Chapter 4 Summary

In Chapter 4, the authors argue that data reveal that the primary reason for the plummeting crime rates in the United States in the 1990s is the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision generally legalizing abortion. The authors argue that because of Roe v. Wade, babies that would have been born are not being born in the 1970s. These same babies are the most likely to end up being criminals, and they would have hit the peak of their criminal careers by the 1990s, just as the crime rates begin to plunge. Chapter 4 begins with a discussion of how, in the 1960s, the Communist Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauzescu bans almost all abortions in that country. The result of the abortion ban is that the children born during that time lead wretched lives. The children born during the abortion ban do much worse than children...