Abstract and title together on the first page of an article

The abstract appears on its own page because you've specified the titlepage option to the article document class:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper, titlepage]{article}

If you remove this option (or specify notitlepage), then the abstract will appear on the first page, together with the article title, author, and date:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper,notitlepage]{article}

Then, if you want the first section of the article to start on a new page, you should add a \clearpage command:

\clearpage
\section{First Section}

As explained earlier, the titlepage class option uses the titlepage environment to typeset title (\maketitle) and abstract (abstract-environment), which leads to a new page being issued. Using package titling, you can use the environment titlingpage and put \maketitle and the abstract in there. This is even more handy for twocolumn documents.

The pagenumbering starts on the page next to the title with number 1, unless of course the document is typeset twoside as explained in How to use pagenumbering in the document?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{titling}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\title{The important role of ducks in CSI teams}
\author{Masi}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlingpage}
    \maketitle
    \begin{abstract}
        For over a century, fingerprints have been an undisputed
        personal identifier.  Recent court rulings have sparked
        interest in verifying unique techniques to make the current
        methods even more reliable. Ducks, as they do not have
        fingers, play a key role in the development of new methods to
        protect the innocent of our society.
    \end{abstract}
\end{titlingpage}
\blinddocument
\end{document}