There have been various reasons offered for the decline in crime over the last decade. Some say increased policing and better technology has helped to curb crime. Some say better employment opportunities helped. And some say the peace efforts among so-called street organizations have contributed to the decline.

Now another explanation is being offered as a possible reason—the legalization of abortion.

Two scholars, Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago, and John Donohue III, of the Stanford University Law School, suggest in a paper titled "Legalized Abortion and Crime," that offspring of teen-age poor and minority women were aborted at disproportionately high rates more than two decades ago. That’s when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion with the Roe v. Wade decision.

Those fertilized human eggs that were destroyed by doctors in abortion clinics and hospitals would have been the population more prone to commit crime, the researchers say. By killing them, the country was spared the burden that the potential criminal elements would have caused, according to that line of thinking. The researchers say those abortions possibly are responsible for at least half of the overall crime reduction the nation experienced from 1991 to 1997.

Researcher Levitt said the findings support the idea that legalized abortion "provides a way for the would-be mothers of those kids who are going to lead really tough lives to avoid bringing them into the world. They’re the ones who are most likely to have been unloved by their mothers, to have faced intense poverty, to have had tough lives." Both researchers emphasized their findings do not constitute an endorsement of abortions.

In addition to suggesting that potential criminals were eliminated through abortions, the research also cites that the five states that legalized abortion in the three years before the Roe v. Wade decision experienced drops in property crimes, violent crimes and murder before the other states that legalized abortion after Roe.

Also, the drop in crime goes beyond what might have been expected because abortion led to fewer births of males who reach the peak crime years in young adulthood, the research says.

While the segment of the population referred to in the research as the source for an abundance of crimes (Black and Hispanic males) could have contributed to the problem of crime in America, it is genocidal to continue to imply that getting rid of that segment will render a better society.

Activists have always contended that abortions target Blacks and the poor. They have pointed to the prison system as evidence that Black and Hispanic males are targeted for incarceration.

Rather than trying to explain away America’s problem of crime by continuing to smear the image of those who bear the burdens of poverty, unemployment and racism, it would be better to target that element to make sure that they get the opportunities to better schools, jobs and a more level playing field.

You reduce crime by educating

people and providing opportuni-

ties to realize the dreams of success that all of us have—not by blaming the victims in your society and seeking to destroy them.