Unwanted Children

It has been argued that unrestricted abortion is responsible for the decline in the rate of violent crime in the US and Canada. The logic is that most violent crimes are committed by young men from broken homes, unwanted by their mothers. Permit their mothers to simply off them before birth, and we save a problem for the rest of us.

Sounds plausible, doesn't it? Still not morally justifiable: you cannot execute someone because he _might_ commit a crime. But plausible.

As it happens, though, the time lines do not add up. If you look at the statistics for England and Wales, instead of the US, the advent of legalized abortion in fact seems to correspond to a significant rise in violent crime.

And there is another possibility. Could it be that unwanted children are also more likely to be significant contributors to the wellbeing of mankind?

A recent ad by the Right to Life movement describes one particular uwanted child of a single mom who, though coming from a broken home and raised by his grandparents, ended up doing fairly well: Barack Obama.

Now that they mention it, some other names come to mind: Bill Clinton, son of a single mom. Gerald Ford, whose mother left his father sixteen days after he was born. Winston Churchill arrived only eight months afer his parents married. Today the solution would be simpler.

Charlie Chaplin's father was an alcoholic, and his mother was mentally ill. They separated when he was three. John Lennon's parents never lived together, and he was raised by an aunt.

In other words—it seems just as possible that a disproportionate share of our heritage has in fact been contributed by unwanted children. It may be the leaders and the creative geniuses we are currently aborting.

But Adolph Hitler? His Mummy's pride and joy.