“I am very pro Choice. I believe it’s a womans right but from a scientific and human perspective it’s hard to argue against the fact that life doesnt begin at conception. Even if it’s only in organism form. I suppose I am desperate for Roe to remain law in part mainly to reaffirm my own moral position.”
“How many procedures were you a part of?”
“Two.”
“Do they haunt you?”
“Let’s just say they weigh on me.”
“Do you really think Roe will be overturned?”
“I dont know. You know Sarah Palin talks about how proud she is of her teenager for choosing to have the baby but the truth is if Sarah gets her way then her daughter wont get a choice at all.”
“If it comes before the Supreme Court, probably it’s game over.”
“Probably. And they do purport to be tough on crime.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Well if it’s possible Roe v Wde has brought our crime rates down.”
How do you figure?”
“Well Roe became law in the 70s and studies have shown that the typical child that went unborn after Roe was more likely to have come from poor families and single parents and they are the very children most likely to have grown up and become criminals.
“After Row became law many of those children were aborted. The would-be criminals of the 90s were never around because they werent born in the 70s.”
“You’re making all this up?”
“No, there’s a book
- Freakonomics
.”
“So legalised abortion could actually bring down the crime rate? Wow! Does that make it easier to feel ok about your decision?”
“No.”
Allan Shore and Denny Crane, Boston Legal ‘Roe’
Freakanomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything was published in 2005 by Steven Levitt, an economist from the University of Chicago and Stephen J. Dubner, a New York Times journalist. It is a collection of articles which apply economic principles to aspects of popular culture that are not normally within the remit of this complex subject and has sold over 4 million copies worldwide. The book’s topics include:
* Chapter 1: Discovering cheating as applied to teachers and sumo wrestlers (See below)
* Chapter 2: Information control as applied to the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents
* Chapter 3: The economics of drug dealing, including the surprisingly low earnings and abject working conditions of crack cocaine dealers
* Chapter 4: The controversial role legalized abortion may have played in reducing crime. (Levitt explored this topic in an earlier paper entitled “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime.”)
* Chapter 5: The negligible effects of good parenting on education
* Chapter 6: The socioeconomic patterns of naming children
Ruf had heard a radio discussion of the book and described it as ‘absolutely fascinating’.
Apparently, the relevant chapter for us was based on the effects of a ban on abortion in Romania and stated: “Compared to Romanian children born just a year earlier, the cohort of children born after the abortion ban would do worse in every measurable way: they would test lower in school, they would have less success in the labor market, and they would also prove much more likely to become criminals. (p. 118)”.
The findings were based on the paper by Christian Pop-Eleches from 2002 which studied the impact of the ban and whose introduction says: “This finding is consistent with the view that children who were unwanted during pregnancy had worse socio-economic outcomes once they became adults.”
However, whether these findings translate to the United States has caused a lot of controversy, with University of Michigan professor John DiNardo, citing this passage from the paper :
“On average, children born in 1967 just after abortions became illegal display better educational and labor market achievements than children born just prior to the change. This outcome can be explained by a change in the composition of women having children: urban, educated women were more likely to have abortions prior to the policy change, so a higher proportion of children were born into urban, educated households.” (Pop-Eleches, 2002, p.34)
So, there you have the two sides of the argument in terms of the effects of the ban on the statistics:
the poor kids born to single mothers or already over-large families, living in poverty with high unemployment, social deprivation and access to drugs who would probably be most likely to turn to crime being aborted so there are less of them;
or the fact that urban, educated women would be unable to have an abortion so there would be a larger proportion of more privileged children.
What do you think?
I think Freakonomics is a wonderful, thought-provoking book. I picked it up at a railway bookstore when it first hit the shelves and was fascinated by it.
I studied economics, but to see it applied to such topics as these was … well, amazing. And the arguments the authors construct seem sound enough – even when it comes to the sociological impact of legalised abortion.
However, I can never quite shake the old joke: If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they wouldn’t even reach a conclusion. Or that if you put n economists in a room to discuss any topic, you’d end up with n+1 different opinions.
Hey Ro, I cant even begin to understand a lot of what he’s talking about, it has to be explained to me – Im more of a home economist – and I do love your last para :)
I know for a fact abortion got the US two positive election outcomes. Had there been more net loss voters available Gore and Kerry would have both won. So that is a good thing.
The only problem I have with abortion as an American is that abortion is a the greatest human rights violation in the history of mankind. Far Far Far worse than slavery. Not even close.
The US guarantees Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Seems abortion takes away the very first, original right, therefor taking them all away.
Interesting way of looking at it, Sage. I agree that the whole idea is abhorrent, because I do believe that it is a child from the moment of its conception. But I still know that I did the right thing in taking away its right to life. Even if I do struggle to marry up the two views. I guess that’s the thing about those of us who have actually done it – for so many of those women, including myself, it haunts you.
No serious researcher has claimed a causal relationship in the USA between hypothetically lower crime and the Federalization of a Abortion-on-Demand policy. Further, it’s disappointing but not surprising that a show purported to be about The Law would assert that overturning Roe Vs. Wade would make abortion a crime.
Troll, there will be no Shatner-bashing on this blog ;P
I think what I like most about BL is that it instigates discussion and does give both sides of the argument, thus allowing the viewer the opportunity to debate. I think I shall return to Roe vs Wade in a future post because I need to understand it better myself.