10 ms·

Steven Levitt and John Donohue defend the abortion-crime hypothesis

70 points by sohkamyung 3y ago

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
I'm not adverse to the specific hypothesis, but not a fan of Freakonomics and the size of the effect they claim seems surprising. They appear to be claiming it accounts for all of the reduction in crime. This strikes me as somewhat implausible. Wouldn't better birth control be expected to show a similar impact, for similar reasons? (Though maybe the two correlate strongly in American politics?) edit: a paper looking into that based on differential timing on legal changes https://escholarship.org/content/qt8rw2m36w/qt8rw2m36w.pdf https://escholarship.org/content/qt8rw2m36w/qt8rw2m36w.pdf
- mynameishere 3y ago
  People who consistently use birth control tend to be less impulsive and more future-oriented than people who have to resort to abortion (a last-resort form of birth control). ie, the type of people who aren't your typical criminals. That would be the thinking, I suppose. For my part, I think mass incarceration is probably the main reason for crime going down.
  - techcode 3y ago
    Pretty much every criminal says they've learned more crime/techniques and could build their "network" in prison. So more prisoners would likely have effect of continuing/promoting crime. Anyway - no birth control method (except abstaining) is 100%, even when you stack multiple different ways it can happen. And some methods of birth control - like pill for woman and vasectomy for guys - can mess you up long term. Women describe getting off the pill like completely changing their taste/smell senses, even brain/thinking ...etc (which sounds similar to what happens in/after pregnancy). When they give it to teenage girls (to "fix" their irregular cycle) they often gain weight.. And while vasectomy could be reversed, it's not guaranteed it would work.
    - ctrw 3y ago
      That's why you don't let them go once they are in. Works quite well in El Salvador.
    - spondylosaurus 3y ago
      ^ There's a reason people recommend using two methods of birth control at any given time, but even then—freak accidents happen. Four nines isn't 0% :P Also worth noting that there are about a million birth control pills on the market with different side effects... and different levels of efficacy. Progestin-only pills are popular because people tend to tolerate them well, but they're notably less effective than pills with estradiol in them. Sometimes that's a worthwhile trade-off!
  - wanderingstan 3y ago
    > I think mass incarceration is probably the main reason for crime going down. This hypothesis is strongly challenged by the fact that crime has also dropped in other developed countries that do not have mass incarceration.
- throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago
  Very sensible. While libertarian and anarcho-capitalist outfits like Reason and Freakonomics may have strange views (and sometimes held climate denial views), they do also sometimes offer uncomfortable, factual truths. Unfortunately though, the US lacks a fair and equitable universal healthcare system and doesn't really care about imposing absurd externalities on individuals who lack health insurance or the means to side-step the narrowing separation between church and state. Birth control access isn't free or universal in the US. And, it would be unsurprising that a considerable fraction of lower-income women in physical relationships are less able to insist on using birth control at all times. It could also be that higher-income women worry more and have the means and assertiveness to make different choices. Perhaps the root cause is when kids are born, regardless of public policies or personal choices, that aren't wanted, aren't loved, and lack sensible parental role models, they end up in worse circumstances and have more problems in life.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    I used to volunteer as a guardian ad litem; you are an independent party who advocates for a child’s interests in family court (I had one during my parent’s divorce, and I wanted to pay it forward). Between that experience, and knowing that 40% of annual pregnancies both in the US and globally are unintended, you arrive at the conclusion that a lot of suffering is because of unwanted children existing through no fault of their own, and parents who are, quite frankly, either unequipped or willfully harmful and should’ve never been parents. So now, I strongly advocate for anyone who even has a hint of not wanting to have kids to seek permanent birth control (vasectomy or bisalp). Could you possibly regret not having kids? Sure, we all grieve the loss of optionality and possibility. But having kids you don’t want or can’t take care of is far more regretful imho, for everyone involved. > Perhaps the root cause is when kids are born, regardless of public policies or personal choices, that aren't wanted, aren't loved, and lack sensible parental role models, they end up in worse circumstances and have more problems in life. Nailed it.
    - throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago
