After Roe v. Wade

Decrease in crime rates

This graph shows the crime rates from the Uniform Crime Reports from year 1973 to the year 1999

Eighteen years after the legalization of abortion with the ruling of Roe v. Wade in 1973, there was a decrease in crime rates. It has been proven that males between the age eighteen and twenty-four are most likely to commit crimes, therefore it is suggested that the absence of unwanted children attributed to the drop in crime rates eighteen years after the legalization of abortion. The decrease in crime began in the year 1992 and then made a drastic drop in 1995, these years would have been the pinnacle years of crimes committed by the unborn children (Donohue, J. J., and S. D. Levitt).
The states that had abortion legalized prior to 1973 showed drops in crime rates before those that legalized it after them. States such as Alaska, California, Hawaii, New York, Oregon, and Washington all experienced lowered crime rates before those states legalized after Roe v. Wade. Moreover, studies have indicated that with a high abortion rate have shown a higher decline of crime rates (Donohue, J. J., and S. D. Levitt).

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