Title: Are Abortion and Crime Rates Related? [UPDATED]
Headings: Does Abortion Reduce Crime?
Does Abortion Reduce Crime?
Donohue and Levitt’s 2001 Study
Counterevidence from Lott and Whitley
Donohue and Levitt’s 2019 Study
A Moral Argument
Negative Effects of Abortion on Society
Final Thoughts
Endnotes

Content: Murder rates skyrocketed among black people. Since black women have abortions at a much higher rate than white women, we should have expected the murder rate among black youth to have declined beginning in about 1991. Instead, it increased more than 500% from 1984 to 1993. 6
Crime rates rose when abortion rates were constant. If abortion reduces crime, the crime rate should have been relatively stable during the time period 1980 to 1991. Instead, the crime rate rose during the time period 1984 to 1991, after a decline from 1980 to 1984. Further, the crime rate over the past 20 years has continued to decline. Researchers believed that the huge increase in violent crime that peaked in 1991 and then began to decline was more closely related to the crack epidemic, not abortion. The Donohue‑Levitt study confirms that the crime rate rose and fell exactly where crack cocaine was most easily available―in the large cities and among young black males. 6
Donohue and Levitt’s 2019 Study
In May 2019, Donohue and Levitt reexamined data from their first paper and published a working paper entitled “ The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime over the Last Two Decades .”