Inocencio,
Yes, I am certainly aware of numerous counter-arguments to Levitt's claims, and of course I agree that if taken as an argument for abortion (which is not necessarily what Levitt was doing) it's morally repugnant.
All I'm saying is, once we decide to play that game at all, to make an argument for or against life to rest on the potential value of an unborn person's potential acts in the world, then we're stuck weighing the potential good against the potential bad, and at that point the calculus becomes sufficiently complicated that I don't think we make much headway on an intuitive level.
Levitt's analysis may be faulty, but it isn't so immediately obviously intuitively faulty that the argument "What if we abort the next Mother Teresa / Albert Einstein / fill in the blank?" becomes intuitively persuasive to me.
The fact is, a given fetus might grow up to be the next Mother Teresa or the next Pol Pot. Alternatively, it might grow up to be an ordinary decent human being or an ordinary scoundrel.
These possibilities more or less cancel one another out, at least on an immediate emotional intuitive level, leaving us to decide the question -- to abort or not to abort? -- on other grounds.
So, I'm against abortion, but that's not why. :)

Steven,
If you haven't read it, this is a very interesting article about the Freakonmics claim that abortion reduced crime.
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_05_09/feature.html
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J

"FWIW, the difficulty about this type of argument is that it cuts both ways. Abortions might deprive the world of wonderful human beings, but in principle they might also spare the world of terrible ones."
That is the problem with arguments that rely on CONSEQUENCES. I had a pro-life friend tell me that due to abortion, the violent crime rate has gone down (supposedly there was a study proving this). My "reductio ad absurdum" response was, "Well, we could probably get the rate for violent crime to go down 98% if we aborted all males."
Consequentialist, utilitarian arguments are interesting but they cut both ways, and they are not what our faith is based on.

Steven-
Too right! We need to argue from the position that every human life is precious, regardless of what contributions one might make to society.
I'm familiar with Levitt, and he makes good points.

I have not seen this story in print anywhere, so it may be hogwash, but was told once that Mother Theresa was once asked to pray about a cure for AIDS, but was given insight by Our Lord that the person would have had the cure first had been aborted.
I'm throwing this up there to have debunked or verified.

1) You would have recommended the death of John Wesley.
2) You would have recommended the death of Ludwig von Beethoven.
3) You would have recommended the death of Alexander Pope.
4) You would have recommended the death of the gospel signer Ethel Waters.
5) You would have recommended the death of Father Joseph Mohr, lyricist and co-composer of Silent Night.
FWIW, the difficulty about this type of argument is that it cuts both ways. Abortions might deprive the world of wonderful human beings, but in principle they might also spare the world of terrible ones.
Thus, pro-aborts could always come back with, e.g., abortion theoretically saving the world from Hitler, Stalin, bin Ladin, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein & progeny, etc.
On a more basic level, how many crack dealers, carjackers, gang-bangers, child abusers, etc. has the world been saved from by abortion?
Now, I think the argument still somewhat favors the pro-life side, since I believe that although people can be both good and bad, still and all any population of people, the good and the bad together, is still a net good.
OTOH, some people like Freakonomics author Steven Levitt argue that abortion has actually cut crime rates.
At the end of the day, then, I would rather argue the subject on different grounds than considering the positive or negative contributions to society of specific individuals who might or might not be aborted.
All that said, it's still gratifying to see "hints" (Michelle's word) of the goodness of life in stories of a particular person who might have been aborted and wasn't making a positive contribution to the world.

Here's something along those lines:
Should these babies have been aborted:
1) A preacher and his wife are very, very poor. They already have 14 children. Now she finds that she's pregnant with number 15. They're living in tremendous poverty. Would you consider recommending an abortion?
2) The father is ill with syphilis; the mother has tuberculosis. They have had four children. One child has died, one is blind, one deaf, and one has tuberculosis. The mother is pregnant. Would you recommend an abortion?
3) A baby is born crippled and a dwarf. If that outcome had been predicted in advance, would you have recommended an abortion?
4) A white man raped a 13-year-old black girl and impregnated her. Would you recommend an abortion?
5) A poor teenage girl is pregnant and unmarried. Her soldier father disowns her and the child. She would name the child after the father and raise the child, while bearing the disgrace of illegitimacy. Would you recommend an abortion?
If you answered "yes":
1) You would have recommended the death of John Wesley.
2) You would have recommended the death of Ludwig von Beethoven.
3) You would have recommended the death of Alexander Pope.
4) You would have recommended the death of the gospel signer Ethel Waters.
5) You would have recommended the death of Father Joseph Mohr, lyricist and co-composer of Silent Night.

"Spoiler alerts on It's a Wonderful Life?"
Hey, you never know, derringdo. Someone might not have seen it!
It is a cliche, now, but that's only because it's true; I wonder which of the Aborted Ones might have cured AIDS or cancer, or might have written the great literary work of our age.
Great story, Michelle. If I were either of these two, I might be a little nervous about moving too far from the other!
;-)

Spoiler alerts on It's a Wonderful Life?
What do they teach in these schools?