Is there a relationship to higher abortion rates and dropping crime rates? Stanford law professor, John Donahue III, and Chicago economist, Stephen Levittand, have so argued. They maintain that falling crime rates in the 1990s may be a direct positive result of Roe v. Wade in 1973. Since a disproportionate number of poor, minority, and teenage mothers--whose homes produce statistically more young adult criminals--aborted their children after Roe, large numbers of would-be-criminals were killed before they could rape, murder or steal. The point is that 39 million people have been killed as babies in the womb. Are there problems with their conclusions? Let's think about this:

• Abortion and illegitimacy have risen in tandem in the 1970s and have been falling together in tandem. One would think that it would be opposite.
  
  
• Furthermore, Britain's crime rate was rising 20 years after abortion was legalized. Russians abort 7 out of 10 pregnancies and their society is not noticeably safer. Therefore, Iain Murray of the Statistical Assessment Service, shows how flawed the research really is. They did not compare such rates in countries where there has been abortion for a longer time. If he had, he would have found that the relationship is not that compelling. In a recent American Enterprise Institute monograph, Charles Murray further contends that while crime is falling, the number of criminals in America is rising--which suggests that crime is dropping mainly because more are in jail. It is possible that crime undermines respect for life's sanctity, although this is difficult to prove.
  
  
• This is powerful proof that science cannot tell humanity how to act morally or ethically. It cannot tell us how to live. We need revelation to tell us what to do with life. Only God can solve the dilemma.
  

What the authors are really justifying is a form of eugenics. If their research is widely accepted as legitimate, this could give justification to killing the babies in the womb of poor women to seemingly reduce potential crime. Do we really want to live in a society that even considers such actions? As I often say, that which was once unthinkable, becomes debatable and gradually becomes acceptable. This could be another example of this dialectic.

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SHOWTIMES STRANGE JUSTICE

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called his confirmation hearings a high-tech lynching. Last weekend, the network Showtime aired its movie on the Thomas nomination, Strange Justice. In the words of WORLD magazine, In portraying Anita Hill as the noble, harassed, misrepresented, wronged and dishonored subordinate, the movie ignores the historical record and attempts to paint the sordid episode as an example of male/conservative oppression. How should we think about this?

• The Showtime website argues, This is part of the story that America never got to see--what the Bush administration did to get Thomas into office at any cost. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, notes, This docudrama or adaptation. . . features a bizarre scene in which Clarence Thomas, played by Delroy Lindo, rips off his shirt during his Senate testimony and prances around half-naked and barefoot. This is pure fabrication and grossly distorted. This is nothing here that even resembles truth!!
  
  
• There is a remarkable inconsistency in a story like this and the way that the feminist movement responded to President Clinton's actions with Monica Lewinsky. They abandoned all judgment by the logic that when different stories arise, believe the women; except when the women are Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick, then you believe the president. Men abuse their power even in consensual sexual relationships, except when it is the president. A man is unfit for public office when he harasses a women; except when he is the president.
  

The movie Strange Justice, is not entertainment; it is ideology. It bears little resemblance to truth and continues the condemnation of a man who has already been maligned beyond reason. This is the disgusting lengths to which television is now going.

See WORLD, 28 August 1999.

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KILLING CHILDREN IN THE NETHERLANDS

One of the major supporters of the legalization of euthanasia has been the Netherlands. It was one of the first countries to promote this social development and it now promoting an expansion of this policy. This European state has long legitimized doctor-assisted suicide. It is now about to implement a law legitimizing euthanasia for children as young as 12. To show how decadent the thinking is on this matter, listen to the spokeswoman of the Royal Dutch Medical Association: The doctor will do his utmost to try to reach an agreement between the patient and the parents. But if the parents don't want to cooperate, it is the doctor's duty to respect the wishes of their patient. Killing the child against the will of parents is a duty according to this law. How repugnant!! How should we think about this?

• Here again is the dialectic at work--that which was once unthinkable, becomes debatable and gradually becomes acceptable.
  
  
• This country is legitimizing something God finds abominable. God is the giver of life and He is sovereign. Human beings are not autonomous agents to decide when to take a life, especially that of a child. How can a 12 year old have the maturity to decide a question of whether he/she wants to live or not? Such a law legitimizes one of the key elements of the Postmodern worldview--the doctrine of the autonomous self. But humans are not autonomous. We live under God's rule whether we want to admit it or not.
  
  
• Finally, such a law violates one of the most sacred bonds God has created--that of a parent and a child. How offensive that a doctor can assist a child in death--the patient--when the parents do not desire this action? This is a gross affront to God's requirement that children honor their parents and that society respect that bond. The Netherlands is on a slippery slope of self-destruction. Can America be far behind?

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