      > I used to volunteer as a guardian ad litem; you are an independent party who advocates for a child’s interests in family court (I had one during my parent’s divorce, and I wanted to pay it forward). Woah, nice. I wouldn't know where to start without going to law school first. I surmise the invention of cheap transportation combined with successive generations of mass communication like the internet demolished the central fixtures of local community and togetherness in the lives of most people. So not only do people move frequently, but they don't engage with people around them. This can't be healthy for individuals or families. Without the moderating and supportive forces local communities apply and provide on their members, people can gravitate towards hyper-individualism, odd beliefs, extremism, antisocial behaviors, isolation, and loneliness. As such, it becomes more difficult to socialize children properly, a society becomes paranoid with low trust, and it motives lashing out via crimes of desperation, despair, and malice. Healthy societies don't have rampant drug overdoses, mass shootings, droves of unhoused people, favelas, armored middle-class housing, $100M+ homes, or plunging net fertility rates overall.
ThomasBb 3y ago
There are alternative hypothesis for their finding; eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis
- philodelta 3y ago
  this is mentioned and addressed in the article.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Ideally, we would be able to tease out the effect of abortion, lead-paint, AND the interaction (lead-paint x abortion). If an interaction model better explains the data, then we should be open to not rejecting it.
  - LorenPechtel 3y ago
    They tried that--and found abortion was a far bigger factor than lead.
    - mempko 3y ago
      They didn't try that. They also didn't engage with other literature showing link with lead and crime at a micro level. In other words, they didn't seriously counter the lead hypothesis, which is stronger than their work.
      - LorenPechtel 3y ago
        The article says they tried running both in the same model--and found abortion was a far bigger factor than lead.
        mempko 3y ago
        That's not trying what the OP said.
- 3y ago
mitchbob 3y ago
https://archive.ph/2024.04.09-021350/https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2024/04/08/steven-levitt-and-john-donohue-defend-a-finding-made-famous-by-freakonomics https://archive.ph/2024.04.09-021350/https://www.economist.c...
wang_li 3y ago
They will be unpopular with this when someone breaks down the demographics of abortion.
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Why?
  - wang_li 3y ago
    It will be interpreted as saying minorities commit crime since minorities have a much higher rate of abortion in the US.
jl2718 3y ago
This is an uncomfortable and divisive topic, and as such, shrouds rationality. For instance, if you believe that the subject of this matter is morally wrong, then you should rationally also be able to fully accept evidence that your particular beliefs lead to a negative outcome. If you are both arguing about the outcome of your beliefs, and unwilling to change them with evidence, then you’re either holding a rationally delusional belief, or engaging in deception to trick rational thinkers into adopting your morals. Let’s just be honest about why you are arguing for or against an analytical result. I’m not saying that their study conclusions are correct; I’m just saying that acceptance or rejection of the claim should not be related to moral beliefs. It is, in my understanding of most religions, a pillar of faith to accept negative outcomes in adherence to scripture. It is easier, I think, to accept the self-flagellation form of this edict, than to accept burden onto others, and in this case, a wide social effect that seems incongruent with the aspirations of the faith itself. If they are right, are you wrong? That’s your burden. I want to be clear that I am not taking a universal stance on the topic nor the analysis, nor religion. My personal experiences related to these topics are moderately severe, and it would probably not be productive to bring that here.
- jbm 3y ago
  It seems disingenuous to start off a comment admitting that something is a complex subject and then doing a long-winded vaguebook-style one-sided criticism; it's not convincing at all. Crime will be going up regardless of any statistical effect abortion had because of the far greater impacts of climate change and the ensuing impoverishment of the population.
  - af3d 3y ago
    Wait, did I read that right? Are you actually suggesting that climate change is the cause of rising crime rates? If so, please explain, because I would honestly like to know how you reached that conclusion.
    - warkdarrior 3y ago
      There you go: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6b37 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6b37 "The temperature-aggression hypothesis posits that individuals experiencing physiological heat stress are more likely to read personal interactions as aggressive than individuals not experiencing heat stress with subtle shifts toward more violent responses, accordingly."
aaron695 3y ago
[flagged]
bachmeier 3y ago
