Research shows: Abortion increases crime rate

For those of you who followed the Steve Leavitt debate a few years ago on his theory that legal abortion lowered crime rates, we’ve got a study, albeit a few years late, to enlighten the debate.

For those of you unfamiliar with what we are talking about, here is a little background first:

In 2005, economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner released the hugely popular nonfiction book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. In it, Levitt presented his economic theory that legalizing abortion had cut crime rates.

He reasoned that abortion reduces the number of unwanted children, thus reducing the number of unhappy children, and as a result lowering crime rates. He supported this hypothesis with impressive statistical calculations and graphs.

The theory quickly became political fodder for both sides of the abortion debate, but it quickly became clear that the theory and the statistics supporting it didn’t hold water. Those critical of the theory began to identify some major holes in Levitt’s calculations and assumptions. Steve Sailer, one of the theory’s chief opponents, provides a clear history of this debate here, if you want the full story.

Flash forward a few years and a new study is here to enter the debate and prove the exact opposite of Levitt’s theory. This study by John R. Lott Jr. and John Whitley of the American Enterprise Institute shows that not only did abortion not decrease crime rates, but it actually increased murder rates by 7 percent in the U.S.

By improving upon the methods used by Levitt, Lott and Whitley illustrated “a strong consistent positive relationship between  abortion and murder.” More simply said, they found that when abortion increases, murder increases as well. According to their estimates, the legalization of abortion resulted in about 700 more murders per year by 1998—a 7.2 percent increase.

How do Lott and Whitley explain their correlation?

Where Levitt assumed abortion would decrease the number of unwanted children and therefore reduce crime, Lott and Whitley demonstrated that the legalization of abortion actually increased the number of children born to unwed mothers.

Combine this with the fact that young males born out-of-wedlock (wanted or not) are disproportionately responsible for violent crimes, and you have a national increase in murders. “[T]he net effect [of the legalization of abortion],” Lott and Whitely concluded, “appears to be a reduction in human capital and an increase in crime.”

This correlation surely does not make abortion any more reprehensible than it already is, but it definitely shoots down the argument that legal abortion improves outcomes for those children who do survive.

STDs and the Stories We Tell

Yesterday we posted a speech by Orson Scott Card describing the power of narrative and storytelling in shaping a culture’s values and expectations. An interesting example of this is the story our society is telling (or isn’t telling) about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

You may not have known but April is National STD Awareness Month. This means that organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control, Planned Parenthood, MTV, and the Kaiser Family Foundation are banding together to get the word out about STDs. This month’s theme—GYT: Get Yourself Tested.

Now, I don’t want to diminish the importance of getting yourself tested for sexually transmitted diseases if you have chosen to be sexually active. However, we have to ask, what story is this theme telling about STDs and normal sexual behavior?

Why was the theme not “ABM: Abstinence Before Marriage—Never worry about STDs”? Or “FIM: Fidelity in Marriage—Protect your partner”? Or how about leaving out the abbreviations and going with “Safer sex isn’t safe sex”? But then, we must also ask at a more fundamental level, why is it not National STD Prevention Month rather than STD Awareness Month?

The answer is simple: True prevention requires abstinence, monogamy, and self-restraint. These things do not fit within the story our culture tells itself about sexuality.

The story currently being told about sexuality is that no one can truly be expected to wait until marriage to be sexually active. Restraint and responsibility are outdated virtues. And you have a right to do whatever you want with your body, whenever and wherever you want.

This story is difficult to match with an effective strategy for battling the spread of infectious diseases that has reached epidemic proportions due to promiscuous sexual practices. This dissonance translates into half-hearted and misguided education efforts that focus on awareness rather than prevention, “safer sex” rather than abstinence, and testing rather than self-restraint.

If you visit the GYT website, hosted by MTV, you will notice that abstinence, fidelity, monogamy, or any other practices of self-restraint are never mentioned. The message is simply testing, condoms, music, and education (as if knowing something is risky makes it less risky).

Unfortunately, the conflict between the story society is telling about one’s sexual rights and the severity of the STD problem even causes huge failures in efforts at awareness and education.

William Smith, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, recently published an article on RHRealityCheck.org that identified a few of these gaps. Smith is “a genuine expert,” as he is described in The Washington Times, in the sexual health field, but even he was surprised by some of the holes in his knowledge about the prevalence and the severity of the STD problem.

