Talk:The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime

Date of Paper
There is some discrepancy as to the date this paper was published. Apparently it was posted to Social Science Research Network in August, 1999, but the citation is for 2000. I'm guessing that the paper appeared in print in 2000. Which date should we use? Either way, the date for this article (2001) is wrong. GabrielF 17:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Formal citation for this article is: John J. Donohue III and Steven D. Levitt, The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2001, Vol. 116, No. 2: 379–420. While the article may have been a working paper as early as 1999 or 2000, publication in an academic journal such as Quarterly Journal of Economics may reflect peer review and input from referees with standing int the field. Naaman Brown (talk) 17:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

As a footnote, articles are often circulated pre-publication at conferences or symposia for comment or feedback, so noteworthy controversies may begin long before the article is formally published under peer review, so here as in other controversies, the publication dates of the working paper and the reviewed article are equally germane.--Naaman Brown (talk) 09:45, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Criticism section overweight
It seems that the critics of this paper have gone overboard here. It'll be great if someone trim down the criticisms section and could beef up the description of the paper itself. LK (talk) 07:22, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. I also think the article could use some graphs and other visual material to enhance the page. Some are presented in the paper. 65.92.81.102 (talk) 00:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I've read the paper and the criticisms and disagree. Levitt started with a pretty tenuous proposal (that amidst, the maelstrom of social changes, he could statistically isolate abortion as pre-emptively killing criminals).  Foote and Goetz especially show that this was not well done stats analysis.  In addition, the Sailer criticism (essentially that looking at several years and ages rather than the snapshot of two years and crime done by people of all ages), the effect goes away.  Levitt did the equivalent of what the worse sorts of global warming deniers do (selectively cherry pick years from overall trends).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.82.42.81 (talk) 16:35, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I also agree. In addition, whether the paper is right or wrong has nothing to do if whether abortion is right or wrong; after all, I'd doubt anyone would suggest killing underprivileged kindergartners as a solution to crime. 75.118.170.35 (talk) 19:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Why all the focus solely on abortion?
It seems strange that the coverage of the original paper and the responses just talks about abortion. What about other factors that reduce unwanted births, such as rates of unintended pregnancy? Federal funding to provide contraceptive access for poor started about 1970 (Title X and predecessors). Also the 1960's saw the introduction of a new class of contraceptives (hormonal), which rapidly became quite popular. Is there something different about those who get abortions vs. those who use contraceptives to prevent pregnancy. Article needs more coverage of alternative factors like this. Zodon (talk) 07:49, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree, ive been looking into this issue lately, it seems absurd to have only one factor influencing this. ZOrdon mentions the pill, and that was my thought too, and i looked into that- as you say, it was introduced in the 60s, with no significant affect on crime rates 20 years later!! HOWEVER! it is the 50th year anviersary of the pill this year, and theres been a lot of talk. The pill was only introduced to MARRIED persons in the 60s! AND IT wastnt untill the 70s it was allowed for unmarried persons (AKA lower socio econmonic people more likely to have unwanted children!!) in AUstralia (where im from) it was 1975, and even Wikis own "pill" page states in the USA the pill was legalised for unmarried persons in 1972!!!! nicely coinciding with the mass reduction in crime rates! 123.98.137.2 (talk) 03:29, 21 February 2012 (UTC) cilstr (talk) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_revolution_in_1960s_America