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incapacity to take the contingent child's welfare into account should not
bother us, because once the child is actually suffering, Prior Existence
Utilitarianism will take this suffering into account. 50 This is true, and
it takes away what seems to be problematic about the case, namely the
idea that Prior Existence Utilitarianism would need to accept the exist-
ence of a needlessly suffering child.
Singer, however, is not satisfied with Sapontzis' solution:
But this would mean that it is not wrong to decide to conceive a
miserable child, although it is wrong to decide to keep the child alive
once it exists. What if one knows, at the time the child is conceived,
that one will have no opportunity for having an abortion or for
carrying out euthanasia after the child is born? Then there will be a
miserable child, so it would seem that a wrong has been done. But in
Sapontzis's view, there appears to be no time at which that wrong can
be done. I cannot see that this suggestion solves the problem. 51
Singer's problem with Sapontzis' view is that 'there appears to be no
time at which that wrong can be done'. So, the challenge seems to be to
indicate when the act becomes wrong.
What about the wrongness of the action? Conceiving the child is not
wrong as such because it does not make the outcome worse, it harms
nobody. However, the omission of preventing the sentient foetus or child
from suffering is wrong. At that moment the child counts morally, and its
uncompensated suffering should be prevented. However, ought implies
can. What if the parents cannot have an abortion or carry out euthanasia
at that point? If there is no way of preventing the child from suffering,
one must conclude that letting the child suffer is not morally wrong. The
assumption is that those options are not present. It seems that the couple
cannot be blamed for letting the child suffer if there are no alternatives.
However, this seems odd in this case since the couple had the possi-
bility not to conceive the child in the first place, knowing that it will
suffer and that its suffering cannot be prevented once it is conceived.
Many people are inclined to say that the couple should abstain from
conception. However, according to the Prior Existence View, the possible
welfare of the possible child should not count in decisions that affect
whether the child will exist. Deciding whether to conceive the child is
such a decision. So, the possible welfare of the possible child cannot be
taken into account. So the Prior Existence View cannot accommodate the
intuition that conceiving the child is the wrong action in this particular
case. This implication of the Prior Existence View has been criticised:
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