Moral Issues of Abortion vs. Forced Pregnancy

I have read both sides of this argument and it hasn't changed in 40 years. Women may have more options than ever before, but unexpected and unwanted pregnancies have occurred since the beginning of time. (Did Adam and Eve really want only two sons and no daughters? But if they didn't have daughters, where did the rest of us come from? Continue that line of thinking and incest becomes a necessary and natural occurrence.)

Is there a 100% foolproof method of birth control? I don't think so. And even if there is one for the educated, the ones able to pay for it, and the ones who have the self control to use it properly and consistently, there are still going to be a few thousand "accidents" and downright "not wanted" pregnancies every year.

Several people brought up the point that abortion is a wrong "choice" to eliminate the "consequences" of "wrong" behavior. Let's go beyond some of the individual reasons for not wanting to bring a pregnancy to term: the rapes; the incestuous cases (and there are many more than anyone cares to admit to); the unwanted 5th or 10th child that a mature couple decides they can't afford, can't care for, and can't be responsible for into its maturity; the divorcing couple who don't want another child; the career couple who can't decide who should rear the kids while the other one continues getting the benefit of his/her advanced education; the couples who know their child is going to be born with serious birth defects that they can't afford to deal with, emotionally or financially. Even in today's enlightened world, some loving couples experience an "accidental" pregnancy and for very good, well-thought-through reasons, they decide an abortion is best.

I have done case work with abused and neglected children. Some were from the third generation of families going through the social services programs. Extrapolating from hundreds of unwanted, neglected, and abused children in our county alone (we had 1500 active cases at any one time in the welfare and juvenile court systems), I have to assume we have hundreds of thousands of similar cases across this country today. And you know what? In handling such cases no one ever said to a pregnant pre-teen or drug addicted girl, "Go through with the birth and I'll adopt your child, take care of him/her into adulthood, and I'll give him/her a good life until death."

In fact, after many of those unwanted, neglected, and/or

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