A book published in June by a leading US economist in part responds to previous and oft-quoted claims that abortion has been a significant factor in lowering the US crime rate. The book by John R. Lott of the American Enterprise Institute, Freedomnomics, answers claims by liberal economist Steven Levitt that abortion, in reducing the number of "unwanted" children, has eliminated significant numbers of the kind of people who commit crimes.
Lott's 2001 study, "Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-of-Wedlock Births" concluded that legalized abortion has in fact increased the overall violent crime rate.
"We find evidence that legalizing abortion increased murder rates by around about 0.5 to 7 percent… Others note that the legalizing of abortion might contribute to a coarsening of society that might itself lead to more crime."
Freedomnomics is being called a conservative response to the publication of a manifesto of liberal political and economic theory by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner, which topped the 2005 New York Times bestseller list.
Freakonomics claimed that "legalized abortion may account for as much as one-half of the overall crime reduction" during the 1990s. This claim was seized upon by abortion advocates.
The conclusion that abortion actually tends to increase crime rates coincides with a study published earlier this year. That study examined data on 237 low-income women in Baltimore and showed a statistical correlation between abortion and incidents of child abuse. Published in March in the Internet Journal of Pediatrics and Neonatology, the study a showed history of abortion is associated with more frequent acts of physical aggression toward subsequent children.
