Wouldn’t population explode?

First of all, the presupposition underlying this argument—that the impact of population growth is a net negative for human society—is suspect on a number of scores. But we need not wade into this debate. Even if we could all agree that overpopulation is a problem, we must emphatically assert that killing 50 million people¹ is not an acceptable solution to that problem. We can all agree that one effective way to limit the number of people is to eliminate the creation of unwanted children. But we must emphasize that the time to eliminate them is before, not after, they exist. If you are unwilling to go to a Third World country and solve the problem of strained resources by slaughtering millions of paupers, then the only reason you are willing to slaughter millions of unborn babies must be because you think that they are not persons.² The question, then, is whether or not fetuses are persons. If they are, then population problems do not justify murdering them. If they are not, then they should be allowed to be killed regardless of whether there is an overpopulation problem.