Based on current evidence we can conclude abortion lowers crime

It seems my opponent has misunderstood my argument (though that is more of my fault than his). 1)I am not against using empirical analysis. I was merely pointing out that the common thing to do in my situation would be to simply point out aggregate crime statistics in the Country after Roe v. Wade and conclude the correlation = causation fallacy. I tried to go a different route, but now I will also use various statistical arguments to point out the abortion crime effect, which brings me to 2)My first argument had nothing to do with the abortion crime effect but rather abortion itself. It is important to note that crime does not have to be witnessed or caught to be considered crime, which is the inherent flaw of criminal statistics: they cannot point out crimes that were never found out. An example would be drug use. Every time someone uses an illegal drug, that is one count of a crime and multiple uses would be multiple breakings of the same law, and thus multiple counts regardless of whether they were caught. This is something that can be quite difficult to measure. Another flaw in his analysis is that my opponent asserts that because of its legality, there are more abortions occurring than if it were illegal, which I would agree with. Measuring the crime of potential lives is drastically harder than even finding how many uncaught illegal abortions occurred before Roe v. Wade so I will assume that unborn children have no effect on the crime rate for argument's sake. The core of my argument, then, will be the effect of legalization on the increase in abortions. If I can somewhat prove that the number of women who will have an abortion regardless of legality is more than the increase in crime that may result from legal abortion (which could even be zero), then logically I would prove that overall there would be less crime from legal abortion. According to most statistics I could find, such as this one [1], about 42-46 million abortions occur worldwide and about 20 million of those are estimated to come from countries were abortion is illegal. The earliest abortion statistics I could find were from 2008, when 1.21 million abortions took place [2]. When considering the amount of abortions that take place in illegal countries, it is not a stretch to say that at least 40% of those abortions would still take place criminally, or 484,000, if abortion were outlawed in the U.S. Thus, my opponent needs to prove the abortion crime effect in his favor, that it increases crime, to win the debate. At the very end of his last round he made this claim, so if he shows the numbers, this should not be hard for him. If he cannot somehow correlate 484,001 crimes to the legalization of abortion, than this would prove that the illegalization of abortion increases crime, since all those women getting illegal abortions would count as crime, which is merely stating the resolution in the negative. It would still be a pro win. Now, I am sure that con will merely deny my first statistic as biased or exaggerated or ridiculous hypotheticals, however this will still not deny the logic of my case that many abortions would still occur even if it were outlawed and would all be considered increases in crime, most likely uncaught crime. He could offer a much lower number of illegal abortions that would occur than mine, but he would still need to prove the abortion crime effect in his favor. So far, the only thing my opponent has statistically proven is that illegalized abortion may have led to a slight increase in murder (7%). In terms of criminal counts, this would result in maybe 200 or 300 extra counts. The resolution says nothing about severity: if legalized abortion directly led to 10,000 more murders and 100,000 less thefts, it would still have technically decreased crime. So to negate the resolution, in the negative, he must find approximately 500,000 cases of crime due to abortion to win. 3)Now I will use the abortion crime rate in my favor to scientifically prove the crime lowering effects of legalized abortion. This argument is completely different from the first and to win, my opponent must negate both arguments. If just one of the two stand, Pro would be the winner. In response to his critics, Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, wrote an article in 2005 affirming his findings. One of these findings was that states with higher abortion rates had declined faster in crime then states with low abortion rates [3]. He also states that other countries, such as Australia, Canada and Romania, also experienced a decrease in crime after the legalization. While there are plenty of other factors that account for crime rate, these show that abortion at least had some effect, even if minor, and worked towards reducing crime. Now for rebuttals: 1)Abortion leads to many societal effects: My opponent's study tries to point out various negative social effects that have resulted from abortion. I do not deny that abortion has some negative social effects. The issue, however, is whether these societal effects affect crime, which is the variable upon which the entire resolution is based. I am not arguing the ethics of abortion, but its effect on crime. Another factor my opponent has not accounted for is how many of these societal problems are due to abortion rather than American culture. For instance, he cites a drastic increase in out of wedlock births. Yet the only link he gives to crime is a slight increase in murder of 7% (I was unable to access the first source so I could be wrong). Yet I have already shown that crime decreased faster in states with higher rates of abortion. Conclusion: I hope this posting cleared some confusion from my last one and that it helps further this beneficial and informative debate. In a nutshell, my two arguments are: 1.Abortion rates are not that different in countries where it is illegal [1], and illegalizing abortion would surely increase crime (proving my resolution in the negative), as at least a quarter to half of those women would likely seek abortions illegally. This is not to be confused with the abortion crime effect. 2.States with more abortions saw faster decreases in crime than states with fewer abortions and other countries with legalized abortion saw similar decreases in crime [3]. Sources: [1] http://www.womenscenter.com... [2] http://www.abort73.com... [3] http://www.freakonomics.com...