Consenting to sex is not a morally neutral act when it foreseeably results in the creation of a child who is inherently dependent. In law, this is already recognized: if a pregnancy occurs and the mother seeks it, fathers can be required to provide financial support beginning even before birth. Every state has at least one statute or legal mechanism that authorizes or recognizes collecting money from the father for prenatal medical care and for labor and delivery expenses, followed by standard child support obligations that typically last until the child reaches adulthood.
On this view, a man who freely chooses to engage in sex also consents to the known risk of becoming responsible for these costs. The resulting duties are not arbitrary penalties but responses to the real needs of a child who exists because of that voluntary act. This framework fits naturally with a pro-life understanding of responsibility: the child’s dependency generates obligations for both parents. The mother has a duty not to kill the child, and the father has a duty to help support the child materially.
When adults willingly participate in an act they know can create a dependent human being, the least they owe is compensation and care for the needs they helped bring into existence. Responsibility follows causation, and fairness requires that the burdens of caring for a child be shared rather than avoided by denying the child’s claims altogether.
Key Takeaways
Consenting to sex already carries legally enforced parental duties, showing society recognizes responsibility for children created through voluntary actions.
Prenatal and postnatal child-support laws affirm that a child’s needs generate obligations even before birth.
Assigning financial duties to fathers is compatible with assigning a duty to mothers not to kill the child; both flow from the same act of causation.
If responsibility justifies compelled financial support for years, it undermines the claim that responsibility disappears when the child is still unborn.