First, I am not saying abortion is ok, or right, or not a problem. I want to make this very clear. It is a problem, and one we need to find solutions too.
That being said, there would certainly be people in the world today who are not here now because of abortion. In different circumstances, our president himself might not be here. I don’t think his mother would have aborted him even if it was legal, since she was planning on marrying his father, but that’s still something to think about. Of course, on the flip side, our president would not be here were it not for premarital sex either, though that’s not to say that premarital sex is necessarily a good thing.
Still, paradoxically, there are also people alive today who would not be here were it not for abortion. Many women have abortions because they are not ready to raise children. They have children later that they wouldn’t have had if they had to raise the ones that were aborted. My ex-girlfriend’s mother had an abortion as a teenager, then met her husband later in college. If she had raised that child, she would have had to put off college and would not have met her future husband, and would not have had her family including my ex-girlfriend. Incidentally, she eventually converted to Catholicism, had six children, and is now one of the most devout Catholics I know.
Abortion can harm men, women, and families, but then, any unwanted pregnancy can have the same effect. A friend of mine committed suicide after his ex-girlfriend told him she was pregnant and she was keeping it. I don’t know why exactly he killed himself. I know he was doing everything he could to get away from this girl at the time. I don’t think he put much consideration into what he did. He was always impulsive like that. But it turns out the girl was lying about being pregnant.
Improved access to birth control does reduce abortions, and it can’t be written off. Health education, anti-poverty programs, and better teachers that can steer students onto a more moral path in life, all can help too. Plus, he and Michelle are very good role models for black teenagers, who have high abortion rates. Granted, this has little to do with his legislative agenda, but you can’t underestimate the value of his personal life as a model.
If people demanded it, I’m sure it would be possible to come up with a whole list of ways to reduce abortion, short of just making it illegal.