No subject divides Americans like the abortion issue. David P. Gushee, a Mercer University professor, discussed abortion in a November, 2016, Sojourners article.

Since World War II, Gushee writes, “all kinds of factors have conspired . . . to create a society whose conditions constitute a perfect storm for abortion.”

Young adults need more years for education and training. Parents are less able to supervise dating partners for their children. From the age of sixteen or before, young adults have access to automobiles. Changing attitudes toward morality are evident in the films we see and the books we read.

We have Gushee says, “a culture deeply dependent on abortion.” Our efforts, then, should go toward preventing, as Gushee says, “that miserable drive to the abortion clinic,” a decision after the fact of pregnancy.

We could recognize valid needs on both sides of the abortion equation. One side sees an act requiring both a man and a woman, yet whose consequences are often borne by the woman alone. The man can walk away with his wombless body, back to his career and even to another woman, unencumbered by life within him.

Others ask: If it’s okay to stop life in the womb because it’s inconvenient, why is it not okay to take any life that’s inconvenient? Why do some accept abortion in general but become incensed with sex-selective abortion? Isn’t all life valuable?

Both groups might question why, in a time when women in developed countries now have many choices, we appeared fixated on two individuals and their attraction to each other without any care for the wider community.

What about the importance of goals, purpose, and meaning, especially for young women?