Mona Charen: “Recall that the 2005 best-seller ‘Freakonomics’ made a huge splash with the claim that Roe v. Wade was responsible for the drop in crime America experienced starting in the 1990s. The theory, simplified for space, was that fewer unwanted babies began to be born after 1973. These aborted babies did not turn 18 in 1991 and, accordingly, did not commit crimes, leading to the dramatic drop in crime. It turns out that the study on which the ‘Freakonomics’ authors based their chapter on abortion and crime was authored by none other than Jonathan Gruber (and others). … Considering that 30 percent of abortions are obtained by African-American women, though they constitute just 13 percent of the female population, Gruber was in effect arguing that reducing the number of poor black children was, not to put too fine a point on it, a positive good. One cannot begin to imagine the outcry if a conservative academic (that rare specimen) had published similar conclusions with such sang-froid. … [W]hat’s more revealing is the casual readiness to calculate lost lives as so many numbers on a balance sheet. If it makes you uncomfortable that such a person helped design Obamacare, you’re not alone.”