Henry Morgentaler

In the following viewpoint, Henry Morgentaler contends that legal abortion has led to a reduction in violent crime. In both Canada and the United States, the number of assaults, rapes, and murders has been decreasing since the early 1990s, Morgentaler explains. Because women have had access to legalized abortion since 1973, fewer unwanted children have been born. Unwanted children are more likely to be neglected and abused and, therefore, to grow into adults who commit acts of violence, he points out. Since less of these children are being born, the crime rate has decreased, he concludes. Morgentaler, a physician, is a prominent Canadian abortion provider.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. In the author’s view, why are abused children more likely to exhibit violent behavior as adults"
2. What do most serial killers have in common, according to Morgentaler"
3. In the author’s opinion, what benefits do women enjoy as a result of legalized abortion"

At a time when access to safe, medical abortion is being threatened by murderous attacks on doctors providing this service, it would be worthwhile to recapitulate the enormous benefits brought about by legal abortion. I think one of the most important consequences is the declining violent crime rate. This decline has lasted for six years in Canada and the United States.

Fewer Youths Have Inner Rage

Is there a relationship between the statistically proven decline in crime rates and access to abortion? Since 1993, in both the United States and Canada, the crime rate has steadily decreased—in particular for crimes of violence, such as assault, rape, and murder. Some demographers explain this by the fact that there are fewer young men around, and it is mostly young men who commit crimes. No doubt this is true, but what is even more important is that, among these young men likely to commit offenses, there are fewer who carry an inner rage and vengeance in their hearts from having been abused or cruelly treated as children.

Why is that? Because many women who a generation ago were obliged to carry any pregnancy to term now have the opportunity to choose medical abortion when they are not ready to assume the burden and obligation of motherhood. It is well documented that unwanted children are more likely to be abandoned, neglected, and abused. Such children inevitably develop an inner rage that in later years may result in violent behavior against people and society. Crimes of violence are very often perpetrated by persons who unconsciously want revenge for the wrongs they suffered as children. This need to satisfy an inner urge for vengeance results in violence against children, women, members of minority groups, or anyone who becomes a target of hate by the perpetrator.

Children who are given love and affection, good nurturing, and a nice, supportive home atmosphere usually grow up to become caring, emotionally responsible members of the community. They care about others because they have been well cared for. Children who have been deprived of love and good care, who have been neglected or abused, suffer tremendous harm that may cause mental illness, difficulty in living, and an inner rage that eventually erupts in violence when they become adolescents and adults.

Preventive Medicine

Most serial killers were neglected and abused children, deprived of love. Both Hitler and Stalin were cruelly beaten by their fathers and carried so much hate in their hearts that, when they attained power, without remorse they caused millions of people to die. It is accepted wisdom that prevention is better than a cure. To prevent the birth of unwanted children through family planning, birth control, and abortion is preventive medicine, preventive psychiatry, and prevention of violent crime.

Not Such a Puzzle

After Roe, women who knew they weren’t ready or able to raise children, had a choice. The children they did have were more likely to be wanted.

Today the abortion rates are at their lowest point since Roe. That doesn’t mean we’re due for a crime wave in 2020. It means there are fewer unwanted pregnancies today—due in large part to contraceptives. If there’s universal agreement on anything in the world of reproduction, it’s that birth control is a better way to prevent “unwantedness” than abortion.

Researchers Steven Levitt and John Donohue set out to answer questions about crime and ended up raising hackles about abortion. Their thesis may or may not hold up to further review. But all in all, it has the whiff of common sense.

As Levitt offers simply enough, “I think children have better outcomes when mothers want them and have the resources and inclination to have them.” It’s what family planners have said all along. It’s not really such a puzzle.

Ellen Goodman, Liberal Opinion Week, August 23, 1999.

Ipredicted a decline in crime and mental illness thirty years ago when I started my campaign to make abortion in Canada legal and safe. It took a long time for this prediction to come true. I expect that things will get better as more and more children are born into families that want and desire them and receive them with joy and anticipation.

It is important that we continue as a society to safeguard the rights and access of women to safe, medical abortion. Not many people realize the enormous benefits to women’s health resulting from such good access:

• Disappearance of deaths due to illegal abortions.
• Reduced complication rate attending upon medical abortion, which has become one of the safest surgical procedures.
• Decreased mortality of women giving birth.
• Decreased mortality of babies during childbirth. Add to this the decrease in crime rates and, most probably, although not statistically proven yet, a significant decrease in mental and emotional illness.

When Canada is rated first in the world by a United Nations agency as to quality of life, part of the rating is due to the increased safety of women due to good access to quality abortion care.