Logan 1

Connor Logan

Professor:  Jessica Zisa

Course: Writ 2

21 March 2023

The Impact of: “the Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime”

Open credits and hook:

 Opening credits roll with logo and music intro to channel. Music fades to nar-

rator at desk with bright lights and a unique camera angle.

o [Narrator] Welcome to the Connor Chronicles, the channel where we

explore the intersection of economics and the news. With the recent

overturning of Roe vs Wade, I thought that it was time to dig up an old

study that helped me form an opinion on this topic. I hope you find it

useful.

 Scene starts with narrator sitting at desk, plant and bookshelf artistically

placed in the background. Darker lights than intro

o [Narrator] On June 24th 2022 the supreme court ruled on Dobs vs. Jack-

son. This ruling would overturn the controversial ruling of Roe vs. Wade.

In the days leading up to and following the ruling there has been a contin-

uation of the same debate that the country has been having for the last 50

years.

 Cut to news compilation.

o [News channels discussing abortion]

 Logan 2

 Fade back to desk.

o [Narrator] Have you ever listened to this discourse? I mean really listened.

If you have you would notice that there is a very clear pattern. Both sides

of this debate follow a similar set of arguments. Pro-life supporters will dis-

cuss the life of the fetus and how immoral it is to kill a potential human.

While pro-abortion advocates generally tend to argue for the health of the

mother and women’s rights. Setting the extremely abridged summery

aside what if we are all asking the wrong question. What if I told you that

there was a scientific way to look at the effects of abortions on American

society? I present “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime”.

AD:

 Cut to a different angle of the same desk.

o [Narrator] Before we begin a quick word from this video’s sponsor Morning

Poo. When you heard about the case of Dobs vs. Jackson did you go read

the trial transcript? Did you analyze how the hearing would interact with

existing laws and gray areas surrounding this topic? Or, did you take the

word of biased media organizations who are trying to compress this topic

down to a sound bite that fits into a 30 second breaking news slot. Lately I

have found a service that solves the problem of keeping up with the ever-

changing news, Morning Poo. An app that is designed to fit all of your

daily news into your morning poo. All you have to do is to download the
 Logan 3

app and allocate the time of one poo every morning to get caught up on

the daily news. Link in the description for a 30% discount.

History of Abortion in America:

 Cut to narrator desk with different angle.

o [Narrator] To understand the modern debate on this issue we need to start

with a quick history abortion in the United States of America.

 Fades to slide show of 17th century Britain, 1900’s America, and 1973 court case

at relevant intervals.

o [Narrator voice over] In 17th century Britten abortion was legal so long as

it occurred prior to quote “quickening,” the first detectable movement of

the fetus. In 1828 the state of New York pioneered the first anti-abortion

laws, which took hold. By the early 1900’s, abortion was illegal in all 50

states. Donohue and Levitt summaries that

o [voice actor for Levitt] “by 1970 … New York, Washington, Alaska, and

Hawaii repealed their anti-abortion laws” (Donohue, Levitt 384).

o [Narrator] In 1973, Roe v. Wade was settled in the Supreme Court in favor

of legalizing abortion in the United States. In 2022 the decision of Dobs vs.

Jackson repealed the previous ruling pushing the matter back down to the

state level where individual states can decide if they will allow this prac-

tice.

Introduce the article:

4
 Logan 4

 Cut to narrator sitting at desk. With printed article on desk. (Camera pans over to

cover at relevant time)

o [Narrator] In 2002 Economist Steven Levitt and law professor John Dono-

hue from the university of Chicago published “The Impact of Legalized

Abortion on Crime” in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. They had no-

ticed an inexplicable drop in the national crime rates in the 1980’s and

1990’s. They theorized that the legalization of abortion in the United

States directly contributed to the drop-in crime rates.

Mechanism

 Cut to the article with relevant names and quotes highlighted in time with narra-

tion.

o [Narrator] Prior work had been done in the study of abortions effects on

parents and their families. Levitt and Donohue cite the work of an earlier

study that looked at how abortions may affect the lives of the children and

their parents,

o [Gruber voice actor] “the early life circumstances of those children on the

margin of abortion are difficult along many dimensions: infant mortality,

growing up in a single-parent family, and experiencing poverty. (Gruber,

Levine, and Staiger [1999]).

o [Narrator] Because of this Donohue and Levitt theorized that

 Logan 5

o [Levitt voice actor] “legalized abortion provides a woman the opportunity to

delay childbearing if the current conditions are suboptimal” (Donohue, and

Levitt 381).

o [Narrator] By legalizing abortions and allowing the mother to choose not to

have a baby the children who were born would have a lower chance of

committing crimes.

