Consent is not just agreement to an isolated action; it also includes responsibility for the reasonably foreseeable effects that flow from that action. When a person consents to something they know carries certain risks, they are not agreeing only to the momentary experience—they are accepting responsibility if those known outcomes occur.
Sex is one such action. Pregnancy is a well-known, foreseeable result of sex, and pregnancy can result in the creation of a new human being. When that foreseeable outcome happens, responsibility follows because another human now exists and is directly affected by the original choice. This responsibility is not arbitrary or unique to pregnancy; it reflects a principle widely accepted in everyday moral and legal reasoning.
Consider how responsibility works in other areas of life. If a property owner fails to clear ice from a sidewalk and someone slips and is injured, the owner can be held liable—not because they intended harm, but because the harm was a foreseeable consequence of their inaction. The obligation to compensate arises precisely because the risk was known in advance. Consent to owning property includes responsibility for predictable harms tied to that ownership.
In the same way, choosing to have sex while knowing it can result in pregnancy means accepting responsibility if a human being is created. That responsibility does not require welcoming the outcome or desiring it, but it does require responding ethically to its existence. At a minimum, it requires refraining from killing the human being who now exists. Abortion, therefore, is not merely declining further involvement—it is the intentional killing of a human being created through a foreseeable outcome of a voluntary act.
Key Takeaways
Consent includes foreseeable consequences: Agreeing to an action means accepting responsibility for outcomes you know can happen, even if they are unwanted.
Responsibility arises when a human being is created: Once a new human exists as a result of a choice, moral obligations toward that human follow.
This principle is consistent with everyday justice: Society already holds people accountable for foreseeable harms in property, business, and personal conduct.
At minimum, responsibility forbids killing: While responsibilities may be debated, intentionally killing the human being created is not a morally permissible response.