Maternal autonomy and prenatal harm

Abstract

AbstractThis paper offers an account of why prenatal harms seem particularly objectionable. It identifies structural similarities between key cases of prenatal harm and the recently characterized “all‐or‐nothing” problem from Joe Horton. According to the account defended by the paper, a willingness to parent incurs a duty to protect the fetus from harm. This implication provides independent support for so‐called “voluntarist” or “intentionalist” accounts of parental role obligations, according to which, roughly, a mother's autonomous choice to parent a child suffices for having the obligations distinctive of parenthood toward the child.