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That Roe and Dobbs problem

The Arizona supreme court ruled Tuesday to let a law banning almost all abortions in the state go into effect, a decision that could curtail abortion access in the US south-west and could make Arizona one of the biggest battlefields in the 2024 electoral fight over abortion rights.

The justices said Arizona could enforce a 1864 near-total abortion ban, first passed before Arizona became a state, that went unenforced for decades after the US supreme court legalized abortion nationwide in the 1973 decision Roe v Wade. However, the justices also ruled to hold off on requiring the state to enforce the ban for 14 days, in order to allow advocates to ask a lower court to pause it again.

Precisely, and exactly, because abortion became a constitutional right – and then didn’t – the 50 year process of working through the debate on the subject, the revision of all those old laws, didn’t happen.

Therefore the US is going to go through all of that 50 years later than everyone else.

Shrug.

9 thoughts on “That Roe and Dobbs problem”

  1. You probably know about the Freakonomics chap who argued that widespread abortion had lowered the crime rate in the US. Then he suffered some abuse for his claim being wrong.

    I see he’s bounced back with more data that apparently strongly support his original contention.
    https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2024/04/08/steven-levitt-and-john-donohue-defend-a-finding-made-famous-by-freakonomics

    I don’t suppose anyone would like to speculate on the exact mechanism of this effect in case the Polis nick them for a Hate Crime performed in Scotland by someone clicking open this blog.

  2. Statistics, averages and trends, Steve…

    Like any thing in population dynamics, the result doesn’t look, nor care, about the individual. The same way macro-economics does not bother with individual wealth and its possible effects, except as a trend.

    And this one is pretty easy to see, and prove. It’s not a nice concept, and usually pussyfooted around because Sensitivities and Uncomfortable Truths, but valid nonetheless.

  3. BiP,

    Boys raised by single mothers, without a male role model are far more likely to commit crime. It’s one of those things that sticks out in the data of incarcerated men.

    Now, imagine a girl in the projects gets talked into a bit of horizontal jogging by a man, and he leaves and she keeps the little bastard. On average, that’s going to raise the crime rate. If she has an abortion, it isn’t.

    That’s not a moral argument for abortion being legal or not. But I can see a logical reason why it would work.

  4. Now, imagine a girl in the projects gets talked into a bit of horizontal jogging by a man, and he leaves and she keeps the little bastard. On average, that’s going to raise the crime rate. If she has an abortion, it isn’t.

    Generally, on average, in the US at least, the states with a higher concentration of The Projects-type places are also states likely to not have extremely restrictive abortion laws under the new Dodd ruling.
    Under the old Roe ruling, places (cities) with a high concentration of The Projects-type places have also been generally high-crime places, even with the high abortion rate among the demographic mainly clustered in such places. I don’t see a lot of that changing, because denizens of The Projects are very likely to have just as much access to abortion on demand under Dodd as they did under Roe.

  5. CLR, are those places also the same that claim the most child benefits?

    That allow the mothers to turn out sprogs to keep up their Lifestyle, while being less concerned about the actual upbringing and/or career path of those offspring?
    Abortion ratesa are high there, yes. It’s also used as a convenient method to “pace” benefits as they please..

    As our Host always says: Incentives Matter….

  6. In Democratic circles crime is simply people engaging in alternative means of shopping or personal interactions and celebrated as part of a diverse economic system.

  7. I recall one law professor who was in favour of overturning Roe v Wade arguing that one of the problems was that it had conveniently allowed the legislature to duck the issue and it should be handed back to them to stop posturing and do their job just like other countries

  8. CLR, are those places also the same that claim the most child benefits?

    I would say there is a high correlation, yes. And as these cities either control their respective state politics or their state politics align with those of the Projects-choked places, I don’t see any extreme abortion bans getting past the dutifully left-wing legislatures. So whether already-high crime places might see a rise in crime due to fewer abortions is a moot point, or an ivory tower mental exercise, in my opinion.

    Besides, the high crime places are cementing their high-crime status by importing illegal migrants, electing easy-on- crime/criminals Attorneys General, passing defund the police schemes, hounding the last few productive people out of town – how the heck could you even see a post-Dobbs “fewer abortions = increasing crime” trend in all that noise?

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