The Responsibility Argument Against Abortion

There are two major arguments that the so-called "pro-life" crowd use against abortion. The first is the "fetus is a life" argument, which I will not deal with here except to say it doesn't matter if it is or isn't: it's the mother's body. No one, born or unborn, has the right to tell another adult human being what to do with their own body.

The second is the argument from responsibility and it goes something like: "They knew that pregnancy is a possible consequence of sex, therefore they should take responsibility and have the child."

From wikipedia: "The word responsibility means the obligation to answer for actions. Often this means answering to authority. Responsibility is also loosely used as the recognition that in order to achieve one's purposes, one must act oneself ("take responsibility") rather than expecting others to do something (compare initiative)."

The answer to this argument is simple: having an abortion is taking responsibility. Condemning oneself to raising a child one doesn't want is irresponsible and destructive, both to one's self and to the child!

This is the same argument that is used to tell men that they have to care a for a child they fathered even if they made it clear from the very beginning that they didn't want children. If a woman chooses to have a child when the father has made it clear that he does not want to be responsible for one, then she should be the one responsible for the child's care. If she has the child on the understanding that the father will help raise it (i.e., he is aware she is pregnant, and has committed to helping financially and otherwise) then he does not get to change his mind later. Neither does she for that matter. It's a contract!

In today's legal climate, men don't have any choice in the matter whatever. If they dare to have sex with a woman, they are taking the chance that she will rope them into a lifetime of obligation that they may not want. The only choice we have is to make sure that we trust the rationality of the women we sleep with. There's nothing new there though. Men and women should be doing that anyway.