Paper Example on Abortion and Crime

Introduction

Freakonomics is a book which offers a glimpse of how people behave in the real world, and how the world is not as practical as it may seem. It points out the ingenuity of people's actions, to achieve objectives. There are five fundamental ideas which come out in the book. Firstly, incentives are the cornerstone of modern life, and that individuals respond to incentives. As a result, it is essential to understand incentives to understand human behavior. Levitt and Dubner (2014) believe that incentives are equivalent to studying economics. These incentives exist in everyday life, and they cause people to act in their interest. Secondly, there is also an idea that the conventional wisdom is often wrong. Levitt and Dubner (2014) use the example that abortion ruling led to a drop in population which causes a drastic reduction in rates of crime. The third idea is that dramatic effects often have distant and even subtle causes. The meaning is that causes for events are identified due to remote and unrelated when in fact have precipitated events. The fourth idea is that "experts" ranging from criminologists to real estate proxies use the info that they have to serve their agenda. They misuse information to benefit themselves, and not their clients. The internet shrinks this informational advantage. The last main idea is that knowledge of what to measure and how to measure it makes a complex world much less so. It untangles the complexities of the world through demystifying it from a moral concept that the world should work that way.

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Abortion is among the most controversial topics that have incited debates among people in the modern society. The issue has its historical roots, and it has always been controversial. There is a drastic increase in the number of abortions since the government legalized it. However, if abortion is legalized, there is a drop in crime. Meaning, most of the aborted babies would have grown in poverty, and engaged in criminal activities. An abortion does not reduce the rate of crime.

There are fundamental problems in the assertion that legalization of abortion leads to declined rates of crime. Between the ages of 17-25, most young people engaged in crime after abortion was legalized. Britain legalized abortion in 1968. The country experienced high rates of crime even before the government legalized abortion. Studies show that there were violent crimes which steadily rose since 1985 while the state legalized abortion in 1968. For instance, Russia has the highest abortion rates in the world. The country has experienced a high rate of violent crime since it broke from the Soviet Union. There were also vast rates of violent crime which emerged in the United States since 1991.

However, these crimes were related to disasters and epidemic and not abortion. These rates of crime reduced when the government conducted a crackdown on people engaging in illegal drug trade such as cocaine. There were also rising in between the years 1984 and 1991, despite a reduction of crime rates from the years 1980 to 1984. It, therefore, means that abortion is not the primary cause of the decrease in crime rates in the United States. If it were the main factor that led to the decline in the rate of crime in the United States, then the country would have enjoyed stability during the period between 1980 and 1991.

There is no relation in the statistical figures that Levitt and Dubner (2014) use to support the assertion that abortion reduces rates of crime. It is therefore imperative to agree that the data used in the study is far from perfect. There is no relation of the figures in "Freakonomics" and the Center for Disease Control (CDC). It, therefore, points to the fact that even if criminal problems experienced in the United States does not exist, then the authors would have employed a substantial measurement error. In reality, this is what a person would expect when the controls are more effective in comparison to abortion strategies while leaving behind the noise.

Immediately after the United States legalized abortion, there were differences in the availability of abortion services across the United States. For instance, States such as North Dakota, there was no possibility of securing an abortion even after the government legalized the act. A comparison between the rates if abortion which was high in 1970 to States which experienced low rates of abortion in the mid-1970's shows that there is a pattern of crime. These two states (states with low abortion rates and those with high abortion rates) almost exhibit the same patterns of crime.

The fall of crime rates in the United States in the mid-1990's is also linked to the fall of the Berlin wall in Germany in 1989. Even though this assertion may appear irrelevant about the opinion that Levitt and Dubner (2014) suggested, there is a simple logic behind this assertion. The fall of the Berlin wall marked the end of the Cold War, and it marked efforts to mend the relations with the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980's. It would, therefore, be right to assert that increased spending due to stability led to a reduction in rates of crime. The governments allocated enough finances to fund education. The effect of this policy was that the majority of children enrolled in schools. There was a notable reduction in the number of street children. The point here is that rates of crime reduced as a result. There was also increased spending in non-governmental organizations and this created job opportunities, thereby boosting employment. If many kids are educated, then there are fewer youths who are jobless. The assertion that Levitt and Dubner (2014) push that legalization of abortion reduced rates of crime is therefore based on falsehood.

On the contrary, Levitt and Dubner (2014) believe that the rates of crime started dropping 18 years after abortion was legalized. They further state that the rates of murder fell since 1991 when abortion was legalized. The authors compared the data obtained in 1991 and 1933. They further claim that the five states where abortion was legalized before 1973 also experienced an evident reduction in crime rates. The authors established that countries which had high rates of abortions experienced low rates of crime.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the focus of this paper was based on Levitt and Dubner (2014) assertion that abortion reduces crime, a claim which is wrong. The article, therefore, disagreed with the stance of Freakonomics on the opinion of its authors concerning abortion, a topic that is present in all the chapter of the book. It is false to argue that the concept of global warming is misleading because of one or two cold winters. The impact that legalized abortion on crime cannot, therefore, be linked to global warming. Levitt and Dubner (2014) ought to have approached their hypothesis from a different perspective and not building on the analogy of legalized abortion which is misleading.

References

Levitt, S. D., & Dubner, S. J. (2014). Freakonomics. B DE BOOKS.