before vaginal intercourse
can be used while breastfeeding
effective for 12 weeks
no medicine to take every day
helps prevent cancer of the lining of the uterus
A Woman Should Not Use the Shot if She
has unexplained bleeding from the vagina
is or might be pregnant
has a known or suspected breast cancer
is taking medicine for Cushing's syndrome
cannot put up with irregular bleeding or loss of her
period
wants to become pregnant within 12 months
Some women can use DMPA under close medical
supervision even if they have
diabetes
a history of severe depression
a recent history of liver disease, such as hepatitis,
or abnormal results on liver function tests
high blood pressure
high risk for heart disease
current serious blood clotting conditions
Possible Disadvantages of the Shot
A woman must receive the shot every three months. It
is important to consider that there is no way to stop
the effects of DMPA. Side effects from DMPA, for
example, may continue until the shot wears off (12?14
weeks). For some women, it may only take 12 weeks
after the last shot to get pregnant. For others, it
may take more than a year.
Irregular bleeding is the most common side effect for
women using DMPA.
Periods become fewer and lighter for most women ? in
time, they may stop altogether. It may take a year for
periods to begin again after a woman stops using DMPA.
Some women will have longer and heavier periods.
Some may have more light spotting and breakthrough
bleeding.
However, these side effects are more common in the
first six-to-12 months of use. The longer a woman uses
DMPA, the more likely she will be to stop having
menstrual periods. More than half of DMPA users have
no periods after one year of use.
Less common side effects include
headache
nausea
dizziness
sore breasts
change of appetite, weight gain
depression
hair loss, or increased hair on the face or body
nervousness
skin rash or spotty darkening of the skin
change in sex drive
Depo-Provera provides no protection against sexually
transmitted infections.
Latex and female condoms can reduce the risk of
infection.
Research Update ?
Women should not use the shot continuously for more
than two years unless no other method is right for
them.
Women who use DMPA may have temporary bone thinning.
It increases the longer they use DMPA. Bone growth
begins again when women stop using the shot. Whether
or not there is a complete recovery of bone mass is
unknown.
Whether or not temporary bone thinning leads to
greater risk of bone fracture from osteoporosis much
later in life is also unknown.
To protect your bones, get regular exercise and get
extra calcium and vitamin D ? either through your diet
or by using supplements.
In the very rare case that pregnancy occurs during the
use of DMPA, there is an increased chance that the
pregnancy will be ectopic. Ectopic pregnancies are
life threatening. They usually are eliminated
medically or removed with surgery. Contact your
clinician immediately if you have any symptoms of
pregnancy, including
late or missed periods
severe lower abdominal pain
nausea and breast tenderness
Warning Signs for the Shot
Serious problems are rare. Tell your clinician
immediately if you have
severe pain in the stomach or abdomen
unusually heavy or prolonged vaginal bleeding
a new lump in your breast
major depression
yellowing of the skin or eyes
How to Get the Shot
Visit a family planning clinic, your HMO, or private
doctor for a prescription. Sometimes an exam is
needed. The shot must be administered by a clinician.
What the Shot Costs
Nationwide, the cost of a visit or examination, if
needed, ranges from about $35?$125. The injection
costs about $30?$75. Subsequent visits cost about
$20?$40, plus medication. Costs may be less, depending
on your income, at some family planning centers. All
costs are covered by Medicaid. Costs vary from
community to community, based on regional and local
expenses. Contact your nearest Planned Parenthood
health center 1-800-230-PLAN for information about
costs in your area.
Sterilization
Progestin-Only Methods:
Implants
The Shot (Three Months)
Progestin-Only Pills (POPs)
The IUD (Intrauterine Device)
Combined Hormone Methods:
The Pill
The Ring
The Patch
Prescription Barrier Methods
The Condom
The Female Condom
Fertility Awareness-based Methods (FAMs)
Spermicide
The Sponge
Emergency Contraception
Facts About Birth Control
Sterilization
Sterilization is intended to be permanent. It may
involve surgery and there is no guarantee it can be
reversed.
How Sterilization Works
Tubal sterilization is the procedure for women. It
blocks the fallopian tubes ? the tubes where eggs are
fertilized by sperm.
Vasectomy is the procedure for men. It blocks the two
tubes that carry sperm. Each tube is called a vas
deferens.
Pregnancy cannot happen when sperm cannot reach an
egg.
