Both partners have legal and moral responsibilities as a result of their [sexual] actions.
At least in the legal systems I am familiar with, the legal responsibility of the partners in this act start from when the baby is born.
Before then, in the first couple of months of the said pregnancy, again legally, there are no obstructions to aborting the fetus. Different countries have different cut-off points, but considering that most women in their right minds make up their mind about this pretty quickly and abort before the physical & social problems start showing, most abortions tend to be in the first three months. Even later on, if ever the life of the mother is threatened, abortion or induction (depending on the stage of pregnancy) is legal throughout the pregnancy, even though that may mean jeopardising the viability of the fetus.
As for "moral" - your definition will be different than mine which will be different than anyone else here, so there is little point in discussing it.
The first question to ask and answer is: What is it, that is being killed?
Your starting point is biased - use of the word "killed" is inappropriate at this stage, as it introduces prejudice into the debate.
If it is a Human being...
Of course it is not a human being, any more than the nails and the hair you cut are human beings. Have you ever seen the ultrasound scan of what is aborted in the first two months of pregnancy? It is blob of cells, less than a centimeter in diameter. You might be hard pressed to find many civilized societies that hold the rights of that cluster of cells higher than those of the human being in which they find themselves, and rightly so.
A fertilized egg may or may not develop into a baby, given the right circumstances and a long enough period of time. As Sun Tzu pointed out before, the skin off your nose can also develop into a baby with the current cloning technologies.
... then the bar must be set higher than simple inconvenience
"Simple inconvenience"! Well, if it's that easy, then I am sure you guys can manage it on your own :-) |
