Gamete Donation, the Responsibility Objection, and Procreative Responsibilities

Sophisticated arguments advanced by Harry Silverstein, David Boonin, and Jeff McMahan attempt to show that being responsible for an individual's existence need not result in an obligation to ensure that the needs of that individual are satisfied. While these arguments take place within the abortion debate, by extension they threaten causal accounts of procreative responsibility more generally. In this article, I defend causal accounts of procreative responsibility by showing that these arguments do not succeed, but without thereby undermining the permissibility of abortion. Further, while being causally involved in the existence of a person is not sufficient for acquiring procreative responsibilities, I argue that there is an especially strong case for ascribing such responsibilities to gamete donors.