For a review from 2009 that I think does a good job of summarizing the views of economists (though it's not my research area): https://www.nber.org/papers/w15098 https://www.nber.org/papers/w15098 "Such models provide little support for the Donohue and Levitt hypothesis in either the US or the United Kingdom." Related: Levitt did a podcast recently that got a lot of attention, where he looks back on his career and discusses his retirement at age 58, and discusses this topic: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steven-d-levitt-freakonomics-co-author-and-u-chicago/id1597594188?i=1000649022075 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steven-d-levitt-freako...
black_13 3y ago
[dead]
RecycledEle 3y ago
Such calculation exclude the 63 million murders if unborn babies committed under Roe v. Wade. Let's be honest in our data collection then we can debate.
- dang 3y ago
  Could you please stop posting ideological flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
louwrentius 3y ago
If Books Could Kill: Freakonomics is a biased but stil enjoyable podcast episode that touches this topic as part of the whole book History is full of instances where new scientific theories were resisted by those who found them inconvenient. By and large, history hasn’t been kind to the resisters. Quite tone-deaf, makes me mistrust their results even more (although I’m in support of abortion) it almost reads as a threat
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  It seems less like a threat than an observation about how conservative science can be sometimes. From what I recall their problem with the book is that the studies were cherry picked and overlooked overlapping factors like lead, drug wars, and relied on sloppy statistics.
gunapologist99 3y ago
> Consistent with our theory, looking at arrest data, which reveal the age of the offender, the declines in crime were concentrated among those born after abortion became legal. This seems to be confusing correlation with causation. Aren't there many other possible causes to explain the decrease in crime? For example, couldn't the decrease in crime (overall) be attributable to the fact that, due to better technology and policing methods, more criminals get caught, deterring future would-be criminals as well as removing their support and educational network and means of organization? That, and RICO, which has certainly decimated Cosa Nostra in the U.S., to the point that current and former members admit that the Italian/Sicilian Mafia will likely cease to exist as a significant organization in the near future. As well, the web arose during the 90's and caused profound societal changes, and the percentage of people carrying cash or available places holding cash has dropped every year since the 90's. Even bank robberies, which dominated crime in Los Angeles in the 80's, have largely disappeared.
- SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
  One can always object that correlation doesn't equal causation. They talk in the article about controlling for certain variables as best one can. You don't get to run double-blind experiments on societies, but as they say in the article, this is about as close as one gets. Your idea about the web is certainly interesting, and could be explored further, but it doesn't strongly account for why a specific age group is effected and why areas with higher abortion access are more effected while low access areas are less effected. Etc. Etc. Taken as a whole, the data do seem to make a strong case for their theory.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Technology helps both sides. It leaves behind those unwilling to change. None of the other issues moves the needle. The italian mafia lost power that was grabbed by other groups who might have committed more crimes. Cashless societies get bank cards stolen or cards read as you purchase. Dangers a cash only society didn't have. DNA would have the biggest impact. Abortion matches the stats/timeline.
  - 3y ago
hyggetrold 3y ago
"The underlying theory is straightforward. Children who are unwanted at birth are at risk of a range of adverse life outcomes and commit much more crime later in life. Legalised abortion greatly reduced the number of unwanted births. Consequently, legalised abortion will reduce crime, albeit with substantial lags." "Many people would prefer that our hypothesis not be true—perhaps not recognising that the core finding is that when women can control their fertility the life outcomes of their children are greatly enhanced." Really well-done article I thought, and I always appreciate the Economist for inviting people to write who they start beef with. :)
- musicale 3y ago
  > Many people would prefer that our hypothesis not be true Executing unwanted children (or adults) after birth might also reduce crime, but it's hard to test the hypothesis in an ethical manner.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pyuser583 3y ago
Is there any data on how the availablity of abortion affected crime when it wasn’t associated with reproductive freedom? Chinas one-child policy made abortion available, and compulsory. Plenty of countries legalized abortion in context that assumed men would decide for women - India and Japan, for example. Doe legalizing abortion reduce crime if a woman needs her husbands permission? Or a commanding officer can order a subordinate to have an abortion?