Here are just a two things he has learned about STDs since taking his job as executive director. Both of these issues are conveniently left out of our national narrative about sexuality.

1. “We are on the verge of a highly untreatable gonorrhea epidemic.”

Gonorrhea is a bacterial infection that most people think is both treatable and under control. Unfortunately, neither of these things will be true for much longer.

Like bacteria will do, gonorrhea has been evolving to resist treatment. As a result, Smith reports:

“We now have just a single class of antibiotics left to treat gonorrhea but resistance is also developing with this class and the pipeline of new drugs is nearly empty. Future treatment might require multiple drug combinations or multiple doses over a longer period of time and even then, we are not sure what the future holds.”

Gonorrhea is also one of the most commonly reported STDs in the United states. 336,000 cases of gonorrhea were reported in 2008 alone. When this dangerous bacteria is no longer treatable, these numbers will rapidly become more terrifying.

2. “We are about to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory in the battle against syphillis.”

Syphillis, once on its way to elimination, is now on the rise. Syphillis reached has reached its newest high since 1995, with 13,500 reported cases in 2008. Smith also reports 431 reported cases of congenital syphillis, resulting in at least two identifiable deaths. This is unacceptable.

Furthermore, the disease is now most rapidly spreading in the community of men who have sex with men, where commonly risky sexual behavior will only speed the spread of the disease.

So as Smith asks, “Where is the outcry?” Where is the swine-flu-like hysteria? Where are the national efforts to stop the spread of these very real and very threatening diseases?

Unfortunately, this type of outcry doesn’t fit into the story we are telling ourselves about sex, and it, therefore, doesn’t exist.

But you needn’t worry too long. Your children can visit MTV’s GYTNow.org to learn more about getting themselves tested for the STDs they already have, while watching a countdown of “Kayla’s” favorite music videos about sex. — That will definitely stop the spread.

Orson Scott Card: The wrong stories are dismantling America

“A Strong Culture must have powerful stories explaining why it is a Good Culture — or it will die,” explained Orson Scott Card at a recent gathering of the Management Society of Brigham Young University.

Card is the well-known author of over 50 works of fiction, including the popular novels Ender’s Game, Enchantment, and Lost Boys, and he knows story. In this recent speech, he focused this expertise on explaining how the power of story to guide, shape, and preserve a culture can also be the cause of its demise.

“The stories and rituals of a culture define the culture to its members and to outsiders. The self-definition of a culture is the single most powerful tool in passing the culture on to the next generation and constantly buttressing the allegiance of its members.

A Strong Culture must have powerful stories explaining why it is a Good Culture — or it will die. Even the best culture can destroy itself if those who hate the culture are successful in getting its members to believe stories that discourage them from having enough allegiance to make sacrifices for it.”

According to Card, we have already begun to tell the stories that will bring about our own destruction. Card identifies the 1960s as the time of a pivotal shift in the stories those in the United States (though, I think the same analysis could be applied across the globe) told themselves, a shift away from promoting self-sacrifice, virtue, and allegiance to promoting selfishness, atheism, and cynicism.

The stories those in U.S. began telling themselves “struck at the very heart of our Good, Strong Culture.” They were:

1. Old Morality is stupid.
2. America isn’t a good culture.
3. God is dead.
4. People with different political beliefs are evil or stupid.
5. I should control the education of others’ children.
6. If you don’t sacrifice your family and values to business, you’re not serious about your career.
7. The “American Dream” is dead

“Do these stories sound familiar?” Card asked. “They should — and because so many people believe them, we have the horrible social chaos that surrounds us. Millions of fatherless children, unwed mothers, broken homes, delayed marriages — in other words: Visible widespread reproductive failure…”

But the failure of American storytelling is not just an American failure. It is a reflection of the world-wide shift in the stories we tell ourselves about family, virtue, morality, and sacrifice. The same stories attacking God, validating promiscuity, disparaging the family, and dismissing virtue are being told around the world and are creating a culture in which values that directly undermine society are being promoted.

Card identifies movies and television as a primary medium through which these new stories are told and retold, but this is not simply a decline in the quality of our entertainment. These negative stories are being told again and again through media, politics, communities, and the daily lives of individuals. And these stories threatening the very stability of the country.

