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: This is a trend that has, since 2000, begun to decline. Teen murder rates were higher for teens born after the legalization of abortion . Statistics show that the murder rate in 1993 for 14- to 17-year-olds in the US (born in the years 1975‑1979, which had very high abortion rates) was 3.6 times higher than that of kids who were the same age in 1984 (who were born in the pre‑legalization years of 1966‑1970). According to a Child Trends report, as of 2017, homicides declined in the 1990s, but then began to fluctuate over the next 20 years, though never getting as high as the 80’s rate. As of 2017, it was 8.7 per 100,000. 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.