Freakonomics

In the bestselling book "Freakonomics", Steven Leveitt advocates that "abortion was one of the greatest crime-lowering factors in American history." This conclusion was based on research done by himself and John Donohue which was published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2001.

However, an article (Oops-onomics) in last week's issue of The Economist states that 2 economists at the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston recently discovered that Messrs Donohue and Levitt committed "an inadvertent but serious computer programming error" which, if removed, shows "that the impact of abortion on arrest rates disappears entirely"! Ooops!

Anyway, shame on anyone who thinks that unwanted children should just be aborted to reduce the crime rate. If that's the case, is he advocating that unwanted people be killed off too? Those jobless do not contribute to society so does that mean they should be killed off? How about those unreformed criminals who are a burden to tax payers money? Kill them off too? What a ridiculous argument some pro-choice people have!

An apt conclusion to the article in The Economist sums up the boo boo: "To be politically incorrect is one thing; to be simply incorrect quite another."