Science > Abortion > Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
| Topic: |
Science > Abortion |
| User: |
"J Young" |
| Date: |
28 Nov 2005 10:51:48 PM |
| Object: |
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- In an attempt to provide justification for
legalized abortion, an economist and author published research four years
ago claiming legal abortions have resulted in a drop in the crime rate. But
a Boston economist says that's not the case and challenges the research data
they used.
Steven Levitt, a University of Chicago economist, and New York Times writer
Stephen Dubner first made the abortion-crime allegations in 2001 in a report
published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
They based their report on earlier studies conducted by Levitt and Yale Law
School Prof. John Donohue.
But Christopher Foote, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of
Boston and Christopher Goetz, a research assistant there, say the data the
study relies on is faulty.
According to a Wall St. Journal news report, Foote says there was a "missing
formula" in Levitt's original research that allowed him to ignore certain
factors that may have contributed to the lowering of crime rates during the
1980s and 1990s.
Foote also argues that Levitt counted the total number of arrests made when
he should have used per-capita figures. After Foote adjusted for both
factors, the abortion effect simply disappeared, the Journal reported.
"There are no statistical grounds for believing that the hypothetical youths
who were aborted as fetuses would have been more likely to commit crimes had
they reached maturity than the actual youths who developed from fetuses and
carried to term," the Foote and Goetz say in their report.
The he acknowledges the error, Levitt told the Journal that their report
doesn't topple his theory that legal abortion reduces crime and he claims
research in other countries, such as Australia and Canada, verify his
theory.
"Does this change my mind on the issue? Absolutely not," Levitt told the
Journal.
Edward Glaeser, a Harvard professor who helped in Levitt's original
submission to the Quarterly Journal of Economics, told the Journal that the
new report shouldn't be dismissed because the pair of researchers did a
thorough job analyzing the data.
"These guys [Foote and his research assistant] have put the [data] through
the wringer," Glaeser said. "There is no question that the results get
smaller and weaker," though he still thinks abortion contributes to a
reduction in crime.
The authors say their work does not necessarily represent the views of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
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| User: "junegill" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 06:52:35 AM |
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"J Young" <youngopinions@aol.com> wrote in message
news:FZ6dnQwWNpFTQxbenZ2dnUVZ_tednZ2d@giganews.com...
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- In an attempt to provide justification for
legalized abortion,
Legalised abortion doesn't need any justification.
--
June G
# 364
http://uk.geocities.com/junegill@btopenworld.com/webpages/index.html.html
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| User: "George" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 12:40:02 AM |
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"J Young" <youngopinions@aol.com> wrote in message
news:FZ6dnQwWNpFTQxbenZ2dnUVZ_tednZ2d@giganews.com...
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
But then, abortion is not intended to decrease crime, so it is a moot
point.
George
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| User: "David W. Barnes" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 12:58:34 AM |
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In article <6JSif.367690$084.82671@attbi_s22>, George
<george@wtfiswrongwithyou.com> wrote:
"J Young" <youngopinions@aol.com> wrote in message
news:FZ6dnQwWNpFTQxbenZ2dnUVZ_tednZ2d@giganews.com...
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
But then, abortion is not intended to decrease crime, so it is a moot
point.
George
Furthermore, if you read the article it doesn't say what these loons
claim.
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| User: "John Baker" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 03:07:29 AM |
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On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 06:58:34 GMT, "David W. Barnes" <dbarnes@aol.com>
wrote:
In article <6JSif.367690$084.82671@attbi_s22>, George
<george@wtfiswrongwithyou.com> wrote:
"J Young" <youngopinions@aol.com> wrote in message
news:FZ6dnQwWNpFTQxbenZ2dnUVZ_tednZ2d@giganews.com...
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
But then, abortion is not intended to decrease crime, so it is a moot
point.
George
Furthermore, if you read the article it doesn't say what these loons
claim.
Reading for comprehension is apparently not one of the Religious
Right's strong suites. <G>
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| User: "Ray Fischer" |
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| Title: Re: "Economist" Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime (Pro-lie disinformation) |
28 Nov 2005 11:01:36 PM |
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J Young <youngopinions@aol.com> wrote:
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
More pro-liar propaganda.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Not a credible source.
Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- In an attempt to provide justification for
legalized abortion, an economist and author published research four years
ago claiming legal abortions have resulted in a drop in the crime rate.
They did not make such a claim.
"Our preliminary research suggests that the effect of abortion
legalization is large. According to our estimates, as much as
one-half of the remarkable decline in crime in the 1990s may be
attributable to the legalization of abortion."
