John Donahue and Steven Levitt published a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2001 that found a strong positive correlation between the legalization of early-term abortions in the early 1970s and the drop of the crime rate (including homicides) twenty years later.
Assume for the moment that Donahue and Levitt's findings are valid and that the legalization of abortion was directly responsible for the drop in homicides because many of the aborted fetuses would have committed murder when they reached late adolescence and beyond.
Also assume that abortion is the ethical equivalent of murder.
Write a 2-3 page discussion of whether or not legalized early-term abortion is ethical or not assuming that it is a major factor in the drop in murders. Please do not write a discussion on why you personally believe in the morality (or lack thereof) of abortion. The assignment is to balance the two assumed ethical evils: abortion and other murders.