Abortion And The Crime Rate

I picked up a copy of Freakonomics the other day and was immediately troubled. The very first example of "freakonomics" in the book, at the top of the introduction, is about the declining murder rate in the 1990s. After discounting all the touted causes for the phenomenon, the authors, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, posit:

There was another factor, meanwhile, that had greatly contributed to the massive crime drop of the 1990s. It had taken shape more than twenty years earlier and concerned a young woman in Dallas named Norma McCorvey.

Norma McCorvey is better known as Jane Roe. Levitt and Dubner go on to write that after the Supreme Court legalized abortion, poor women in bad circumstances tended to have them, and that as a consequence, not as many children were raised in those bad circumstances, so there were fewer kids ready to become criminals by the time the 1990s rolled around.

I put the book down, troubled, trying to think this through. Then today, I happened onto the last few minutes of a Dennis Prager interview with one of the Steves. Dennis stated that most of the things in the book tended to unravel the thinking of the Left, and asked if anything in the book would unravel the Right. Steve answered with the Norma McCorvey story.

Dennis' response was to ask why the Right should be upset by that, saying correctly that if the story is true, there's no reason to become unbraided by it.

He's right, but I'm still unbraided, and here's why: Dennis is a straight-thinker, as are you, as am I. You probably see this for what it is -- a small footnote to a huge human tragedy -- and that's that.

Planned Parenthood is not nearly as nice as you and Dennis. They will take this and propagandize it, using it to support their position that a "right" to abortions is needed because women should not have to raise children in cruel and unforgiving circumstances.

They will use it to convince young, poor women who have other options that they have no other options.

They will use it to lobby compliant members of Congress, giving them another reason to vote as Planned Parenthood demands on legislation.

They will use it in their court arguments to fight for no parental disclosure, federally funded abortions and restricting the right of free speech around clinics.

And in the process, they will excuse their own wealthy, comfortable abortions.

Sometimes a truth can unleash the demons of Hell.