<p>
Consider [url=<a href=“http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_2_59/ai_54099140]this[/url”>http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_2_59/ai_54099140]this[/url</a>] article by Dr. Henry Morgentaler, a “prominent Canadian abortion provider.” It lays out the basic argument that abortion has led to decreased crime rates, although Morgentaler doesn’t present strong statistical evidence of this (he refers to decreasing crime rates in the US and Canada over the preceding six years as supporting his hypothesis, but clearly they could be due to other factors).</p>
<p>The article is dated March 1999 and is “adapted from an editorial that appeared in numerous Canadian newspapers on November 5, 1998,” so it appears to predate the initial publication of Donohue and Levitt’s work, which seems to have been around August 1999. Furthermore, Morgentaler says he “predicted a decline in crime and mental illness thirty years ago when I started my campaign to make abortion in Canada legal and safe,” and he had clearly expressed such ideas by 1996, as evidenced by [url=<a href=“http://groups.google.com/group/alt.abortion.inequity/msg/1fb3550aaea30d09?hl=en&]this[/url”>http://groups.google.com/group/alt.abortion.inequity/msg/1fb3550aaea30d09?hl=en&]this[/url</a>] Usenet post referring to him. So this idea of a link between abortion and crime rates clearly did exist prior to the Donohue/Levitt study, although that study provided much better evidence for it and undoubtedly brought it increased attention.</p>