“[W]hen . . . deviancy from the norms becomes the norm, and the people who keep to the rules of stability, decency, fairness, fidelity, loyalty, faith, honor, generosity, courage, respect, conformity, and consistency are depicted as deviant in the replacement stories, then you’re looking at a society that has decided to die.

It cannot last, because when you declare that selfishness and faithlessness are virtues, then public trust by definition disappears. The community is shattered and it’s every man for himself…Why do people do things that they know are not good for them? Because somebody has told them a lot of stories that sound good, but which are not true. Or because they prefer to go about their own business, thinking that the culture will take care of itself, without any particular attention or sacrifice from them.”

The speech in its entirety is fascinating and places the battle we are fighting to defend the family in a whole new light. If you would like to read the full text, you can access it here.

But don’t worry. Card does offer one ray of hope — you!

“America [and the world] needs better stories, and it needs people who will hear them, believe them, and act on them. You are members of the culture; you act and speak within your homes, jobs, and the many communities you belong to.

. . .

I think of the lonely voice of Winston Churchill, telling the story of calamity to come, in a time when nobody wanted to hear the warning, when they thought they could have a peaceful civilization just by giving the monsters what they wanted. That never works, but it took a long time for anyone to hear him.

When they finally did, it turned out, barely, not to be too late. But if he had not spoken, when the cost of speaking seemed to be the destruction of his career, then there would have been no story to turn to in order to stand firm in defense of civilization.

You’re not Winston Churchill? You’re no hero, no leader?

Well, why aren’t you? Winston Churchill was only Winston Churchill because he decided to speak, to act. In the world you move in, among the people you know and work with, why aren’t you?”

Fewer Religious Women, Fewer Children?

Does the fact that the world is becoming increasingly less religious correlate with the fact that fertility rates have plummeted worldwide?  In women, does irreligosity and childlessness go hand in hand?  If a study of women in the U.S. is any indication, the answer to that question might just be “yes.”

A three decade long study of women* (1982-2002) conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) gives us some interesting insights into fertility patterns.  The researchers note:  “Over the last three decades, the United States has seen a steady increase in the proportion of women who are childless at older ages.”  The study broke out childless women into “temporarily” and “voluntarily” childless.  The “temporarily childless” women have chosen to bear children later in life, their goal being “higher levels of education, more highly skilled careers, and more seniority in the workplace.”  Interestingly, the researchers suggest that “some will regret not having started childbearing earlier even if it would have meant curtailment of workplace attainment.”  We wonder what the feminist establishment had to say about that statement!

So what is the profile of the “voluntarily childless?”  They were disproportionately white, although the later data in the study showed African American women had “increased to be equivalent to their percents in the total population.”  Hispanic women, however, were “underrepresented among the voluntarily childless in all survey years.”  These “voluntarily childless” women, unsurprisingly, “stood out as having the highest percents working full time, even compared to the temporarily childless.”  This group was significantly more likely to be in “professional and managerial occupations” and had the highest individual and family incomes.  These women had chosen careers and success over motherhood.

It appears that these women haven’t chosen religion either.  The study shows a remarkably high percentage of voluntarily childless women “reporting no religious affiliation, never attending religious services, and reporting religion as not important in their daily lives.”

This is more support for what most of us already knew—religion and church attendance has a positive influence on women in regard to their desire to become mothers.  Correlation is not causation, but we feel pretty safe in saying that the current worldwide trend of increasing secularism will do nothing to stop the birth dearth.

*Joyce C. Abma and Gladys M. Martinez, “Childlessness Among Older Women in the United States:  Trends and Profiles,” Journal of Marriage and Family 68 (2006: 1045-1056)

Pediatricians Help Educators Understand Same-Sex Behavior

Pediatricians are not happy with what is occurring in schools across the country.    On April 1, 2010, a letter was mailed to school superintendents across the United States, urging administrators and school personnel to refrain from validating or promoting homosexual behavior.  “We are increasingly concerned that in many cases efforts to help students who exhibit same sex attractions and/or gender confusion are based on incomplete or inaccurate information,” states the letter.

The letter informs educators that:

• “premature labeling,” could encourage some teens to engage in harmful behaviors “that they otherwise would not pursue.” And while schools have a “legitimate role to provide a safe environment for respectful self-expression for all students,” it is not for them to “affirm” a student’s perceived same-sex attraction.