70 points by sohkamyung 3y ago

I'm not adverse to the specific hypothesis, but not a fan of Freakonomics and the size of the effect they claim seems surprising. They appear to be claiming it accounts for all of the reduction in crime. This strikes me as somewhat implausible. Wouldn't better birth control be expected to show a similar impact, for similar reasons? (Though maybe the two correlate strongly in American politics?) edit: a paper looking into that based on differential timing on legal changes https://escholarship.org/content/qt8rw2m36w/qt8rw2m36w.pdf https://escholarship.org/content/qt8rw2m36w/qt8rw2m36w.pdf

mynameishere 3y ago
People who consistently use birth control tend to be less impulsive and more future-oriented than people who have to resort to abortion (a last-resort form of birth control). ie, the type of people who aren't your typical criminals. That would be the thinking, I suppose. For my part, I think mass incarceration is probably the main reason for crime going down.
- techcode 3y ago
  Pretty much every criminal says they've learned more crime/techniques and could build their "network" in prison. So more prisoners would likely have effect of continuing/promoting crime. Anyway - no birth control method (except abstaining) is 100%, even when you stack multiple different ways it can happen. And some methods of birth control - like pill for woman and vasectomy for guys - can mess you up long term. Women describe getting off the pill like completely changing their taste/smell senses, even brain/thinking ...etc (which sounds similar to what happens in/after pregnancy). When they give it to teenage girls (to "fix" their irregular cycle) they often gain weight.. And while vasectomy could be reversed, it's not guaranteed it would work.
  - ctrw 3y ago
    That's why you don't let them go once they are in. Works quite well in El Salvador.
  - spondylosaurus 3y ago
    ^ There's a reason people recommend using two methods of birth control at any given time, but even then—freak accidents happen. Four nines isn't 0% :P Also worth noting that there are about a million birth control pills on the market with different side effects... and different levels of efficacy. Progestin-only pills are popular because people tend to tolerate them well, but they're notably less effective than pills with estradiol in them. Sometimes that's a worthwhile trade-off!
- wanderingstan 3y ago
  > I think mass incarceration is probably the main reason for crime going down. This hypothesis is strongly challenged by the fact that crime has also dropped in other developed countries that do not have mass incarceration.
throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago
Very sensible. While libertarian and anarcho-capitalist outfits like Reason and Freakonomics may have strange views (and sometimes held climate denial views), they do also sometimes offer uncomfortable, factual truths. Unfortunately though, the US lacks a fair and equitable universal healthcare system and doesn't really care about imposing absurd externalities on individuals who lack health insurance or the means to side-step the narrowing separation between church and state. Birth control access isn't free or universal in the US. And, it would be unsurprising that a considerable fraction of lower-income women in physical relationships are less able to insist on using birth control at all times. It could also be that higher-income women worry more and have the means and assertiveness to make different choices. Perhaps the root cause is when kids are born, regardless of public policies or personal choices, that aren't wanted, aren't loved, and lack sensible parental role models, they end up in worse circumstances and have more problems in life.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  I used to volunteer as a guardian ad litem; you are an independent party who advocates for a child’s interests in family court (I had one during my parent’s divorce, and I wanted to pay it forward). Between that experience, and knowing that 40% of annual pregnancies both in the US and globally are unintended, you arrive at the conclusion that a lot of suffering is because of unwanted children existing through no fault of their own, and parents who are, quite frankly, either unequipped or willfully harmful and should’ve never been parents. So now, I strongly advocate for anyone who even has a hint of not wanting to have kids to seek permanent birth control (vasectomy or bisalp). Could you possibly regret not having kids? Sure, we all grieve the loss of optionality and possibility. But having kids you don’t want or can’t take care of is far more regretful imho, for everyone involved. > Perhaps the root cause is when kids are born, regardless of public policies or personal choices, that aren't wanted, aren't loved, and lack sensible parental role models, they end up in worse circumstances and have more problems in life. Nailed it.
  - throwiforgtnlzy 3y ago
    > I used to volunteer as a guardian ad litem; you are an independent party who advocates for a child’s interests in family court (I had one during my parent’s divorce, and I wanted to pay it forward). Woah, nice. I wouldn't know where to start without going to law school first. I surmise the invention of cheap transportation combined with successive generations of mass communication like the internet demolished the central fixtures of local community and togetherness in the lives of most people. So not only do people move frequently, but they don't engage with people around them. This can't be healthy for individuals or families. Without the moderating and supportive forces local communities apply and provide on their members, people can gravitate towards hyper-individualism, odd beliefs, extremism, antisocial behaviors, isolation, and loneliness. As such, it becomes more difficult to socialize children properly, a society becomes paranoid with low trust, and it motives lashing out via crimes of desperation, despair, and malice. Healthy societies don't have rampant drug overdoses, mass shootings, droves of unhoused people, favelas, armored middle-class housing, $100M+ homes, or plunging net fertility rates overall.

