abortion is a form of crime control.

[evil-in-deed]

the adoption rate should respond to the abortion rate...

high adoption demand = no abortion...

easy does it...

adoption demand is low btw...

[hmg-eng]

You'd think so but try reading "Freakonomics". The connection is clear and well made. They look at times when abortion rates are low (because of low gov support from Repub presidents), and then see crime rise decades later when those unwanted children come of age (teenagers) and commit crimes.

By using statistics the authors even figured out that there are a certain number of sumo matches that have been fixed.

Take a poll of the number of people who eat ice cream in the summer and crime rate in the summer.  Now take a poll of the number of people who eat ice cream in the winter and the crime rate in the winter.

The results will show that the crime rate in the summer is higher and the number of people who eat ice cream is higher. So higher ice cream consumption will produce more crime?

You can basically do this with anything and find correlations. People do it all the time and make connections between things that have no scientific merit. Also there are so many variables unless you conduct a control experiment your results will be skewed.

Maybe the rise in crime rate a decade later was due to something else? You can't just take statistics of abortion rate 10 years ago and go "oh look, crime rate has gone up 50% since then." It must be because of the low abortion rate?

[Reporter]

a couple that is willing to conceive a child together wanting an abortion?...

That's what I'm saying. If they are already willing to conceive and still do an abortion, how is that a crime control factor?

[Reporter]

I was thinking YAX meant every criminal's kids would be criminals. But that's too biased. Statistics don't support that exactly.

Riddle me this.

If the fetus has been aborted, how do you collect the statistics on the life of crime that the fetus would have had?

Can you statistically give me the winning super lottery numbers for next weeks drawings as well?

[vangkm007]

Maybe the rise in crime rate a decade later was due to something else? You can't just take statistics of abortion rate 10 years ago and go "oh look, crime rate has gone up 50% since then." It must be because of the low abortion rate?

The correlation is a 1,000,000X more complicated than you think. It's not as simple as you point out, read the book first and then criticize it. Does it not stand to reason that children whose parents considered abortion would grow up in a less stable household? Think of the demographic of ppl who are getting abortions in the first place, they tend to be poor, single minorities. We all know petty/violent crime and poverty have a connection, now imagine those unwanted children growing up poor with only one parent present. Now it's not so hard to imagine that the crime rate would be tied into this now is it?

Not only that but by all projections in the 90's violent crime was supposed to skyrocket in the early 2000's but in fact it started going down and no one could figure it out. The authors of "Freakonomics" did a great job making the correlation so before you criticize, at least read the thing!

[YAX]

good point Vangkm007.  Some people want to argue without even doing their research.  Ima gonna have to go read it too then.