How Well Sterilization Works
Sterilization is one of the most effective
contraceptive methods. Of every 1,000 women who are
sterilized, only five will become pregnant during the
first year. About one out of 100 women will become
pregnant each year after. Of every 1,000 men who are
sterilized, fewer than two will cause pregnancy during
the first year.
Sterilization provides no protection against sexually
transmitted infections.
Latex or female condoms can reduce the risk of
infection.
Advantages of Sterilization
Sterilization is intended to be permanent protection
against pregnancy, and
has no lasting side effects
does not affect sexual pleasure
the high up-front cost is low compared to lifetime
costs of most similarly effective methods
Who Can Use Sterilization
Sterilization can be used by most women and men,
especially
those who have all the children they want
those who are sure they will never want children
those who do not want to risk passing on hereditary
diseases
women ? or their partners ? for whom pregnancy is a
health threat
How Sterilization Is Used
Surgical tubal sterilization is effective immediately.
The newly approved, no-incision method (Essure?)
becomes effective 12 weeks after insertion. Some sperm
remain in a man's system after the vasectomy. Other
birth control must be used until the sperm are used
up. This usually takes at least 15 ejaculations. Semen
analysis ? a simple lab test ? shows when there are no
more sperm.
Possible Disadvantages of Sterilization for Women and
Men
Most women and men adjust to sterilization with few or
no problems. However, if incisions are necessary,
there may be some complications, including
mild bleeding right after the operation
reaction to local or general anesthetic
mild infection within one or two weeks of the
operation
bruising at the incision site
rarely, tubes in women and men reconnect and pregnancy
occurs
Vasectomy
temporary pain, swelling, or tenderness near the
testicles ? rarely, pain may become chronic and severe
and require medical treatment
small lumps (granulomas) formed by the sperm, near the
testicles ? which sometimes need medical treatment
Tubal sterilization
very rare injury to blood vessels or bowel that may
need surgery
Possible rare problems with the placement of Essure
could lead to expulsion of the insert or to
perforation of a tube. Reaction to local anesthesia is
also possible.
Warning Signs
Pregnancy after sterilization is rare but can occur
years after the procedure. If it occurs, it is more
likely to be ectopic ? in a fallopian tube. Contact
your clinician if you have any symptoms of pregnancy,
including
late or missed periods
severe lower abdominal pain
nausea and breast tenderness
What Sterilization Costs
Tubal sterilization costs from $2,000?$6,000.
Vasectomy is less expensive because it is a simpler
procedure that can be done in a clinician's office. It
costs from $240?$520.
Medicaid and some insurance companies pay for
sterilization. Costs vary from community to community,
based on regional and local expenses. Contact your
nearest Planned Parenthood health center
1-800-230-PLAN for information about costs in your
area.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updated April 2005
© 2004 Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc.
All rights reserved.
For medical questions, or to schedule an appointment
with the nearest Planned Parenthood health center,
call toll-free 1-800-230-PLAN
or 1-800-230-7526.
Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers provide
culturally competent, high quality, affordable health
care to millions of diverse women, men, and teens
every year. Planned Parenthood welcomes everyone ?
regardless of race, age, disability, sexual
orientation, or income.
These documents are for informational purposes only
and are not intended to constitute medical advice,
diagnosis, or treatment.
Back to Index
Comparison of Effectiveness
Behavioral Methods:
Continuous Abstinence
Withdrawal
Outercourse
Continuous Breast-feeding ? LAM (Lactational
Amenorrhea Method)
Sterilization
Progestin-Only Methods:
Implants
The Shot (Three Months)
Progestin-Only Pills (POPs)
The IUD (Intrauterine Device)
Combined Hormone Methods:
The Pill
The Ring
The Patch
Prescription Barrier Methods
The Condom
The Female Condom
Fertility Awareness-based Methods (FAMs)
Spermicide
The Sponge
Emergency Contraception
Did Roe v. Wade Abort Crime?
And Why Hardly Anybody Wants to Talk About It
Sasha Abramsky
Crime is down across America. The nation's crime rate
has been dropping for the best part of a decade now,
and everyone is keen to take the credit. New York's
Mayor Rudy Giuliani claims that zero-tolerance
policing is responsible; former California Governor
Pete Wilson credits three-strikes-and-you're-out laws;
President Bill Clinton says gun control and federal
funding for prison construction and new police
officers have done their part.
