I will start off being blunt, I am a proud republican, pro-life, Christian. I support the war and our military, I do not support gay marriages or extensive immigration. I believe that illegal immigration should be met with immediate and non-negotiable deportation. This being said, I am not entirely closed-minded. Though my opinions are not opt to change, I love gaining new information and comparing that to see how it will affect my personal opinion on matters. One recent thing that I have had to think about is abortion.
Although I am pro-life, I believe that abortion should be a viable option ONLY when a birth will endanger the life of both mother AND baby. However, I was recently reading Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner and they presented some rather interesting statistics concerning abortion. The argument that served as a slap in the face was the fact that since abortion has been legallized in the United States the crime rate has drastically fallen. In New York, California, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii abortion was legallized two years before the rest of the United States as a result of Roe v. Wade. The violent crime in these states decreased by 13% and the murder rate decreased by 23%. Two years after this crime decrease the crime rates across the country decreased, signifing not only correlation but also causation.
While I still do not personally believe that abortion is a morally acceptable practice, these statistics have really hit home so therefore I share them here.
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ABortion is always a "touchy subject". Although this is a very positive statistic it goes with a very interesting assumption. If abortion being legalized led to the crime rate dropping, then it must be assumed that most of these aborted children would have contributed to that crime rate. Also,the abortion law may not be the only legislature that these states have in common. There could be other factors contributing to the drop and although it puts a nice spin on the effects of legalizing abortion, it doesn't change the truth. Abortion is killing a child.~Knowledge+ Action=Change~