[...]
But Christopher Foote, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of
Boston and Christopher Goetz, a research assistant there, say the data the
study relies on is faulty.
Mr. Levitt counters that Mr. Foote is looking only at a narrow
subset of his overall work on abortion and crime, so his results
are of limited value, and not grounds for dismissing the whole
theory. He acknowledges the programming error, but says taken by
itself, that error doesn't put much of a dent in his work. (Mr.
Foote's result depends on changing that formula and on the
adjustment for per-capita arrests.) Moreover, Mr. Levitt says the
abortion theory has held up when examined in other countries, like
Canada and Australia, and when applied to other subjects, like
drug use.
--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net
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| User: "Chris H. Fleming" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 12:52:34 AM |
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J Young wrote:
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- In an attempt to provide justification for
legalized abortion, an economist and author published research four years
ago claiming legal abortions have resulted in a drop in the crime rate. But
a Boston economist says that's not the case and challenges the research data
they used.
Steven Levitt, a University of Chicago economist, and New York Times writer
Stephen Dubner first made the abortion-crime allegations in 2001 in a report
published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
They based their report on earlier studies conducted by Levitt and Yale Law
School Prof. John Donohue.
But Christopher Foote, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of
Boston and Christopher Goetz, a research assistant there, say the data the
study relies on is faulty.
According to a Wall St. Journal news report, Foote says there was a "missing
formula" in Levitt's original research that allowed him to ignore certain
factors that may have contributed to the lowering of crime rates during the
1980s and 1990s.
Foote also argues that Levitt counted the total number of arrests made when
he should have used per-capita figures. After Foote adjusted for both
factors, the abortion effect simply disappeared, the Journal reported.
"There are no statistical grounds for believing that the hypothetical youths
who were aborted as fetuses would have been more likely to commit crimes had
they reached maturity than the actual youths who developed from fetuses and
carried to term," the Foote and Goetz say in their report.
The he acknowledges the error, Levitt told the Journal that their report
doesn't topple his theory that legal abortion reduces crime and he claims
research in other countries, such as Australia and Canada, verify his
theory.
"Does this change my mind on the issue? Absolutely not," Levitt told the
Journal.
Edward Glaeser, a Harvard professor who helped in Levitt's original
submission to the Quarterly Journal of Economics, told the Journal that the
new report shouldn't be dismissed because the pair of researchers did a
thorough job analyzing the data.
"These guys [Foote and his research assistant] have put the [data] through
the wringer," Glaeser said. "There is no question that the results get
smaller and weaker," though he still thinks abortion contributes to a
reduction in crime.
The authors say their work does not necessarily represent the views of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
This is incredible news!
This means that crime must be caused by the children of pro-lifers.
Now we know who shouldn't be having children.
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| User: "Richard Smol" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 06:59:39 AM |
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J Young wrote:
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- In an attempt to provide justification for
legalized abortion, an economist and author published research four years
ago claiming legal abortions have resulted in a drop in the crime rate.
When as you legalize behavior that before was illegal, the crime-rate
drops. That's a big "DUH!" here. Statistics can be tough for some
people, so it seems.
RS
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| User: "Attila" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 07:33:01 AM |
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On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:51:48 -0500, "J Young" <youngopinions@aol.com>
in alt.abortion with message-id
<FZ6dnQwWNpFTQxbenZ2dnUVZ_tednZ2d@giganews.com> wrote:
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- In an attempt to provide justification for
legalized abortion,
I have seen no pro-abortion comments here, and the freedom of choice
needs no justification.
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| User: "John Baker" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 03:08:59 AM |
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On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:51:48 -0500, "J Young" <youngopinions@aol.com>
wrote:
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Someone's lying here, but it isn't the pro-choice folks.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
So who said it did?
<remaining straw snipped>
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| User: "Elf M. Sternberg" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
09 Dec 2005 03:03:07 PM |
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Elf Sternberg wrote:
John Baker <n...@bizniz.net> writes:
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
So who said it did?
Economists Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, in their book
_Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explains The Hidden Side Of
Everything_, argued that the supposed surge in youth crime that was
"supposed" to have happened towards the late 1980 and mid 1990s, the
"superpredator" syndrome that Time and Newsweek and everyone was
frightening the good suburban citizens with, did not happen because the
majority of those youth had not come into existence. Easy access to
abortion had made it possible for people unable to actually raise decent
children to avoid having them. Thus, the crime rate has actually been
decreasing since the decade after Roe vs. Wade.
The article quoted argues that Levitt & Dubner missed one
crucial element of their studies, and by doing so skewed their numbers.
