The legalization of abortion in the 1970´s was one of the primary reasons why crime rates fell in the 1990´s.
- 1973: US Supreme Court legalizes abortion across USA.
- 1990´s: Crime rates drop all over the country.
The explanation:
- Unwanted children have high risk for developing criminal activities at some point in their lives because of the conditions they grow up in.
- As a whole generation of potentially unwanted children was never born, 20 years later, when they would have been in the peak crime ages, they simply weren´t there.
- There were 5 states that legalized abortion 3 years before the rest of the country.These same states started showing crime reductions 3 years earlier than the rest.
- Those states where abortion was not only legal but was easily available, showed a bigger decrease in crime rates - 30% lower.
There is a huge relation between giving women the right to choose and crime.
