PBA330H: Legalized Abortion and Crime Effects

See Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effects.

OITNB S03E01 conversation between Big Boo and Pensatucky to highlight how the argument is made, how it's taken as scripture in popular culture.¹⁾

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLMFpt8xgoY (lots of cursing)

See also Freakonomics.

1. First, being proactive: even assuming the Freakonomics thesis is 100% true, does reducing future crime justify killing babies who might be criminals in the future? Wouldn't it follow that crime could be reduced even more if we killed newborns who weren't aborted but were still in prime crime-producing scenarios? (“Meth head white trash pieces of shit” as Jenji Kohan affectively puts it.) Shouldn't we kill newborns or toddlers in that same scenario then if it will reduce crime further? This is a classic trot out the toddler case – even if legalized abortion reduces crime, that isn't a justification for killing if pre-born children are human beings, otherwise it would also be a justification for killing toddlers.
2. Second, it might not even be true. Donohue/Levitt have been fending off substantively academic criticisms of their findings since 2001. The data is messy and incomplete. There might be a correlation between legalized abortion and reductions in violent crime, but when controlling for other crime-associated factors, that effect seems lessened, or some argues even disappears entirely. Point is: it's not entirely clear to what extent, if any, legalized abortion actually reduces crime. It might. It might not. There is open debate happening on the question.