The study:

 Cut to a map of the USA. When relevant regions of the USA will be highlighted.

o [Narrator] When economists want to study the effect of something like

abortions on society, they cannot just set up a perfect experiment due to

ethical considerations. So, they use natural experiments where a large

change in society allows for effects of said change to be tracked. The Roe

vs. Wade decision did just that, states that had been pro-abortion before

the case were quick to allow clinics to open and start operating. Other

states dragged their proverbial feet taking up to 5 years to allow abortion

rates to rise. Over the next 50 years, crime rates were tracked to see the

difference in crime rates across the country in relation to the rate of legal-

ization of abortion.

Analysis:

 Fade from map to crime rate graph.

 Logan 6

o [Narrator] The data on crime rates show a drop in the crime rates for all

kinds of crime, beginning in the 1990’s. If the legalization of abortion was

driving the drop-in crime rates there would be a 15-to-20-year delay be-

tween the rise in abortion rates and the drop-in crime rates; as children

needed time to grow to an age where they are capable of committing

crime. This graph shows the crime rates between the years of 1970 to

2006. Abortion was legalized in 1976, so by the 1990’s the expected 15-

20 years had passed when the crime rate began to drop. The data fits the

theory.

 Fade to graph of abortion rate in the USA following 1972.

 Logan 7

o [Narrator] For this natural experiment to work there would have to be a

substantial change in the number of abortions in the US over the relevant time

period. By looking at the yearly reported abortion data you can see that the abor-

tion rate roughly doubled in the span of 4 years, following the legalization of abor-

tion. This is a significant enough change to be the driving force behind this large

drop in crime.

Rate of Legalization:

 Cut back to narrator sitting at desk then down to the desk to display relevant sta-

tistics/ state outlines on the surface of the table.

o [Narrator] Following the Supreme Court decision, not all states moved to

allow abortion at the same rate. Five states had laws in place that would
 Logan 8

go into effect immediately. Other states followed at their own pace, taking

up to 5 years to fully allow abortion. This allowed for a comparison of the

effects of legal abortion across the country at the same time.

o [Levitt voice actor] “The five states that legalized abortion in 1970 saw

drops in crime before the other 45 states and the District of Columbia,

which did not allow abortions until the Supreme Court decision in 1973”

(Donohue, and Levitt 382).

o [Narrator] The five year head start that these states made was a perfect

natural experiment to test the effects of abortion on crime at the same time

in similar places with only one variable changing. It showed that the states

that legalized abortion sooner had proportionally quick drop-in crime rates.

Math:

 Cut to graph of abortion rate vs crime rate.

 Logan 9

o [Narrator] If you graph the change in the log of the property crime from

1985 to 1987 you get this graph. Donohue, and Levitt calculated a 18.3%

drop in property crime in the USA with a R2 value of. If you remember your

high school statistics class skip forwards 40 seconds. For everyone else

the R2 value is an average of how far every point is from the line of best fit

with a value of 1 being a perfect fit and 0 having no relation to the line. A

R2 of .45 shows that the trend does exist but it is rather vague. However,

the important thing that this line shows is the negative slope. This indi-

cates that a bigger the change in effective abortions leads to a bigger drop

in crime within a state.  

Conclusion:

9
 Logan 10

 Cut to image of the article, with highlighting of the relevant quotes.

o Following the legalization of abortion, several things happened. There was

the expected 15-20 year delay then a drop in crime. A statistically signifi-

cant change in the number of abortions performed. States that legalized

quickly had proportionately early drops in crime rates. But most impor-

tantly a negative correlation between the change in the number of abor-

tions and crime rates. These factors lead Levitt and Donohue to conclude

that

o [Levitt voice actor] “virtually all of the abortion-related crime decrease can

be attributed to the reductions in crime among the cohorts born after abor-

tion legalization” (PG 382)

Impact:

10

 Cut to narrator at desk

o [Narrator] When this article was published it made a splash. Major news

stations ran segments on this effect and abortion rights activists cele-

brated the results.