• “Rigorous studies demonstrate that most adolescents who initially experience same-sex attraction, or are sexually confused, no longer experience such attractions by age 25.”

• “In dealing with adolescents experiencing same-sex attraction, it is essential to understand that there is no scientific evidence that an individual is born ‘gay’ or ‘transgendered.’”

The American College of Pediatricians efforts were timely as April is the month when gay advocates across the country promote in schools their annual “National Day of Silence.”  However, the primary thrust of the letter was to direct educators to the new Web resource, www.factsaboutyouth.com which is intended to give rebuttal to the American Psychological Association (APA) and their campaign to validate same-sex behavior and promote their brochure “Just the Facts about Youth and Sexual Orientation.”  The American College of Pediatricians was founded in 2003 as an option for pediatricians who do not support the normalization of same-sex behavior, nor do they believe that allowing gays to adopt is healthy for children.

For the sake of your children, we encourage you to visit www.factsaboutyouth.com and read, read, read.  Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric that all the medical community believes that homosexual behavior and lifestyle should be accepted as normal and healthy.  This is one professional group that will certainly tell you otherwise.

Want Greater Odds of Employment Success? Get Married and Stay Married

In the current economic state of high unemployment, thus a highly competitive job market, marriage might hold the key to employment success.  Economists from American University in Washington D.C. and Israel’s Haifa University* studied labor markets and concluded that marriage has a “positive effect on men’s motivation” and produces behaviors that “signal reliability to employers.”

Employers take note:  “Entry into marriage is associated with 262 more hours of work per year relative to the remaining never-married men.”  That trend doesn’t just end with “entry” or the first years of marriage, either, with remaining married predicting 155 more hours of work per year than from those who have never been married.  The flip side of this coin, however, is that “divorce lowers hours worked below the level among never-married men.”  The positive contribution of stable marriage to labor and employment remains constant even for men who might generally be regarded as less employable and it cuts across all race and minority groups.

Now let’s talk salary.  The study’s statistical analysis shows that there is “a 12% wage gain upon entry into marriage and an 18% gain in continuing marriage, relative to remaining never married.”  The study recognizes that part of that wage increase reflects that when employees work longer hours, employers pay more.  But the extra hours worked, alone, cannot account for the large difference in wage gain between the married and the unmarried.

Should you get more education for career success?  That certainly is one strategy, but this study may point to yet another option.  Yes, you guessed it; get married.  The researchers tell us that “marriage effects of these magnitudes are large [18 to 19% increase in earnings for married men]; they are equivalent to earnings gains associated with 2-3 years of school.”

These economists also remind us that in addition to the economic advantage for married men, other studies they surveyed showed “that marriage yields such benefits as better health, lower crime and reduced domestic violence.”  Add it all up, marriage has a pretty attractive “benefits package,” benefits that individuals and society cannot afford to forego.   So when you’re dressing up your resume, make sure you can add “married.”

*Avner Ahituv and Robert I. Lerman, “How Do Marital Status, Work Effort, and Wage Rates Interact?”  Demography 44 (2007:  623-47).

Teach your children or come election day . . .

We reported last week that the signature drive to overturn California’s Prop 8 had failed.  Gay activists had hoped to place on the November 2010 ballot a measure that would repeal Prop 8.  For now the California state constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman is safe, but rest assured that homosexual activists have not given up.

There were many reasons why the signature drive failed:  they couldn’t reach the needed 695,000 signature mark in time, funding dried up, fear that there could be a conservative backlash against Obama and his fellow democrats, etc. But one of the reasons is extremely sobering.  Activists believe that by waiting until November 2012, when they definitely will put a measure on the ballot, they will have thousands more young people who will have become registered voters who will help them overturn California’s Prop 8.

In schools all over the country and especially in liberal states like Massachusetts and California, our children are being indoctrinated to accept homosexual behavior and lifestyles as normal.  They are being taught to believe that those who oppose same-sex marriage are discriminatory, hateful, and bigoted or at the very least they are unsophisticated and out-of-touch.  Popular culture and media are spreading the same message.

Our children do not understand the crucial and fundamental nature of marriage.  They certainly are not going to get the message from their school.  You need to be regularly having that conversation and teaching them that society and government have supported man/woman marriage because of its essential ability to bear and most effectively rear the next generation.  If you need additional materials and social science data to support your position, please take the time to familiarize yourself with UFI’s Guides to Family Issues.

