Related Ideas

Review these ideas and then use the BACK key on your browser to go back to the page you were on.

This argument may gain strength if we take a certain view of how parents acquire obligations to children. Assume that parents acquire obligations to care for and make significant sacrifices for an infant by freely taking it home and placing it in a position of complete dependence upon themselves. Could we infer by analogy that a woman acquires a similar obligation to an unborn child if she freely carries it beyond the point at which it can be the bearer of rights? This obligation would then limit her right to abort.

Some of the points made here assume that we can agree on what it means to say that a woman freely chose to become pregnant (or to carry a child beyond some point). Based on the degree of freedom, we can then assign to her a degree of responsibility and certain obligations to her child. How would you define a free choice, especially the choice to have sex?

We could define sexual intercourse as free if it does not occur under the threat of violence. By this definition most sex is voluntary. But suppose we define sex as free only if it occurs within a relationship in which a man and a woman share power equally? Or within a culture in which men and women share power equally? How would you define a free act? Can you give reasons for accepting one definition rather than another?