If a woman does not want to support a child, she can choose to have an abortion. Of course, the would-be father ultimately has no say in this decision (he cannot force or prevent an abortion). Presumably, the asymmetry here relates to the fact that pregnancy and childbirth burden the mother to an infinitely greater extent than the father. What I don't understand, though, is why fathers may be forced to support (monetarily) children which they didn't want. If a woman decides to have a child in spite of her partner's disagreement, shouldn't she also assume full responsibility for that child? It seems as though the man has no say at all here. If the man wants the child, the woman may nevertheless abort; if he doesn't want the child (but she does), he nevertheless must support it.

When a human child is brought into existence, whose moral responsibility is it to see that this child’s very significant needs are met? In most human societies, this responsibility has been given to its parents. It was due to the parents’ actions that this child came into existence in the first place; and, further, parents tend to have stronger instincts than others to meet the very significant needs of their progeny. For these reasons, the allocation of primary responsibility to meet the needs of immature humans to their parents generally makes good moral sense. To what extent and under what conditions this responsibility should also be shared with others and to what extent and under what circumstances this responsibility may be relinquished to others are further complicated moral questions. You wonder whether it is fair that fathers who have had no say in whether a fetus is brought to term should be held morally responsible for meeting the needs of their progeny. This, it seems to me, is a...

I was born in the early sixties before Roe v. Wade. When my mother got pregnant, my parents were unmarried, but they got married and I was born 8 months later. On the whole, I've had a wonderful life and I'm so grateful that I had a chance to experience it. I can't help thinking that if my mother had had an abortion, she would have done a terrible thing to me. She would have cut my life short--so short, in fact, that I wouldn't have ever had a chance to experience anything at all! If murder is bad because it denies a good life to a person in the future, then isn't abortion even worse?

If your mother had had an abortion, then yes, alas, there would havebeen no you who has had such a good life. But it’s also true that, ifyour mother had done anything different on that fateful nightin the early sixties– had she decided to stay home, had she decided shewasn’t really in the mood that night, had her amusing story gone on just a little bit longer– then, chances are, there would have been no you:that particular egg and that particular sperm just wouldn’t have gottentogether. In fact, had a multiplicity of other events in the past–e.g., the weather on a night millions of year ago when your ancientancestors got together-- been different from what they in fact were,then there would have been no you because there also wouldhave been none of your more recent ancestors. When you think of all ofthe events that had to conspire from the beginning of time to produceyou, then it becomes clear how very lucky each of us is even to havelived for just one minute. The odds against each of us...

When considering abortion, the Roman Catholic Church uses the principle of double effect in order to allow abortion on the grounds that their primary intention was to save the life of the mother, e.g. in an ectopic pregnancy. However, surely the doctors (or whoever) know that the embryo will be aborted as a consequence of their action so how is the principal of double effect justified?

Proponents of the Doctrine of Double Effect draw a distinction betweentwo sorts of cases: (1) you intend to achieve a particular result Rthrough your action (i.e., this result is the purpose of your action)and(2) you intend to achieve a different result T through your action butforesee that your action will have an additional (though non-intended)result R. What’s crucial, according to this doctrine, is the object ofone’s intentions. In the case of abortion, the intended purpose of theprocedure is to terminate a pregnancy. In most cases of ectopicpregnancy, the purpose of the surgery is to save the life of thepregnant woman, and a foreseeable, though not intended, result of theprocedure is the termination of a pregnancy. (How can you tell whetherthe result is intended, rather than merely foreseen? See whether youwould still perform the action if you were to learn that the resultwould not occur.) Iam not a fan of the Doctrine of Double Effect. It seems to me to dependon a distinction that makes no...