ThomasBb 3y ago

There are alternative hypothesis for their finding; eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis

philodelta 3y ago
this is mentioned and addressed in the article.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
Ideally, we would be able to tease out the effect of abortion, lead-paint, AND the interaction (lead-paint x abortion). If an interaction model better explains the data, then we should be open to not rejecting it.
- LorenPechtel 3y ago
  They tried that--and found abortion was a far bigger factor than lead.
  - mempko 3y ago
    They didn't try that. They also didn't engage with other literature showing link with lead and crime at a micro level. In other words, they didn't seriously counter the lead hypothesis, which is stronger than their work.
    - LorenPechtel 3y ago
      The article says they tried running both in the same model--and found abortion was a far bigger factor than lead.
      - mempko 3y ago
        That's not trying what the OP said.
3y ago

mitchbob 3y ago

https://archive.ph/2024.04.09-021350/https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2024/04/08/steven-levitt-and-john-donohue-defend-a-finding-made-famous-by-freakonomics https://archive.ph/2024.04.09-021350/https://www.economist.c...

wang_li 3y ago

They will be unpopular with this when someone breaks down the demographics of abortion.

paulryanrogers 3y ago
Why?
- wang_li 3y ago
  It will be interpreted as saying minorities commit crime since minorities have a much higher rate of abortion in the US.

jl2718 3y ago

This is an uncomfortable and divisive topic, and as such, shrouds rationality. For instance, if you believe that the subject of this matter is morally wrong, then you should rationally also be able to fully accept evidence that your particular beliefs lead to a negative outcome. If you are both arguing about the outcome of your beliefs, and unwilling to change them with evidence, then you’re either holding a rationally delusional belief, or engaging in deception to trick rational thinkers into adopting your morals. Let’s just be honest about why you are arguing for or against an analytical result. I’m not saying that their study conclusions are correct; I’m just saying that acceptance or rejection of the claim should not be related to moral beliefs. It is, in my understanding of most religions, a pillar of faith to accept negative outcomes in adherence to scripture. It is easier, I think, to accept the self-flagellation form of this edict, than to accept burden onto others, and in this case, a wide social effect that seems incongruent with the aspirations of the faith itself. If they are right, are you wrong? That’s your burden. I want to be clear that I am not taking a universal stance on the topic nor the analysis, nor religion. My personal experiences related to these topics are moderately severe, and it would probably not be productive to bring that here.

jbm 3y ago
It seems disingenuous to start off a comment admitting that something is a complex subject and then doing a long-winded vaguebook-style one-sided criticism; it's not convincing at all. Crime will be going up regardless of any statistical effect abortion had because of the far greater impacts of climate change and the ensuing impoverishment of the population.
- af3d 3y ago
  Wait, did I read that right? Are you actually suggesting that climate change is the cause of rising crime rates? If so, please explain, because I would honestly like to know how you reached that conclusion.
  - warkdarrior 3y ago
    There you go: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6b37 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6b37 "The temperature-aggression hypothesis posits that individuals experiencing physiological heat stress are more likely to read personal interactions as aggressive than individuals not experiencing heat stress with subtle shifts toward more violent responses, accordingly."

