First I agree that contraception is the first line of defence. Fact; the 'Anglo' Western powers (UK and US) have uptight sex education and high rates of teen pregnancy, and more sexually pragmatic societies have very frank sex education - and teen pregnancy rates a fifth or less of the UK or US. Add in the fact these same counties don't have significantly different ages of first sexual intercourse (the Netherlands is higher than the UK or US), and we can see what needs to be done.
However, given rape, incest, and conraceptive accident (I have one daughter and one aborted pregnancy from condoms tearing, the aborted pregnancy afer a morning-after pill was also 3% bloody useless), abortion is neccesary. Given stupid/lazy/ignorant/drunk people contraception is also neccesary.
Or do you think allowing fools who use abortion as contraception to breed is a good idea?
That group however, is a small one compared to the unlucky. 2-5 percent of women on the pill will conceive each year, given average dilligence.
If half the population of the US are women, and half are fertile, and half of those are on the pill, those 30 odd million women will get pregnant almost a million times (3%). Abortions run at 1.4 million or so each year in the USA. As many of the other 30 odd million fertile women will be using other forms of contraception, with higher failure rates, statistically speaking most abortions are contraceptive accident or medical. I know this is 'back of a serviette statistics', but in that case it'll be really easy to shoot me down in flames, won't it?
I've not met anyone yet who has HAD an abortion who will say people use it as contraception (other than abortion due to lack of sex education). Obviously some do, but they distort the argument for the vast majority.
On a secular basis, if you concede that a pet rat as has more neural tissue than a 16-week fetus (which is true), it is hard to see abortion as barbaric if carried out early (as is the case in a society with decent health systems and liberal attitudes towards sex and sex education). Many animals can spontaneously abort if the environment isn't suitable for giving birth, or they aren't able to support a baby. What's barbaric about giving human females the same choice?
If we are concerned about lost 'human potential', come back to me when we have extracted the maximum human potential from people who have actually been born. Deprived children for a start.
You don't have to like it, but you also don't have to have one.
If you don't like the messy state of abortion law or practice in some countries, ensure those countries educate about contraception and have decent health services. Legislate a medically supportable maximum term for when abortion is allowed for social reasons. That way abortions will be minimised and early.
On a secular basis, opposal to abortion is just an opinion, not a basis for legislation. On a religious basis, even more so.
It doesn't logically work any other way.
As for father's rights.... what rights? Until a child is born the child is the mother's. If a man has sex with someone he gives up rights to those chromosones until they are born. Any other way infringes the woman's rights in an unsupportable fasion, reduces her to breeding stock, slave, chattel.
If he has sex with someone who will go against his heartfelt wishes, he learns to know his next sexual partner better before risking this happening again. Having children isn't just the woman's responsibility. It is not the sacred duty of woman to bear man's magic seed whenever it happens to blossom in her womb. A man has to take the responsibility to avoid having sex with someone who would do this if he feels any pregnancy he causes must be bought to term by his broodmare.
Life in prison for murder? How come countries where whole life terms are exceedingly rare (Holland), and murder is normally a seven year streach, have lower murder rates than countries with the death penalty, let alone true life sentences?
If keeping your everyday muderer locked up for life doesn't make society safer, surely extracting the potential that person has is better than throwing away the key?
Or is it about revenge rather than justice?