 News clip from pro-abortion coverage

o [news reporter]

 Fade news back to narrator.

o [Narrator] However year after its debut major criticism surfaced. One of

the mathematical models used total abortion numbers rather than abor-

tions per capita, this exaggerated the relation between these variables. A
 Logan 11

similar study attempted in Scotland and Wales by Kahane failed to repli-

cate this result. Proponents of this work point out that the trend continues

to exist, just to a lesser extent that initially theorized.

This criticism did damper the news coverage of this article. But was

not the reason that it has faded into obscurity. This occurred due to two

major problems: the relative inaccessibility of this paper to the general

public, and the nature of scientific articles.

To access this article, I had to use the UCSB library search function

which requires a subscription to the Quarterly Journal of Economics. I am

only able to do this as long as I am enrolled at UCSB. That leaves two

other ways these findings to be seen by the general public, buy a expen-

sive subscription to the quarterly journal of economics, or get it form the

news. While the news is a good short-term option it has a problem, re-

porters are good at giving surface level second hand accounts of the infor-

mation which quickly fade into the background to be covered up by the

next big scoop. This leads to sudden intense interest then the coverage

dies down it becomes very difficult to access this article as it fades into ob-

scurity.

However, bigger issue is the fact that this is not a opinion piece but

a scientific paper. It was written expressly for other economists with a

background in economics. This means that the writers were not trying to

present a balanced logical analysis of the question of abortion in America.

Instead, they were using a natural experiment to look at the macro effect
 Logan 12

of this change in policy on the crime rate. Expecting this article to be a

persuasive argument for abortion is like watching Bay Watch for to learn to

be a lifeguard. That is not the purpose of that show and this article was

never intended to join the political debate.

I found this article insightful not because of its standing to change

my mind, rather because it was not trying to do that. If I wanted an article

to do that, I would go look at the news and find stories about mothers who

wanted an abortion; or a preacher talking about what God thinks about

abortion. Instead, this article breaks through all of this narrative and looks

at the numbers in a detached analytical way giving a fresh take on this

age-old debate. What ever the case, I am going to end by reminding you

that the decision to bring a life into this world will have impact that res-

onate long after that choice is made.

 Logan 13

Reflection essay:

Economics is the study of a world with finite resources and infinite demand.

While money is a great way to quantify this question leading to economists studying it

extensively, it is not the only way to look at a economic problem. “The Impact of Legal-

ized Abortion on Crime” by Steven Levitt and John Donohue is a great example of eco-

nomics being applied to unlikely places. As I read the 42-page behemoth of an article it

was evident why most people don’t normally read scientific articles for fun. They are

long, dense, and lack what most people find interesting. I tried to translate this into a

genre that would make up for these shortcomings while still presenting this information

in an accurate translation.

The genre I initially chose to do this was the film review Youtube video. This

seemed like a good option because it included a literal summery of the movie and then

some light analysis of the themes. Unfortunately, it turned out that this was not a good

choice of genre. The density, length, and lack of movie scenes made this translation

dense inaccurate. Leaning on the advice of Giles it was time to think about what I

wanted this writing project to do “Reflection helps you to develop your intentions (pur-

pose), figure out your relation to your audience, uncover possible problems with your in-

dividual writing processes, set goals for revision, make decisions about language and

style” (Giles 193). It was suggested that I use the genre of a video essay like the ones

made by the channel Vsauce. This would allow a more essay like sound and fit the

rhetorical situation more naturally.

 Logan 14

Similarly, to this channel I planned to target the audience of college students who

are still trying to form opinions on the hot button issue that is abortion in America. This

audience would have the prerequisite curiosity to continue watching the video, but not a

background in the material or a preconception of what was going to be said.

This genre of video has five distinct rhetorical scenarios that I adhered to. First

the cliffhanger introduction. Vsauce has the best examples of opening with a dramatic

story about the topic of the video this gets the viewer invested in the prosses and will in-

trigue them to watching the video thought to its conclusion. Along with staying in genre

this has the added benefit of helping to target the paper towards my intended audience

as only people who did not already have a strong opinion on the matter will stay for the

discussion.

The second rhetorical devise that was used was the ad from Morning Poo. I

should clarify that Morning Poo is not in fact a real organization, it is a play on the news

outlet Morning Brew which is commonly advertised before videos like this. I enjoyed

writing this ad, and it fits the genre but it also acts as an appeal to pathos. Pathos is a

appeal to the readers emotions. The mere presents of a ad from a large company such

as Morning Poo who makes there living presenting accurate news to young people

lends credibility to my claim. Picking the right ad for the scenario adds credibility to my

claim and builds ethos, but the wrong one can be detrimental to that goal. This was best

stated by Carol in “Backpacks vs Briefcases” “In the same way that a commercial for

denture cream seems very out of place when aired during a reality television show

aimed at teenagers, rhetoric that does not respond well to its context often fails to per-
 Logan 15

suade” (Carol 56). Thus, an ad for a unbiased news source that gets you your news

during your morning poo is the perfect solution.