Likely as not, they're all partly right. But what if
it turns out that other factors are actually having
far more influence on the crime rate than these
get-tough policies? Why lock up two million
people--more than half of them nonviolent
offenders--at a cost of tens of billions of dollars a
year and the disruption of untold millions of lives,
if the real explanations for the drop in crime lie
elsewhere?
Last summer word began circulating, first in the
academic community and then in the media, that two
professors, John Donohue and Steven Levitt, had found
solid evidence of exactly that: They had discovered a
link much stronger, more statistically demonstrable,
than the link between anticrime policies and crime
rates. More shocking still, the link they found was
between abortion and crime. Or to be more precise,
between the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing
abortion and the much heralded fall in crime rates
starting about 18 years later, in the early 1990s.
When laid out in its crudest form, the notion that
crime was dropping because potential criminals were
being aborted provoked a firestorm of objections from
left, right, and center. What terrible policy
conclusions, people demanded to know, were they
supposed to draw from this information? "Racist,
genocidal stupidity," the conservative monthly
American Spectator labeled the new study. On the
opposite political flank, Jackie Cissell, director of
the Indiana Family Institute, wrote that "African
Americans [are] in shock because it could threaten the
very survival of the race."
But if the smoke ever clears, progressive critics will
find that the policies this new study actually points
to are not shocking at all. In fact, they're quite
traditionally liberal.
John Donohue, a professor of law at Stanford
University who once ran an unsuccessful campaign as a
Democratic nominee for the Connecticut state senate,
and Steven Levitt, a University of Chicago economist,
have long sought explanations for the falling crime
rate. In a 1998 paper published by the Journal of
Criminal Law and Criminology, Donohue pointed out that
the explanations people usually give just do not
account for much statistically. According to his
calculations, the large decline in crime during much
of the 1990s was either a short-term anomaly or the
result of factors that had not yet been identified. It
was a hint of a fascinating new theory that he and his
colleague were developing.
During the course of their research, Donohue and
Levitt had almost accidentally stumbled upon the
number of abortions performed in America and the fact
that--in Donohue's words--"poor, unmarried, young,
low-education women tend to have more abortions. And
their kids tend to have higher rates of crime." The
two researchers began crunching the numbers, and after
several years they concluded, to their own surprise as
much as anyone else's, that fully half of the decrease
in crime that has occurred over the past decade can be
directly attributed to the fact that women in the
1970s and 1980s had ready access to abortion.
After exhaustive peer review lasting the better part
of a year, their study, titled "Legalized Abortion and
Crime," is scheduled for publication in the May 2001
issue of Harvard University's prestigious Quarterly
Journal of Economics. The authors hope that a longer
version, specifically addressing many of the
criticisms leveled against their work, will follow in
a top law review.
Looking at state-by-state and year-by-year figures,
the two professors found a remarkable correlation
between abortion rates and crime rates 15 to 18 years
later. And that's not all. They also determined that
in the states that legalized abortion prior to the Roe
v. Wade ruling, crime rates began falling earlier than
in other parts of the country (see box). Moreover,
while the rate of arrests did drop in other age
groups, among young people (those whose mothers had
the option of a legal abortion) it dropped far more.
The authors factored in a host of other possible
explanations, and the correlation between crime rates
and abortion remained powerful. "According to our
estimates," they boldly asserted, "legalized abortion
is a primary explanation, accounting for at least
one-half of the overall crime reduction... . The
social benefit to reduced crime as a result of
abortion may be on the order of $30 billion annually."
That such an idea, put like this, would raise the
hackles of an extraordinary range of people should
have surprised no one. Levitt and Donohue had stepped
into the vicious ethical and political minefield of
the American abortion debate--as well as the
treacherous terrain of race politics, since African
Americans have abortions at a higher rate than whites.
But the authors, economists rather than ethicists,
were unprepared for the response and initially seemed
almost too stunned to prepare counterarguments.
"What's odd about our study," Levitt now reflects as
he prepares for publication of the work and,
presumably, renewed assaults on its authors, "is it
manages to offend just about everybody. [But] our
worldview is an economic worldview--that people
respond to incentives. I view it as being apolitical."
That lack of political savvy may explain much. "I
don't think it's controversial to say crime is higher
among African Americans," Levitt still insists. "We're
not saying there's anything intrinsic about this.
There's also higher poverty among African Americans.
The causality is not important in our argument, in the
sense of why it is that African Americans are
disproportionately represented in the crime
statistics."
