Tonight Jennie and Geea dive head first into the controversial topic of abortion. But hey, we're feminsit radio, which means we love controversial topics!
We'll begin with a discussion of abortion in Romania. In 1966 Romania's communist dictator made abortion illegal. Prior to this, Romania had one of the most liberal abortion laws in Europe - in fact, abortion was the main form of birth control with four abortions for every live birth. Then virtually overnight, abortion was forbidden. Naturally, this had a massive impact on the country, including a lot of unwanted babies and the "fad" of adopting Romanian babies.
Second, we will discuss a controversial theory from the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Levitt goes on a quest to find out why crime rates in America began to drop drastically around 1990. He believes that Roe v. Wade had a lot to do with the drop in crime. The women most likely to have an abortion were very often unmarried, in their teens, poor and uneducated. Mothers who are single, poor and uneducated are most likely to raise children who become criminals. As Levitt states in Freakonomics, "Legalized abortion led to less unwantedness; unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion, therefore, led to less crime."
Tune in from 8:00 to 8:30 tonight on CJSW 90.9fm in Calgary, or stream us online at cjsw.com. Remember, we podcast all our shows so subscribe to our podcasts if you want to stay in the loop!
Links
I mentioned on-air that I'd provide some links to articles that challenge Levitt's theory about crime and abortion. Here they are:
- Where Freakonomics Errs by Steven Malanga
- The Freakonomics Fiasco in Perspective by Steve Sailer
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