One of the fundamental questions in criminology is what causes crime. There are many answers; economic conditions, political policy, and social psychological answers such as “broken windows” theory.
One of the most controversial answers deals with abortion and crime. The following academic abstract outlines the theory:
“We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly 18 years after abortion legalization. The 5 states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.”
You can find a less academic and fuller explanation here. In short, because there are fewer unwanted or unplanned babies, and assuming that these children, raised in a poor environment, are the ones most likely to become criminals, abortion policy leads to a reduction in the overall crime rate.
The findings are widely disputed, mostly because it’s difficult to control for other factors that influence the crime rate. It’s not that these authors didn’t try to control for the other factors, but that they are not able to do so satisfactorily. These are not bad scholars, but I think they’re headed down the wrong road in this research.
This theory is not arcane, as the Slate article above attests. Part of the reason it’s so controversial, I suppose, are the policy implications. What do we do? Kill babies to stop future crime? It ignores all sense of decency and it ignores all sorts of research that disputes their findings.
We now have former education secretary William Bennett. Here’s what he said on a radio show:
“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 impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”
The statement, of course and rightfully so, has been lambasted by just about everyone. Even if he prefaced it with the theoretical background above, it’s still wrong. The abortion and crime theory is not a racial theory in any way. It does not assume that aborting babies of any particular race will lead to a reduction in crime. Unfortunately, Bennett got the theory wrong, turned it into a racial argument, and will now probably get stacks of hate mail.
I guess the old addage “think before you speak” is the lesson, here. It’s harder to do, I suppose, when you’re on the radio and have to fill out a few hours of dead air.
“What do we do? Kill babies to stop future crime? It ignores all sense of decency and it ignores all sorts of research that disputes their findings.”
Is that an acknowledgment that abortion is indecent or morally reprehensible? Where are you going here, exactly?
Woah! I made no statement about my beliefs about abortion here. I was talking about hypothetical policy implications of a theory that I think is wrong-headed. I have my beliefs about abortion, but my beliefs are not relevant here.
The only argument I made was that there is a theory out there about the causes of crime, that I think the theory is not a good theory and not well supported by the evidence, and that policy implications based on this poor theory leads to all sorts of moral wrongs. Bennett misunderstood the theory and came up with a poor hypothetical policy stance. Even though he tried to explain his hypothesis, and from what I see he doesn’t think this policy should be implemented, it ends up sounding really bad because he didn’t understand the theory in the first place.
I’m just trying to place Bennett’s statement in context, especially to show (a) the underlying theory is flawed and (b) Bennett’s understanding of the theory is flawed such that he made a bone-headed statement.
So both the theory and Bennett’s stance are morally reprehensible?
In general, and when done with scientific rigor, theories are not morally reprehensible. Theories seek to explain reality. Some theories do a better job than others. Some theories, by whackos such as the ones who deny the Holocaust happened, are morally reprehensible. The one about abortion and crime is not morally reprehensible, but it is wrong-headed and probably should be abandoned as an explanation.
Bennett, by adding race to the theory, turned a scientific theory into a whacko theory, and hence made a morally reprehensible statement. I may be too quick to assume that Bennett didn’t mean to be a whacko and that he really thought he got the theory right. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, though if I thought about it more, perhaps I really don’t do that… that’s a matter for introspection (or someone proving me wrong). I don’t know enough about other things Bennett said to say that Bennett is a morally reprehensible person or not. But his statement is morally reprehensible.
The point, actually, was to point out exactly how morally reprehensible it was by singling out a minority. Bennett’s words weren’t racist or ill-thought, but rather carefully selected in order to illustrate the point.
Nobody has seriously argued that Bennett is a racist. What’s problematic is that one simply cannot discuss race and crime without having one’s words deliberately twisted by race-baiters and the perpetually outraged.