Given recent political history, however, and given the
ways in which the poor--especially the black and
Latino poor--have all too often been blamed and
punished for the circumstances of their poverty,
causality was certainly on many other people's minds.
Were Donohue and Levitt arguing that poor people were
intrinsically, perhaps even biologically, predisposed
to criminal behavior, or did they believe that the
environmental conditions of poverty pushed people into
crime? Were they conservatives or liberals, and why
had they avoided showing their political hand in their
academic presentation?
Add to this confusion the fact that conspiracy
theories run rife in today's inner city--theories that
AIDS is a form of biological warfare against black
populations, that the war on crime and drugs is a none
too subtle attempt to destroy the social fabric of the
inner city through mass incarceration, and that the
easy availability of abortion is a means of racist
population control--and this study could hardly be
anything but explosive.
At the same time, anti-abortion groups accused the
study of advocating the murder of unborn children as a
crime control stratagem. "Naturally, if you kill off a
million and a half people a year," the executive
director of the Pro-Life Action League declared
sarcastically in a news release, "a few criminals will
be in that number." Meanwhile, many on the left of the
political spectrum, including some in the pro-choice
movement, denounced the report as little more than a
call to arms against the poor. As if it had advocated
for forced abortion, sterilization, or euthanasia
against select elements of the American population,
the study was seen as a bloody addendum to such bibles
of the New Right as Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles
Murray's 1996 book The Bell Curve.
But this is not, in fact, what the two authors were
arguing. In the years after Roe v. Wade, they found,
the number of abortions performed each year in America
grew rapidly. By 1980 the annual total had reached 1.6
million, a statistic that has remained fairly constant
ever since. Before this, the authors argue, more
unwanted children were being born, often after
unhealthy pregnancies during which the mother failed
to look after herself adequately, and often into
difficult, non-nurturing, impoverished environments.
Such children, Donohue and Levitt assumed, would be
more likely than others to grow up to commit crimes as
troubled, angry, gang-affiliated teenagers and young
adults. The authors cite evidence from studies in
eastern Europe and Scandinavia that "unwanted children
are likely to be disproportionately involved in
criminal activities." And it's certainly plausible
that the same would be true in the United States.
Donohue and Levitt's data bear this out. Legalized
abortion, they found, didn't just lower the absolute
number of people in a given age group; it
disproportionately lowered the number of children born
to mothers in impoverished circumstances who hadn't
intended to become pregnant and gave birth to babies
they didn't want. The effect on subsequent teenage
arrest rates suggests that these were indeed the
conditions that put children "most at risk of engaging
in criminal behavior."
Joseph McNamara, a Hoover Institute fellow, sees the
connection as simple common sense. "Many years ago,
when I was police chief of San Jose," McNamara
remembers, "I cooperated with Planned Parenthood, and
I said: 'Your organization prevents more crime than
mine does.' Children need love and nurturing. If
there's no one there to provide that [because a child
is unwanted], many are going to commit crimes and
violent behavior. You don't have to be a criminologist
to see that the children growing up under these
conditions are at high risk. It's an enormous problem
for society to have children born that no one wants
and no one's able to take care of."
Levitt and Donohue think of themselves as researchers,
not advocates for any position--not even
McNamara's--and they are annoyed that others see their
study as promoting forced abortion. "It seems such a
puerile logical step," Donohue says. "A completely
incorrect reading of the study. One wonders how
presumably intelligent people could make such an
incorrect logical inference." Far from having any ax
to grind about abortion and crime, Donohue, raised as
a Catholic, says he resisted making this connection
until the evidence he and Levitt compiled proved
overwhelming.
But by presenting only their study's results and not
the social meaning they saw in it, the two researchers
left both the study and themselves vulnerable. "John
and I are good at taking data and understanding [it].
We have no expertise in making moral or ethical
judgments," Levitt says. "We bring this to the table
to add to the debate, but certainly not to solve the
debate." They might have diffused much of the
criticism leveled against them, however, if they had
joined forthrightly in the policy debate from the
start, presenting their study as Donohue privately
acknowledges they see it--as evidence that get-tough
anticrime policies have less effect on crime than most
people think and that allowing women to choose when to
have children has more.
Still, the more important questions would have
remained. Is their startling conclusion about abortion
and crime actually true? And if so, are these its
implications?
