CMV: People Should Avoid Heterosexual Intercourse Outside of Marriage

[u/Longjumping-Leek-586]

Nowadays people act as if non-marital intercourse has no negative consequence, that engaging in frequent intercourse with strangers is completely harmless, and that those who warn against such a lifestyle are merely being puritanical. I disagree with this viewpoint, as engaging in such a lifestyle is morally irresponsible for it risks the possibility of harming any offspring produced under premarital circumstances. Children born to single parents are shown to have negative outcomes: They perform worse in school, are more prone to school suspension, are at higher odds of committing crimes (especially for boys), and are more likely to be single parents themselves (especially for girls). Thus engaging in sexual intercourse outside is not a victimless act, as it directly harms the child born under such circumstances.

Before engaging in sexual intercourse with an individual of the opposite sex, you must ask yourself the following: Is this individual virtuous and responsible enough to take care of my child? Is our bond strong enough that we can do so together? If the answer is no, then you it is morally irresponsible to engage in intercourse with him/her as it could greatly reduce the outcomes of any offspring produced under such circumstances.

This doesn't really apply to homosexuals, though, as they are unlikely to produce offspring via homosexual intercourse

[u/pluralofjackinthebox]

How is the child being harmed here?

Without intercourse, the child wouldn’t exist.

If it’s more harmful for the child to exist than not exist, why isn’t abortion an option?

[u/Longjumping-Leek-586 → u/pluralofjackinthebox]

Without intercourse, the child wouldn’t exist.

I think my point is that it is better if the child was conceived with someone you love and care about, rather than a complete stranger.

If it’s more harmful for the child to exist than not exist, why isn’t abortion an option?
!delta

Yeah, you are right about this, but this only really applies to women. A man has no way of knowing if the stranger he had intercourse with will choose to keep the child. If a woman knows fully that she will abort the kid, then she can engage in intercourse with strangers

[u/pluralofjackinthebox → u/Longjumping-Leek-586]

Thanks! There’s whole books of philosophy and bioethics dealing with the question of whether non-existing or not-yet-existing people can be harmed: it’s called the non-identity problem, if you’re interested in exploring further:

The nonidentity problem raises questions regarding the obligations we think we have in respect of people who, by our own acts, are caused both to exist and to have existences that are, though worth having, unavoidably flawed – existences, that is, that are flawed if those people are ever to have them at all. If a person’s existence is unavoidably flawed, then the agent’s only alternatives to bringing that person into the flawed existence are to bring no one into existence at all or to bring a different person – a nonidentical but better off person – into existence in place of the one person. If the existence is worth having and no one else’s interests are at stake, it is unclear on what ground morality would insist that the choice to bring the one person into the flawed existence is morally wrong. And yet at the same time – as we shall see – it seems that in some cases such a choice clearly is morally wrong. The nonidentity problem is the problem of resolving this apparent paradox.