"What is the relative value of a fetus and a newborn? If faced with the Solomonic task of sacrificing the life of one newborn for an indeterminate number of fetuses, what number might you choose?... For a person who is either resolutely pro-life or resolutely pro-choice, this is a simple calculation. The first, believing that life begins at conception, would likely consider the value of a fetus versus the value of a newborn to be 1:1. The second person, believing that a woman's right to an abortion trumps any other factor, would likely argue that no number of fetuses can equal even one newborn.
But let's consider a third person. This third person does not believe that a fetus is the 1:1 equivalent of a newborn, yet neither does he believe that a fetus has no relative value. Let's say that he is forced, for the sake of argument, to affix a relative value and he decides that 1 newborn is worth 100 fetuses.
There are roughly 1.5 million abortions in the United States every year. For a person who believes that 1 newborn is worth 100 fetuses, those 1.5 million abortions would translate into the equivalent of a loss of 15,000 human lives. Fifteen thousand lives; that happens to be about the same number of people who die in homicides in the United States every year. And it is far more than the number of homicides eliminated each year due to legalized abortion. So even for someone who considers a fetus to be worth only one one-hundredth of a human being, the trade-off between higher abortion and lower crime is, by an economist's reckoning, terribly inefficient."
Monday, June 2, 2008
Freakonomics Lesson #141...
In Freakonomics, Steven Levitt postulates that the decline in the crime rates of the 1990's was a direct result of the Roe V. Wade decision to legalize abortions. It is his theory that the crime drop was due to the fact that the criminals who would commit these crimes were never allowed to be born and come into age as a criminals. He presents this in a very cut and dry fashion but I thought his conclusion was an interesting take on the numbers:
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18 comments:
Economics is not so dismal when you make it completely absurd.
Let's follow along with his train of thought: If we increase the rate of abortion to 100%, so that the number of living humans in say 75+ years is zero...well...just think about the crime rate then.
Brent,
I guess the absurdity would be that this is how the world works. If you haven't read Freakonomics, I would encourage you to do so.
Actually that would not be his train of thought. He argues that the net gain of abortions (lower crime rate) don't equal the net loss from those same abortions and thus 'the trade-off between higher abortion and lower crime is, by an economist's reckoning, terribly inefficient.'
He's wrong. The drop in crime is because of economic prosperity. As gas prices rise and we sink deeper into a recession those crime rates will rise back up.
I am glad you have it figured out. I didn't know that 3 years of seminary is the same as a life time of work devoted to economics.
carry on.
it was 4 years of seminary.
And, speculative claims about abortion and the potential criminals it preemptively eliminates, is not Economics.
carry on.
I realize this is drifting from your point, but criminal activity is most simply conceived in terms of risk vs. reward. And opportunity. Prison sentences have increased in number and in length over the same amount of time as crime rates have gone down. So on easy explanation is that folks known to exhibit criminal behavior have less opportunity - since they are already in jail.
When thinking about risk vs. reward you have to think beyond the mere moment of the crime and account for a more far-reaching perspective on reward. For example, pre-1992, you may have a conception of life in general that is fairly pessimistic. the economy is uncertain, nuclear war could happen at any moment, the power of our government, when last tested was a failure, I can't get an education or a credit card, etc. The social optimism of the 60's - civil rights and all that - has failed. Woven into the fabric of our existence is a deep pessimism about our opportunity for real prosperity, especially amongst the poor. Therefore, in committing a crime you wouldn't be risking that much to get the reward you wanted. Even in a violent crime case, what have you really got to lose? After 1992, as the economy boomed, our nation reasserted its power, and hip-hop became huge, suddenly there was potential reward to factor into your analysis, and with the growing risk in the form of jail time... viola - less crime. As a culture we became optimistic.
I have seen some of the abortion-crime statistics and I think it is a coincidence. I think the effect of the legality of abortion on crime has more to do with a cultural shift of its acceptance in the 90's more than the legal shift in the 70's. With the cultural shift toward acceptance opportunity for abortion relieved another despair causing element, which factors into the rising optimism. It doesn't have to do with potential criminals (babies) not existing in the world of the living, but more to do with potential criminals (parents) not being moved toward acts of desperation because of the opportunity to freely remove the object of stress.
One more...
The data of the abortion-reduces-crime argument has at least one large flaw. The argument depends upon the statistic - unwanted children are more likely to be criminals... number of aborted babies x criminal percentage = how much crime we are missing out on. While the statistic about unwanted children may be true it is irrelevant to their greater argument about abortion. That data corresponds to alive children and their parents attitude about them. But abortions are about parents attitudes toward their pregnancies, or unborn children - a different thing altogether. Plenty of parents don't want to be pregnant but end up very much wanting their children after they are born. And plenty of parents want to be pregnant and end up not wanting their children after they are born. Attitudes that do not want born children and attitudes that do not want unborn children are statistically incomparable. It is a fallacious and indeterminable comparison. So, that one could determine the percentage of criminals in a class of what-if alive children by comparing them to actual alive children who are unwanted is deeply flawed. And if you can't reasonably determine how much crime aborted babies would commit then you certainly can't say that the absence of crime is due to them not being around to commit it.
It is a bit of an odd application of economics.