aaron695 3y ago

[flagged]

bachmeier 3y ago

For a review from 2009 that I think does a good job of summarizing the views of economists (though it's not my research area): https://www.nber.org/papers/w15098 https://www.nber.org/papers/w15098 "Such models provide little support for the Donohue and Levitt hypothesis in either the US or the United Kingdom." Related: Levitt did a podcast recently that got a lot of attention, where he looks back on his career and discusses his retirement at age 58, and discusses this topic: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steven-d-levitt-freakonomics-co-author-and-u-chicago/id1597594188?i=1000649022075 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/steven-d-levitt-freako...

black_13 3y ago

[dead]

RecycledEle 3y ago

Such calculation exclude the 63 million murders if unborn babies committed under Roe v. Wade. Let's be honest in our data collection then we can debate.

dang 3y ago
Could you please stop posting ideological flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

louwrentius 3y ago

If Books Could Kill: Freakonomics is a biased but stil enjoyable podcast episode that touches this topic as part of the whole book History is full of instances where new scientific theories were resisted by those who found them inconvenient. By and large, history hasn’t been kind to the resisters. Quite tone-deaf, makes me mistrust their results even more (although I’m in support of abortion) it almost reads as a threat

paulryanrogers 3y ago
It seems less like a threat than an observation about how conservative science can be sometimes. From what I recall their problem with the book is that the studies were cherry picked and overlooked overlapping factors like lead, drug wars, and relied on sloppy statistics.

gunapologist99 3y ago

> Consistent with our theory, looking at arrest data, which reveal the age of the offender, the declines in crime were concentrated among those born after abortion became legal. This seems to be confusing correlation with causation. Aren't there many other possible causes to explain the decrease in crime? For example, couldn't the decrease in crime (overall) be attributable to the fact that, due to better technology and policing methods, more criminals get caught, deterring future would-be criminals as well as removing their support and educational network and means of organization? That, and RICO, which has certainly decimated Cosa Nostra in the U.S., to the point that current and former members admit that the Italian/Sicilian Mafia will likely cease to exist as a significant organization in the near future. As well, the web arose during the 90's and caused profound societal changes, and the percentage of people carrying cash or available places holding cash has dropped every year since the 90's. Even bank robberies, which dominated crime in Los Angeles in the 80's, have largely disappeared.

SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
One can always object that correlation doesn't equal causation. They talk in the article about controlling for certain variables as best one can. You don't get to run double-blind experiments on societies, but as they say in the article, this is about as close as one gets. Your idea about the web is certainly interesting, and could be explored further, but it doesn't strongly account for why a specific age group is effected and why areas with higher abortion access are more effected while low access areas are less effected. Etc. Etc. Taken as a whole, the data do seem to make a strong case for their theory.
ipaddr 3y ago
Technology helps both sides. It leaves behind those unwilling to change. None of the other issues moves the needle. The italian mafia lost power that was grabbed by other groups who might have committed more crimes. Cashless societies get bank cards stolen or cards read as you purchase. Dangers a cash only society didn't have. DNA would have the biggest impact. Abortion matches the stats/timeline.
- 3y ago

hyggetrold 3y ago

"The underlying theory is straightforward. Children who are unwanted at birth are at risk of a range of adverse life outcomes and commit much more crime later in life. Legalised abortion greatly reduced the number of unwanted births. Consequently, legalised abortion will reduce crime, albeit with substantial lags." "Many people would prefer that our hypothesis not be true—perhaps not recognising that the core finding is that when women can control their fertility the life outcomes of their children are greatly enhanced." Really well-done article I thought, and I always appreciate the Economist for inviting people to write who they start beef with. :)

musicale 3y ago
> Many people would prefer that our hypothesis not be true Executing unwanted children (or adults) after birth might also reduce crime, but it's hard to test the hypothesis in an ethical manner.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pyuser583 3y ago

Is there any data on how the availablity of abortion affected crime when it wasn’t associated with reproductive freedom? Chinas one-child policy made abortion available, and compulsory. Plenty of countries legalized abortion in context that assumed men would decide for women - India and Japan, for example. Doe legalizing abortion reduce crime if a woman needs her husbands permission? Or a commanding officer can order a subordinate to have an abortion?