3 9 8C H A P T E R 1 9 ■ M o r a l R e a s o n i n gfor many women, married or single. Women who must earn have an acute
need to control their fertility. Without that control, they often find it impossi-
ble to obtain the education necessary for any but the most marginal employ-
ment, or impossible to combine the responsibilities of childrearing and paid
labour. This is as true in socialist as in capitalist economies, since in both
economic systems women must contend with the double responsibility of
paid and domestic work.
Contraception and abortion do not guarantee reproductive autonomy,
because many people cannot afford to have (and properly raise) any chil-
dren, or as many children as they would like; and others are involuntarily
infertile. However, both contraception and abortion are essential if women
are to have the modest degree of reproductive autonomy which is possible in
the world as it is presently constructed.
In the long run, access to abortion is essential for the health and sur-
vival not just of individual women and families, but also that of the larger
social and biological systems on which all our lives depend. Given the
inadequacy of present methods of contraception and the lack of universal
access to contraception, the avoidance of rapid population growth gener-
ally requires some use of abortion. Unless population growth rates are
reduced in those impoverished societies where they remain high, malnu-
trition and starvation will become even more widespread than at present.
There might still be enough food to feed all the people of the world, if
only it were more equitably distributed. However, this cannot remain
true indefinitely. Soil erosion and climatic changes brought about by the
destruction of forests and the burning of fossil fuels threaten to reduce
the earth’s capacity for food production — perhaps drastically — within
the next generation.
Yet opponents of abortion deny that abortion is necessary for the avoid-
ance of such undesirable consequences. Some pregnancies are the result
of rape or involuntary incest, but most result from apparently voluntary
sexual behaviour. Thus, anti-abortionists often claim that women who
seek abortions are ‘refusing to take responsibility for their own actions’.
In their view, women ought to avoid heterosexual intercourse unless they
are prepared to complete any resulting pregnancy. But is this demand a
reasonable one?
Heterosexual intercourse is not biologically necessary for women’s — or
men’s — individual survival or physical health. On the contrary, women
who are celibate or homosexual are less vulnerable to cervical cancer, AIDS,
and other sexually transmitted diseases. Nor is it obvious that sex is nec-
essary for the psychological health of either women or men, although the
contrary belief is widespread. It is, however, something that many women
find intensely pleasurable — a fact which is morally significant on most con-
sequentialist theories. Furthermore, it is part of the form of life which the
majority of women everywhere appear to prefer. In some places, lesbian97364_ch19_ptg01_383-422.indd 398 11/15/13 5:45 PM
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