Normal parental effort and abortion

We owe our children at least a normal degree of effor for their welfare. For instance, we owe it to them to provide food, water, education and affection in normal circumstances by the normal means of doing so. It is plausible that what we owe our children goes significantly beyond the provision of a normal degree of effort for their welfare. Maybe working 6-10 hours a day at a job to provide for one’s family is a normal degree of effort, but if the only way to keep one’s children from starving is to work 11 hours a day, that’s surely one’s duty. But when the effort would go far enough beyond what is normal, duty is replaced by supererogatory heroism.

Now, it is far from clear what degree of effort does or does not exceed what is normal. However, the following seems clear:

1. An effort that was practically necessary for the survival of virtually every single child in human history, and was typically expended by a parent, does not exceed normal parental effort.

For instance, physically putting food in the mouth of an infant was practically necessary for the survival of virtually every single child in human history, and probably every single such child, unless some myth like that of Romulus and Remus turns out to reflect a real case, and was typically expended by a parent. Thus, the effort of putting food in infants’ mouths is normal, and hence owed.

But:

2. Pregnancy was practically necessary for the survival of every single child in human history, and was typically engaged in by a parent.

Hence, wherever the required effort line lies, it does not lie below the level of pregnancy as such. In particular, it follows that Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist argument cannot apply to every pregnancy. In fact, I think it is plausible that a typical pregnancy constitutes a normal degree of parental effort, and hence her argument does not apply to a typical pregnancy either.