Levitt concedes that the proportionality vs. absolute numbers problem
does reduce the efficacy of the effect he described, but he states that
it does not eliminate it.
A followup to my last comment: Despite the vast amount of press
the article J Young and company have been getting because of the Foote &
Goetze study, it turns out that all Foote & Goetze have done is force
Levitt & Dubner to take a second look at their data, and the outcome of
their research is important.
First, Foote & Goetze did *not* say that they had found that the
"More Family Planning and More Wanted Children Decreases Crime" thesis
was false. What they said was that they did not find Levitt & Dubner's
figures convincing, and they believed that there were mistakes in the
interpretation of the data. Well, Levitt & Dubner went and reviewed the
data that Foote & Goetze did not like. You can read the total summary
here, it's quite long:
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2005/12/05/back-to-the-drawing-board-for-our-latest-criticsand-also-the-wall-street-journal-and-oops-the-economist/
But the summary of the summary is enough:
We are able to replicate their results. With our more thoughtfully
constructed abortion measure the estimated abortion impacts increase
are now statistically significant in all of the Foote and Goetz
specifications. The only difference between what Foote and Goetz did
and what we report is that we have done a better job of really
measuring abortion.
The simple fact is that when you do a better job of measuring
abortion, the results get much stronger. This is exactly what you
expect of a theory that is true: doing empirical work closer to the
theory should yield better results than empirical work much more
loosely reflecting the theory.... The results we show in this new
table are consistent with the impact of abortion on crime that we
find in our three other types of analyses we presented in the
original paper using different sources of variation. These results
are consistent with the unwantedness hypothesis.
Sorry, Mr. Young. You'll have to do better.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1988
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf
"You know how some people treat their body like a temple?
I treat mine like issa amusement park!" - Kei
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| User: "Elf M. Sternberg" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 11:06:08 AM |
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John Baker <nunya@bizniz.net> writes:
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
So who said it did?
Economists Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, in their book
_Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explains The Hidden Side Of
Everything_, argued that the supposed surge in youth crime that was
"supposed" to have happened towards the late 1980 and mid 1990s, the
"superpredator" syndrome that Time and Newsweek and everyone was
frightening the good suburban citizens with, did not happen because the
majority of those youth had not come into existence. Easy access to
abortion had made it possible for people unable to actually raise decent
children to avoid having them. Thus, the crime rate has actually been
decreasing since the decade after Roe vs. Wade.
The article quoted argues that Levitt & Dubner missed one
crucial element of their studies, and by doing so skewed their numbers.
Levitt concedes that the proportionality vs. absolute numbers problem
does reduce the efficacy of the effect he described, but he states that
it does not eliminate it.
Elf
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| User: "Liz" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 06:37:54 AM |
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On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:08:59 GMT, John Baker <nunya@bizniz.net> in
news message <ni6oo1lghs9jsonoj48q4r8b0hdlm9pjg2@4ax.com> wrote:
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:51:48 -0500, "J Young" <youngopinions@aol.com>
wrote:
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Someone's lying here, but it isn't the pro-choice folks.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
So who said it did?
Bill Bennet, former Secretary of Education, for one.
"But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you
could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black
baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be
an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but
your crime rate would go down."
<remaining straw snipped>
Überwench #658 Now a *real* atheist!
Dame Liz the Undaunted Ath.D BAAWA
Charter Member of SMASH
and Queen of the known universe
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| User: "John Baker" |
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| Title: Re: Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research |
29 Nov 2005 07:46:29 AM |
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On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:37:54 GMT, Liz <ehuth1@donotspam.com> wrote:
On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 09:08:59 GMT, John Baker <nunya@bizniz.net> in
news message <ni6oo1lghs9jsonoj48q4r8b0hdlm9pjg2@4ax.com> wrote:
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:51:48 -0500, "J Young" <youngopinions@aol.com>
wrote:
Yet another pro-abortion lie debunked.
Someone's lying here, but it isn't the pro-choice folks.
Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat1846.html
Economist Finds Abortion Doesn't Decrease Crime in New Research
So who said it did?
Bill Bennet, former Secretary of Education, for one.
"But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you
could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black
baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be
an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but
your crime rate would go down."
Hmmm... that hardly sounds like an official statement to me. But
then, that's the sort of straw our "friend" J Young is prone to grasp
at. <G>
<remaining straw snipped>
Überwench #658 Now a *real* atheist!
Dame Liz the Undaunted Ath.D BAAWA
Charter Member of SMASH
and Queen of the known universe
.
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