Other academic experts have mostly praised the work,
while also noting its limits. The study does not, for
instance, explain why crime rose so dramatically in
the first place. Obviously, other social changes,
unrelated to the availability of abortion in pre-Roe
v. Wade days, were at work. Donohue and Levitt
themselves talk of the large growth in the drug trade,
the movement against prisons, the transformative but
chaotic forces released by the civil rights, antiwar,
and student movements of the 1960s, and the decline of
respect for traditional institutions of authority. But
given that these paradigm shifts served as a backdrop
to a dramatically rising level of crime in the United
States, the authors wanted explanations for why it
subsequently fell. And whatever the other
crime-reducing changes in the culture, they found that
the change in abortion policy had a major magnifying
effect on them.
Many scholars feel that Donohue and Levitt's study may
exaggerate that impact. Ted Joyce, for example, a
professor of economics at New York's Baruch College,
says, "I think it's plausible that there's an
association between fertility controls and better
outcomes for women and children. The question is how
much. A 50 percent drop in crime? I'm suspicious."
Joyce believes that the authors overestimated the
effects of abortion in traditionally high-crime states
like New York and California. In the years leading up
to Roe v. Wade, when New York and California were
among only five states in the nation that had already
legalized abortion, many women traveled to these areas
from elsewhere in order to have abortions. Because
Levitt and Donohue based their calculations on where
abortions were performed rather than where the mothers
actually lived, Joyce argues, they ended up comparing
apples and oranges. Abortion rates in New York during
the early 1970s were as likely to affect subsequent
crime rates in New Jersey or Connecticut.
Moreover, Joyce suspects that once abortion became
routine and widely available it began to serve as an
alternative, albeit radical, form of birth control.
Many of those aborted fetuses, would not, Joyce
believes, have been born into lives of crime had
abortion been less available. Rather, the parents
would simply have been more careful to use other
methods of birth control to prevent pregnancy in the
first place.
But the same reviewers who believe the study has
probably overstated the effect of abortion
liberalization agree that the authors most likely have
uncovered an important mechanism contributing to the
lower crime rates. Alfred Blumstein, a professor of
public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and one of
the country's leading criminal justice experts, views
the study as "sophisticated research." It provides
hard evidence, he says, in a fresh, innovative format,
that poverty, neglect, and crime are linked, that the
much maligned "root cause" arguments touted by
liberals in the 1960s and 1970s and derided by the
lock-'em-up crowd in the 1980s and 1990s can no longer
be dismissed. Bring together a child and a certain set
of impoverished material circumstances, the authors
demonstrate, and there's a fair chance that the mix
will, at some stage, produce crime. Abortion takes the
child out of this equation. But society could equally
well invest in social policies that would try to
remove the poverty instead.
Blumstein, too, has quibbles with the research; he
says that Levitt and Donohue's regression analysis did
not adequately account for such changes as the booming
national economy and the shrinking drug markets in
California and New York as possible explanations for
the decline in crime rates. But the study convinced
him that there is some linkage between access to
abortion and falling crime. And he says it is a
connection that the public needs to contemplate.
"Conservatives say, 'People are rotten, lock 'em
away,'" Blumstein argues. "And liberals say, 'We have
to get at root causes.' The dilemma is how to allocate
resources to do both. The message has got to be [that]
prevention is key regarding young people and
criminality."
At the moment, conservatives pretty much control the
policy conversation about crime. But as Robert
Weisberg, a Stanford University Law School colleague
of Donohue's, says, get-tough policies from
"Giuliani's policing techniques to three-strikes laws
were open to the criticism that they were getting
undeserved credit. Crime in three-strikes states
hasn't fallen by more than crime in other states. The
lack of that evidence is even more embarrassing in
light of the analytical study Donohue and Levitt have
done."
Indeed, their work has the potential to change the
parameters of the debate. "The deterrent effect of the
regular criminal justice [system] is not trivial,"
Weisberg asserts, "but it has already been
accomplished." At a certain point, Weisberg says,
incarceration policy runs into a wall of diminishing
returns: With two million people already behind bars,
increases in the size of the prison population mainly
tend to put more small fry into harsh prison
environments from which many emerge more dangerous
than they were when they entered. If imprisoning
lawbreakers cannot reduce crime beyond a certain
point, then attention must turn to studies such as
Levitt and Donohue's. Its strong evidence of a link
between economic deprivation and crime suggests that
the most sensible crime-prevention policy may well be
the introduction of better antipoverty
programs--perhaps the very social programs that have
been dismantled over the past 20 years in favor of
prison building. ¤
Sasha Abramsky