LEV834 Illegitimate Children. Similar circumstances [referring to preceding section "Obligations of Society" apply to children conceived by rape. The circumstances of such a conception cannot have any bearing on the child's title to life, and in the absence of any well-grounded challenge to this title there cannot be any moral justification for an abortion. Once again, the burden rests with society to relieve an innocent mother (if she so desires) from the consequences of an unprovoked assault upon her virtue if the assailant cannot be found and forced to discharge this responsibility to his child. In the case of pregnancies resulting from incestuous, adulterers, or otherwise illegitimate relations (which the mother did not resist), there are additional considerations militating against any sanction of abortion. Jewish law not only puts an extreme penalty on incest and adultery, but also imposes fearful disabilities on the products of such unions. It brands these relations as capital crimes (Leviticus 20:10-20), and it debars children born under these conditions from marriage with anyone except their like. 1. The Deterrent Effect. -- Why exact such a price from innocent children for the sins of their parents? The answer is simple: to serve as a powerful deterrent to such hideous crimes. The word-be partners to any such illicit sexual relations are to be taught that their momentary pleasure would be fraught with the most disastrous consequences for any children they might conceive. Through this knowledge they are to recoil from the very thought of incest or adultery with the same horror as they would from contemplating murder as a means to enjoyment or personal benefit. Murder is comparatively rare in civilized societies for the very reason that the dreadful consequences have evoked this horror of the crime in the public conscience. Incest and adultery, in the Jewish few are no lesser crimes (compare the juxtaposition of murder and adultery in the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:13), and they require the same horror as an effective deterrent. 2. Parental Responsibility. -- Why create this deterrent by visiting the sins of the parents on their innocent children? First, because there is no other way to expose an offense committed in private and usually beyond the chance of detection. But, above all, this responsibility of parents for the fate of their children is an inexorable necessity in the generation of human life; it is dictated by the law of nature no less than by the moral law. If a careless mother drops her baby and thereby causes a permanent brain injury to the child, or if he syphilitic father irresponsibly transmits his disease to his offspring before birth, or if parents are negligent in the education of the children, all these children may innocently suffer and for the rest of their lives expiate the sins of their parents. This is what must be if parental responsibility is to be taken seriously. The fear that such catastrophic consequences will ensure from a surrender to temptation or from carelessness will help prevent the conception of grossly disadvantaged children or their physical or mental mutilation after birth. ... Rigid abortion laws, ruling out the post facto "correction" of rash acts, compel people to think twice before they recklessly embark on illicit or irresponsible adventures liable to inflict lifelong suffering or infamy on their progeny. To illuminate the scourge of illegitimate children more self-discipline to prevent their conception is required, not more freedom to destroy them in the womb. For each illegitimate child born because the abortion laws are strict, there may be ten or more such children not conceived because these laws are strict. The exercise of man's procreative faculties, making him (in the phrase of the Talmud) "a partner with God in creation," is man's greatest privilege and greatest responsibility. The rights and obligations implicit in the generation of human life must be evenly balanced if man is not to degenerate into an addict of lust and a moral parasite infesting the moral organism of society. Liberal abortion laws would upset that balance by facilitating sexual indulgences without insisting on corresponding responsibilities.