Legalized Abortion and Crime Effect

Legalized Abortion And Crime Effect

The effect of legalized abortion on crime (sometimes referred to as the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis) is the theory that legal abortion reduces crime. Proponents of the theory generally argue that since unwanted children are more likely to become criminals and that an inverse correlation is observed between the availability of abortion and subsequent crime. Moreover, children born under these conditions are usually less fortunate as enough preparation was not put in place for their birth and upbringing. In particular, it is argued that the legalization of abortion in the United States, largely due to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, has reduced crime in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Opponents generally reject these statistics, and argue that abortion has negative effects on society or decrease in crime is brought about in other ways.

Read more about Legalized Abortion And Crime Effect:  1972 Rockefeller Commission On Population and The American Future, Donohue and Levitt Study

Famous quotes containing the words legalized, abortion, crime and/or effect:

    Only one thing is certain: if pot is legalized, it won’t be for our benefit but for the authorities’. To have it legalized will also be to lose control of it.
    Germaine Greer (b. 1939)

    [The Republicans] offer ... a detailed agenda for national renewal.... [On] reducing illegitimacy ... the state will use ... funds for programs to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, to promote adoption, to establish and operate children’s group homes, to establish and operate residential group homes for unwed mothers, or for any purpose the state deems appropriate. None of the taxpayer funds may be used for abortion services or abortion counseling.
    Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)

    Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.
    Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

    I don’t know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me.
    Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke Wellington (1769–1852)