How 'bout this: If you live in a society that places a small enough value on human life (even if you call it "potential life") to allow such a staggering number of abortions every year, it follows that your society will also place a lower value on such lesser matters as private property (hence you have more theft) and the integrity of the person (hence, more assaults and murders). Conversely, as you begin to value life more, you'll value the other things more.
I agree with George. The economic argument is coincidental.
How about this:
He answered all of your points in his book and destroyed them. So, you are in fact wrong. I would copy the chapter here, but my fingers are tired.
Jeff, that logic is more coincidental than Levitt simply following the number.
Are you guys challenged by this idea that abortions have removed much of the crimial element or do you honestly believe that the drop in crime around the time the people would have come in to their prime is coincidental.
And for the record, Levitt define economics to the study of incentives. If A is large then you are more likely to do B, but if A is smaller then you are not more likely to do B.
I answered all his points in my head and destroyed them, So, he is wrong. I would write down the substance here but my fingers are tired.
I am not challenged by it. It may be an interesting idea to speculate about, an economists's romp in the woods, but I don't see any strength in it at all. It is coincidental. His conclusion is completely ridiculous. There are plenty of other factors that better explain the drop. Preemptively aborting criminals as an explanation is preposterous and, as I mentioned, based on an invalid premise.
If it has any bearing at all I'd put its significance in how it effected optimism among the despairing in the social shift of the early 90's rather than the legal shift 15 years earlier. Which has nothing to do with less criminals.
I'm no economist, but the primary flaw in the application of economic thinking is in its treating human beings as though they respond in some universal, rational, predictable way. In other words, it takes human decision making in all its complexities and forces it to become a constant in an equation, so that, for example, you have a stable relationship between supply and demand. But people don't necessarily behave in ways that make that work.
I also don't buy the "repeatability equates to predictablity" argument.
So, even if I agree with what I think his conclusions are (there is no societal benefit to abortions), I think his reasoning is suspect. The relationship between the abortion rate and crime rate may be directly proportional, but I don't buy that they are causally related.
"Jeff, that logic is more coincidental than Levitt simply following the number."
OK, I just read this again and it struck me. I assume you are referring to what I said here: "If you live in a society that places a small enough value on human life (even if you call it "potential life") to allow such a staggering number of abortions every year, it follows that your society will also place a lower value on such lesser matters as private property (hence you have more theft) and the integrity of the person (hence, more assaults and murders). Conversely, as you begin to value life more, you'll value the other things more."
So, are you saying that the relation I propose is only coincidental? What I was trying to say is that the sinful devaluation of human life is what is actually behind both rampant abortions and high crime rates. As the gospel permeates a society, that sin behind the policy is confessed and repented of, and sanctification occurs. But abortion and crime are both *symptoms* of a deeper problem. Cropping one of the symptoms off without dealing with the underlying issue won't affect the other symptom at all. The symptoms, in other words, are not causally related at all.
I posted this because I found his conclusion (no social benefits to abortion) very interesting in light of the way he approached the question of what lowered crime in the 90's. He never stated that the two were directly related but that there was some relationship between the two. He brought up several of the 'reason' why people were saying that crime was reduced in the 90's when spectulators where saying it would rise dramatically and, through data, showed that they were not the result. One of the variable he was left with was the abortion theory which I don't think Levitt would say it was 100% the reason why crime went down but, based on the numbers, must have been a contributing factor.
Jeff, I don't understand how your statement you quoted above would even factor in. We, as a country have had more abortions every year so based on your logic the crime rate should go up, but it went down. (it may have since gone back up but we don't have numbers for that yet). Help me understand your logic.
"Jeff, I don't understand how your statement you quoted above would even factor in. We, as a country have had more abortions every year so based on your logic the crime rate should go up, but it went down. (it may have since gone back up but we don't have numbers for that yet). Help me understand your logic."
First, I was saying that I didn't buy the connection he was making between abortions and crime. The wickedness that dwells in mens hearts is not genetic but "original", i.e., we're all born into it regardless of who our parents are or whether they were criminals or not. Unchecked by the gospel, that wickedness will manifest itself in all kinds of badness, including murdur (it is interesting that it seems the pinnacle of the sins that God was driving the Canaannites out of the land for was infanticide). In a society that has turned away from the gospel, there will be plenty of folks who will step in and commit crimes, even if they had three brothers or neighbors who have been aborted.
Crime may be on the decline for a time, and abortions on the rise (kinda sounds weird, like saying crime is down and murdur is up), but what I don't buy is trying to link the two. I just don't think such an approach does justice to a biblical understanding of the world.
Does that make sense?
jeff,
thats all you had to say. I didn't write the thing and it is fine with me if you don't agree. I just found his conclusion (from a secular world view) to be interesting.
I didn't mean to sound snotty. George e-mailed me that there hasn't been enough controversy lately on the blog, and he wanted me to do my best to be really ugly and generate some good foot-fight material.
And, did I really type "murdur"? Not once but twice? So much for my Alabama Public Education . . .
no worries,
the bad part about arguing with you is that you boil everything down to the fall of man and the redemptive work of Christ. That is akin to the 3rd grade Sunday School answer of 'Jesus'. You just can't argue with that.
My Missouri education didn't even catch the error.
Yeah, you'll be anxious to buy my new book, "All I Need to Know I Learned In My Third Grade Sunday School Class". It'll be an instant classic.
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