but while it's not required does it not make sense that when interpreting data and reaching conclusions as these you would include a possible solvency? and i seriously doubt he can't do anything to fix anything because almost everyone has the possibility to fix things. and if he links the two together with his interpretation why doesn't he provide a way to drop that link?

I don't see a problem.

The problem was crime. Crime went down. Levitt made a hypothesis about why crime went down. Levitt proved his hypothesis.

Abortion reduces crime. There is no "problem" in his report. I don't really understand what you want him to change. It's up to politicians to use his data as they will.

He doesn't have an agenda. He isn't for or against abortion. He's just stating facts. He provides an alternate solution to using abortion, which is improving family life in some way for the poor. Economists don't impliment or legislate, they only observe and experiment.

I guess it would be safe to say that after you posted this comment, the silence was clearly broken. :P

I haven't read the book, but I'm curious if he expounds on the "unwantedness" discussion to specify what it is about the "unwantedness" that causes the effect on crime.

To me, I would think that at least some of the essential components would be capacity to provide a good, well-rounded home for the child. In an unwanted pregnancy, some are "unwanted" because of circumstance and not just because the parents find it as an alternative to birth control.
The mother and the father may not be married and have no real attachment to each other. Financial situations may be extremely difficult for raising a child.

And let's face it. Men and women exist who have the CAPABILITY for procreation, but lack the capacity for being good parents.


On a separate issue, I couldn't help but think that the author has brought forth a fairly decent argument supporting the correlation.

As opposed to other issues, like people claiming gay marriage will harm straight marriages, where the "arguments" brought forth often include contradictory and illogical presentations. Like showing how the straight marriage trends were declining for decades before gay marriage ever became a reality in the country, yet claiming that "gay marriage" is causing decline...
(That and noticing how some who argue the point cherry pick the data points they want to use, and leave out salient points like how marriage trends have actually IMPROVED in some countries in most of the years after gay marriage was legalized...)

i was talking about the "provides an alternate solution" thing. all he says is that we should improve family life, but is that a) the only viable option, and b) actually a viable option considering it would be almost impossible to ensure improved conditions? suggestions don't really get things done, obviously.

A) Only viable option? No.
But are other options EXCLUSIONARY whereby they could not be used in conjunction with legalized abortion?
If we can do BOTH alpha and beta to improve family life, then why shouldn't we use both if possible?

B) "ensure improved conditions"?
I think the point is that, overall in ACTUAL practice, it DOES improve conditions.
Are the improved conditions "ensured"? No.
But OVERALL are the conditions improved? Yes.

The fact that they aren't ensured isn't that important in my perspective.

All economists do is make suggestions. Sorry, that's just the way the world rolls.

he didn't even make a suggestion! all he did was analyze!

His suggestions were that legalized abortion reduces crime, and improving the stability of the lives of children might do the same thing. I don't know what you want him to say. Do you want him to say that abortion is wrong? Right and wrong aren't part of an economist's job.

if he used evidence to make that suggestion then technically exposing the link between the two isn't really a suggestion, it's just as aforementioned an analysis. and no, i'm not expecting a right or wrong, all i was wondering was if he proposed any way of getting rid of the link, to improve those conditions and the stability.

Well, I could answer that question. The question you're asking is an entirely different issue.

Most Western and Northern European countries have much lower abortion rates than the United States. Why? Well, they have better welfare systems, a smaller rich-poor divide, a more comprehensive job placement system, free healthcare, sex ed starting in first grade, and freely available contraceptives, often at the school nurse's office.

Any or all of these factors could be responsible for the low abortion rates.