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Abortion Increases Crime

Abortion Increases Crime

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Originally posted by forkedknight
I have difficulty believing that abortion laws or lack thereof have had ANY long-term "effect" on crime rates...
So did I until I read Lott's study.


Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
Legalizing abortion increased crime. Those born in the four years after Roe vs. Wade were much more likely to commit murder than those born in the four years prior. This was especially true when they were in their “criminal prime,” says John R. Lott, Jr.:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,377181,00.html
When will you nutters learn that "correlation is not causation".
Leave interpretation of statistics to the statisticians.

And any statistician forgetting this catchy phrase should be fined, fired and flogged.

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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
Legalizing abortion increased crime. Those born in the four years after Roe vs. Wade were much more likely to commit murder than those born in the four years prior. This was especially true when they were in their “criminal prime,” says John R. Lott, Jr.:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,377181,00.html
I believe that the book "Freakonomics" found the exact opposite conclusion.

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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
I daresay Lott has many more skins on the wall than any of his critics -- he's also a well-respected author and researcher at the University of Maryland. He is also correct when he says legalization of abortion has led to an increase in single-parent families (which has led to far more crime than the amount reduced from the culling of "unwanted c ...[text shortened]... out of hand -- his hypothesis is still valid. For a "liberal" your thinking is very rigid.
Do you realise how revolting it sounds when you boast about "skins on the wall" as though it's a positive thing?

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Originally posted by HumeA
He opens the article stating: "Violent crime in the United States soared after 1960. From 1960 to 1991, reported violent crime increased by an incredible 372 percent."

The statistics aren't completely predictable, though, there are sizeable fluctuations.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

It is not an exact science... in 1980 for instanc ...[text shortened]... .

The guy is a prize idiot, and I wouldn't take too much stock in what he is saying.
Yep, the Clinton administration's crime prevention work was very successful in turning around the crime statistics that had previously been increasing.

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Originally posted by karnachz
Do you realise how revolting it sounds when you boast about "skins on the wall" as though it's a positive thing?
Do you know what a "metaphor" is?

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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
I daresay Lott has many more skins on the wall than any of his critics -- he's also a well-respected author and researcher at the University of Maryland. He is also correct when he says legalization of abortion has led to an increase in single-parent families (which has led to far more crime than the amount reduced from the culling of "unwanted c ...[text shortened]... out of hand -- his hypothesis is still valid. For a "liberal" your thinking is very rigid.
how is the legalisation of abortion in any connection with the increase of single-parents? now that abortion is legal, people decide they should have the kids and not abort them? have you been sniffing led paint again?

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Correlation is not causation,

Now DSR, read this sentence, try to understand it and once you do so, you may come back to this thread and admit your error.

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Originally posted by Barts
Correlation is not causation,

Now DSR, read this sentence, try to understand it and once you do so, you may come back to this thread and admit your error.
Indeed. I have noticed that the price of gasoline has increased alarmingly since the legalisation of abortion too.

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Originally posted by Barts
Correlation is not causation,

Now DSR, read this sentence, try to understand it and once you do so, you may come back to this thread and admit your error.
That's the problem that the "abortion decreases crime" folks are arguing under.

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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
That's the problem that the "abortion decreases crime" folks are arguing under.
"Those born in the four years after Roe vs. Wade were much more likely to commit murder than those born in the four years prior."

Isn't this part of your first post ? All I see here is corrolation and yet you seem to think this is enough to state that "abortion increases crime".

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Originally posted by HumeA
On the contrary, I read the article, and it piqued my interest (even despite the errors in his argument at times which were blatant attempts to draw people to his conclusion by literal weight of it alone -- idiot may have been a bit strong... how about devious). So I looked at the statistics and realised that his claim that abortions increase crime rates is fa ...[text shortened]... nts are right -- how could I possibly know for sure that abortions are lowering crime rates?)
Good points. I don't agree with Lott's findings, but even if he were dead on, so what? Having a free society rather than a dictatorship increases crime, too, but I wouldn't want the trade-off.

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Originally posted by Zahlanzi
how is the legalisation of abortion in any connection with the increase of single-parents? now that abortion is legal, people decide they should have the kids and not abort them? have you been sniffing led paint again?
According to Lott:

To understand why abortion might not cut crime, one should first consider how dramatically it changed sexual relationships. Once abortion became widely available, people engaged in much more premarital sex, and also took less care in using contraceptives. Abortion, after all, offered a backup if a woman got pregnant, making premarital sex, and the nonuse of contraception, less risky. In practice, however, many women found that they couldn’t go through with an abortion, and out-of-wedlock births soared. Few of these children born out of wedlock were put up for adoption; most women who were unwilling to have abortions were also unwilling to give up their children. Abortion also eliminated the social pressure on men to marry women who got pregnant. All of these outcomes — more out-of-wedlock births, fewer adoptions than expected, and less pressure on men “to do the right thing” — led to a sharp increase in single-parent families.

...What happened to all these children raised by single women? No matter how much they want their children, single parents tend to devote less attention to them than married couples do. Single parents are less likely than married parents to read to their children or take them on excursions, and more likely to feel angry at their children or to feel that they are burdensome. Children raised out of wedlock have more social and developmental problems than children of married couples by almost any measure — from grades to school expulsion to disease. Unsurprisingly, children from unmarried families are also more likely to become criminals.

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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
Legalizing abortion increased crime. Those born in the four years after Roe vs. Wade were much more likely to commit murder than those born in the four years prior. This was especially true when they were in their “criminal prime,” says John R. Lott, Jr.:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,377181,00.html
Their are two ways of looking at this. Either abortion has led to higher crime rates or society simply is becoming sicker and sicker thus embracing abortion on demand along the way. If the later, abortion is not the culprit of our crime rates, rather, it is merely one of many symptoms.

Ok everyone, now turn your head and cough!! 😛

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Originally posted by PinkFloyd
Good points. I don't agree with Lott's findings, but even if he were dead on, so what? Having a free society rather than a dictatorship increases crime, too, but I wouldn't want the trade-off.
Not allowing women to abort their children is a dictatorship? The Soviet Union was a dictatorship and they allowed and even encouraged women to have abortions. China is a dictatorship and they all but forced women to have abortions during the period where they would only allow families to have one child (it resulted in selective abortion based on sex -- too bad girls!). Should the United States be more like a dictatorship?