It's the 1980's, America is at war, not with other nations, but with crime. The crime rate expanded in the 80's with homicide rising exponentially and drugs are traded liberally. Looters ran wild and urban gunslingers roamed free, robbing the cites blind. Armies of gangs have wreaked havoc in every settlement in the US, including the world's economic epicenter, New York City. During that time, many would bet that the crime rates would continue to rise, but they were mistaken, by the coming of the new millennium crime rate magically declined. Experts rose to the podium to explain such a miraculous phenomenon, some say it is the reform the police department, some said increased gun control, the economy, and the list goes on. These explanations proved to be valid, but they only contributed a minuscule fraction to the decline in crime, if so, what is the causation of this event? The answer is indeed the Roe V. Wade case.
The Roe V. Wade case is a supreme court case that legalized abortion in all US states in any circumstances. The case began with a Texan woman who falsely claimed as being "raped" and demanded an abortion. As the case gathers its legitimacy, the woman's claim of being "raped" was omitted and the case made its way to the supreme court. The supreme court supported the attorney's claim and that made abortion legal in the premises of the United States. This act spurred the controversy between conservative Americans who denounces abortion or the "pro lifers" and those who supported the woman's choice of abortion or the "pro choice", which these ideas collide in an eternal debate. The significance of this act is that it enabled woman, for the first time in history to have a choice whether to keep her child or not. If thoroughly thought through, Roe V. Wade is a rational idea indeed. Picture this: when a child is born when the parents are not ready to raise them, the child would often and will be mistreated. Without the will or the funding to raise a child, the parents often neglected the child, thus making their childhood a nightmare. Lacking proper education, care and to an extent, food, these children had no future and had to resort in committing crimes to prolong their utterly miserable lives. If they haven't been born, innocent lives will be not lost, money will not be stolen and the crime rate will obviously decrease. With less to spend on law enforcement and hooligan welfare, the government can divert its budget elsewhere in areas such as education, the economy, defense...the possibilities are endless. Hence, this would benefit the people from all walks of life and the nation as a whole.
Two decades after Roe V. Wade was passed, the policy have come to fruition. As the new generation of people consisting of only 'wanted' child populated the 1990's, the crime rate in major cities such as NYC was halved and similar statistics could be seen in the US. Unlike Romania or other third world countries under insane despots (including Thailand in most of its history as a "democratic" nation) that still retained its archaic "pro-life" beliefs, the war against crime in the US became a mere article in history books.
Today, despite the phenomenal success of the Roe V. Wade, there are those who protested against it. Christian fundamentalists in the US are the main culprit for their firm beliefs in the religion had driven them to do so, not of reason. They believed that in the contemporary era, the US had veered off from its original Christian foundation, and it is their duty to restore the nation back to its former glory. In contrary, the US is never a devout Christian nation, but in fact, America's founding principal is freedom in all manners from the freedom of speech to the freedom of worship. So why should people be constrained to the idealisms of Christianity in the land of the free?
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