The most prominent rhetorical device used by these videos is an appeal to logos.

By providing a high quality summery of the subject of the video the narrator proves their

knowledge of the topic and builds repour with the viewer. This concept is best put by

Carrol “as audiences we want to know the “facts of the matter,” and logos help present

these '' (Carrol 52). By simply going through the facts of the study while missing a lot of

the less relevant analysis a 45-page article can be fit into three pages. This helped

achieve the primary goal of writing a paper that my target audience would find palatable.

Filming me sitting at a desk and making this sound like the real thing would be

the best way to present this project. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to do that prop-

erly. Rather than abandoning the perfect presentation in favor of another genre, I got as

close as I could to the real thing which was a screen play script which outlines all of the

visuals and dialog that are present in the video. This gives the reader the maximum

amount of information about what the video could be without having to start recording.

The last rhetorical device that was used was the use of a narrator opinion piece

at the end of the video. Having spent the whole video building their logos, pathos, and

ethos the narrator ends with an analysis of the implications of the material they just cov-

ered. This inevitably contains the only portion of the video where their personal opinions

on the matter are shared. Do you see the problem? I am trying to translate a scientific

article designed to analyze the effect of a specific change on a measurable variable in

the real world. The authors go out of there way to present this as a paper not a opinion

piece saying “while falling crime rates are no doubt a positive development, our drawing
 Logan 16

a link between falling crime and legalized abortion should not be misinterpreted as ei-

ther an endorsement of abortion or a call for intervention by the state in the fertility deci-

sions of women” (Donohue, Levitt 415). This article was not designed to change the au-

thors opinion or support a side of the argument. For an accurate translation I can not

share anything that was not said in the article, but to remain in genre I have to add my

opinion.

My solution was to talk about the article within the script, I talk about why it is not

more well known and some of the ethics of translating scientific articles in the news.

This strikes a balance between trying to keep with the relatively neutral tone on the

ethics of done in the paper, and trying to remain in genre.

The combination of a relatively short script that should take five to six minutes to

read, approachable graphics, and conversational tone offer a relatively easy medium to

learn about this article. A new voter or curious student will find the prosses of thinking

about this long-standing debate in American culture presented in a unique way. Along

with a warning about the miss using academic articles

Work Cited:
 Logan 17

Carroll, Laura Bolin. “Backpacks or Briefcases: Steps Toward Rhetorical

Analysis.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Volume 1, edited by Charles Lowe

and Pavel Zemlianksky, Parlor Press, 2010, pp. 45-58.

Donohue, John J., and Steven D. Levitt. “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime.”

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 116, no. 2, 2001, pp. 379–420.,

doi.org/10.1162/00335530151144050. 

Giles, Sandra L. “Home.” The WAC Clearinghouse, 14 June 2010, wac.colostate.edu/

books/writingspaces/writingspaces1/.

Gruber, Jonathan, Phillip Levine, and Douglas Staiger, “Abortion Legalization and Child

Living Circumstances: Who Is the ‘Marginal Child?’ ” Quarterly Journal of Eco-

nomics, CXIV (1999), 263–291.

Harris, Johnny. “Why People Think the World Is Flat.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 Feb.

2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJzsE8CvzQ.

KAHANE, LEO H., et al. “The Abortion?Crime Link: Evidence from England and Wales.”
Economica, 2007, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0335.2007.00627.x.

The Plain Bagel. “Two Us Banks Just Failed - What Happened, and What Now?”

YouTube, YouTube, 11 Mar. 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=WowVQ4rhbt8.

Vsauce. “Is Earth Actually Flat?” YouTube, YouTube, 4 Dec. 2014, https://www.y-

outube.com/watch?v=VNqNnUJVcVs.

Warographics. “Could Ukraine Retake Crimea? A Warographics Analysis.” YouTube,

YouTube, 3 Dec. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9fIp_hT0j4.
 Logan 18

Wikimedia “Roe v. Wade.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Jan. 2023, en.wikipedi-

a.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade.