Abortion is a red herring issue. Glad Obama lifts Mexico City policy

I'm glad Obama kept his promise to lift gag order that was imposed by Republican administrations against many of the family planning and birth control programs around the world.

Abortion is probably not the main issue, but it's a red herring and a political lightning rod. The debate over whether some of these programs also support abortion can derail support for the entire concept of family planning. That's only one part of a bigger picture. Family planning doesn't have to be about abortion. In an ideal world, something like abortion wouldn't exist because there wouldn't be unwanted pregnancy.

Various tools to reduce population growth will help the environment.

Abortion is only one of many tools that could possibly be used. Hopefully it's only a last resort and can be avoided. There are probably more effective ways to reduce the number of abortions than placing a gag order on the broad spectrum of family planning techniques that could hopefully be effective before unwanted pregnancy happens. Better family planning might even reduce abortion.

Starvation and famine is not pro life either.

Ironically some Republicans who preach pro life are also battling to keep the tide of population growth from immigrating to this country.

Here in USA, there is still more elbow room and lower population density than in many other parts of the world.

Average American lifestyles have large footprints on the environment.

As the world gets more crowded, a lot of the people who preach that population growth isn't a problem should really be changing their lifestyles.

Get rid of that car and the single family neighborhood. Start walking, bicycling or taking the bus. Soon there will be less room to park the car and less fossil fuels to run it.

The "parking" issue is especially noticed in our large metropolitan areas.

Maybe folks who live in North Dakota are laughing at me. They've still got some elbow room, but open spaces in North Dakota are needed to grow crops for the rest of us, not to mention there needs to be some places left for migrating birds.