Please have the conversations about the destructive nature of homosexual behavior and the importance of one man and one woman marriage and have them often.  Support those conversations with empirical data if you must, but please do it.  Otherwise, each May and June our high schools will turn out a new crop of indoctrinated young people with power not only to alter the future of California, but the entire country.

China pushes to sterilize 10,000 women in 20 days

Puning county in the southern part of China is in the middle of what you might call a “sterilization drive.” Nearly 10,000 women, identified as the worst violators of  China’s “one-child policy,” have been selected for sterilization in a 20 day push.

The campaign was launched on April 7 with the aim of reducing the population in Puning county, currently the most populous county in China with a population of 2.24 million.

Puning is in the process of making a bid for promotion to a second-tier county and, in order to do so, they must meet certain quotas. One of these quotas is reducing the number of births in the county.

Feeling pressure, officials are using aggressive methods, such as the sterilization drive, to meet government quotas. One anonymous official told The Global Times: “It’s not uncommon for family planning authorities to adopt some tough tactics.”

Many women who have refused to cooperate with the sterilizations and their relatives have been detained by family planning officials. According to a report on April 16, more than 1,300 people had been detained and forced to listen to lectures on family planning while waiting for release.

These tactics seem to be working.

Doctors in the county reported early in the campaign to be working non-stop from 8 am to 4 pm everyday. By the morning of April 12, officials claimed to have already met half of their sterilization goal. With five days left to go, the successful sterilization of 10,000 coerced women seems pretty likely.

For more information on the “sterilization drive” and the realities of the one-child policy for many Chinese citizens you can read a complete report here.

Kevorkian: “I haven’t been stopped.”

Dr. Jack Kevorkian was interviewed by Anderson Cooper last week and that everybody should watch.

Kevorkian, often called as Dr. Death, is famous for his advocacy for euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. The interview is a clear continuation of that work and presumably comes as part of a promotional push for the upcoming HBO film celebrating his life, You Don’t Know Jack.

The interview is worth watching. It gives a clear picture of the distorted compassion behind the euthanasia movement and the battle we have ahead of ourselves in defending the sanctity of life. Kevorkian makes it very clear that this is an issue he and others will continue to push forward.

“Like the judge says, ‘You have now been stopped,’” he says. “Well, she was wrong. I haven’t.”

“I still push for this issue. And when the chance comes, I will do it the way it should be done.”

You can watch the video here.

British Parliament removes mandatory sex education reform

In an effort to pass new education legislation, the British Parliament has removed a reform that would have denied both parents and religious schools of their rights. This comes as welcomed news after the House of Commons passed the bill with this dangerous reform last month.

The reform removed would have denied parental rights by requiring all students over the age of 15 to attend at least one year of sex education provided by the public school system. The legislation denied parents the right to pull the student out of the course under any circumstances.

Under the banner of mandatory sex education, religious schools would have been required to teach this state mandated sex education curriculum. Schools would have been able to present the information within their religious views but would have been required to teach about abortion, contraception, and homosexual behavior, whether or not they were opposed.

Conservative groups concerned about the violation of parental and religious rights inherent in the legislation were relieved when the reform was removed. Others, however, were less pleased.

Various organizations have responded vehemently to the removal, arguing that allowing parents and religious institutions to maintain their rights has destroyed the future of sexual education in Britain.

Lisa Power, policy director of the Terrence Higgins Trust, said: “We will see the impact on young people who haven’t had decent sex and relationships education: the girl who gets pregnant because the only education she got was in the playground, the people who use the word ‘gay’ as an insult. It’s a disgraceful betrayal of the next generation. There’s been very widespread agreement that young people need better sex and relationships education.”

Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, added to the stream of criticism: “There was massive support for its implementation from health professionals, teachers, parents and young people themselves. The loss of these subjects as core parts of the curriculum is catastrophic.”

It is very clear from the language of Power, Copson, and others that parents are no longer considered able or obligated to provide the sex and relationship education that is so needed. Nor are they considered qualified to decide what that education should be.

Their comments, then, lead one to ask, when did parents become obsolete? When did parents lose their rights to the opinions of health professionals and teachers? When was the responsibility of a parent in raising a child turned over to the state?