Steve Levitt: Legalized Abortion Lowered Crime
 

Here's Levitt's explanation: "Legalized abortion lowered unwantedness. Unwantedness is related to crime, so legalized abortion lowered crime."

Levitt summarizes his unorthodox research in a new book, "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything." With co-author Stephen Dubner, he details some eyebrow-raising findings

Guns kill fewer kids than swimming pools.

Gang members may not be mama's boys, but they often share mama's house.

The Ku Klux Klan and real estate agents have something in common. (More on that later.)

Levitt took on another social issue when he teamed up with another researcher to develop a statistical method that found a small number of Chicago teachers cheated on standardized tests to help their students. Those findings led to disciplinary action.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/book....ap/index.html

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Interesting stuff.

i read up on this guy 2 years ago - he takes real world situations and applies statistics to them in very interesting ways. he did a really cool analysis of drug dealers/gang members in Chicago and how their who business works. google the guy and cool stuff shows up...

i'm going to get the book for my upcoming Maui vacation and read it :)

Read his book just yesterday. Very interesting stuff. :thumbsup

That point certainly passes the sniff test. Most abortions are unwanted kids who would otherwise be raised in poor, unhappy households. Certainly statistically these children become criminals more often.

I just figured out the real reason why the right wing nutters want abortion outlawed. They like the prison slave labour.

I read the same thing a while ago, not sure if it's the same research. It makes sense.