In Dan Marquis’ article, “Why Abortion is Immoral”, he argues that aborting a fetus is like killing a human being already been born and it deprives them of their future. Marquis leaves out the possible exceptions of abortion that includes: a threat to the mom’s life, contraceptives, and pregnancy by rape. First, I will explain Marquis’ pro-life argument in detail about his statements of why abortion is morally wrong. Like in many societies, killing an innocent human being is considered morally wrong just like in the United States. Second, I will state my objection to Marquis’ argument through examining the difference between a human being already born future compared to a potential fetus’s future. Thus, Marquis’ argument for his pro-life
Marquis is arguing that fetuses, children, and adults are all human beings and have the right to life. Also, Marquis expresses that losing one’s life is one of the worst things that can happen to a human being. So he technically declares that it is horrible to die but not the worst thing to happen to someone. He starts out with the first premise about how the killing of a fetus deprives it of its potential future experiences. Which is a factual statement in that it states that if someone is dead they obviously cannot participate in future events. In Marquis’ second premise, he states that by not allowing a human being to have those future experiences your action is prima facie (accepted as correct until proven otherwise) morally wrong. Marquis argues about how it is wrong to kill someone but it is even worse than other crimes because you are taking away that person’s future and values. Marquis argues how not allowing a child to live is morally wrong to our society because they also have a future and experiences they would miss out on just like all human beings. So Marquis is communicating that fetuses, infants, adults are all human beings and it would be
Thirdly, Marquis concludes from the last two premises and says that if you kill a fetus then it is prima facie seriously morally wrong of you. By killing off a human being’s potential values it is cruel, especially to children because they are defenseless. Then, Marquis asserts that if fetuses and adults are in the same moral categories then the fetus can only be aborted if there is a serious moral concern. In the beginning, Marquis proclaims that there are special cases like rape and the mom’s life being threatened that it would override the “moral wrongness” of abortion. So if the premises that Marquis stated above are all true then we ought to accept his conclusion. The first premise expresses that if you kill someone then one is taking away from his or her future like ours. Marquis statement on the first premise is one we ought to accept because obviously if the person is dead they cannot have a future like ours. The
Marquis’s overall argument is abortion is seriously morally wrong because it involves killing. He states this is wrong because it robs a human of a natural property, which is a “future like ours,” or a FLO. It “deprives one of all experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one’s future.” Killing someone is wrong because it inflicts a great loss on the victim. He states describing this as a loss of life can be misleading because a change in a biological state does not make killing wrong, it is the effect of the killing, making one lose all of the experiences which would otherwise have been possible. The activities are valuable and are the means to something else, like a potential life, which would make ...
My goal in this essay is to show that Tooley’s response to the Potentiality Argument (that is, the argument formulated in the essay question) is not successful and that the fetus ' potential for a valuable life and future does morally justify extending to it a right to life. I begin with a formulation of the Potentiality Argument. Next, I present Tooley’s response to this argument. Finally, I argue that this response fails to establish the claim that killing a person and letting a person die both have an equal moral standpoint.
However, many people may understand Marquis’ argument to mean abortion is immoral because it causes the loss of life, which is not the argument that Marquis is presenting. To begin, the loss of life is merely a change in the status of the biological state. In other words, it is to go from alive- breathing, sentient, animate, to dead or passed away, lifeless. The loss of life is distressing not because of this change in state, but because of the effects of this change. That is to say, a loss of life results in a loss of future, which is not just a change in the biological state but a loss of future “experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one’s future” (321). This point is important to note as Marquis suggests that the primary reason for killing being wrongful is not due to the negative effects of the death on the victim’s family and friends. Rather, killing is wrongful because of its effect on the one who has been killed. According to Marquis, the greatest loss someone can suffer is the loss of their life as they will no longer be able to have a valuable future (321). Thus, the loss of a valuable future is so devastating that Marquis argues that almost all cases of abortion are prima facie
An argument against the viewpoint of Marquis’s is in the situation where the mother's life is at risk when it comes to continuing the pregnancy. Marquis would argue that by getting an abortion you are murdering the fetus and taking away their chance at a future (Marquis, 184). Thomson would counter argue by saying that it is the mother's right to her body to decide between herself and her child’s life. This extreme situation in my opinion should be an exception and considered an extreme case to Marqus. But he would still argue that the fetus has just as much of a right to be saved because they have the absolute right to have what we have. Even if the mother’s life was at risk Marquis would still choose to continue the pregnancy based on the
Granted that killing is wrong; the act of killing alone is not enough to make it immoral, and Marquis argues that it is not the effect it has on the murderer, or the effect of the victims family or friends, but the effect on the victim that makes killing wrong. The fact he/she is deprived of life experiences is the ultimate loss. He uses the example that when people are diagnosed with cancer (or any terminal illness) they experience firsthand what it means to deprive someone of their life and future. The experience of a premature death is one of the hardest challenges to face. This argument supports why abortion is immoral because we get to form a picture of what a fetus would feel if it was aware of what was happening, and Marquis uses pathos to helps create a deeper understanding and a paint a picture that everyone could understand. Even though many argue a fetus is not yet a person...
He states that contraception would be wrong "only if something were denied a human future of value by contraception. Nothing at all is denied such a future by contraception, however." (Marquis, 201). Marquis then lists four candidates in which contraception might harm; 1. Some sperm 2. Some ovum 3. A sperm and an ovum separately and 4. A sperm and an ovum together. For options 1 and 2, Marquis asserts that "assigning the harm is utterly arbitrary" (201). In other words, there is no reason that a sperm or an ovum would be the subject of harm. For option 3, Marquis states that "too many futures were lost". If option 3 was true, then there will be a loss of two futures; one for the sperm and one for the ovum. Finally for the option 4, he states "At the time of contraception, there are hundreds of millions of sperms, one (released) ovum and millions of possible combinations of all of these. There is no actual combination at all. Is the subject of the loss to be a merely possible combination? Which one? This alternative does not yield an actual subject of harm either. Accordingly, the immorality of contraception is not entailed by the loss of a future-like-ours argument simply because there is no non-arbitrary identifiable subject of the loss in the case of contraception."(Marquis, 201). Marquis assumes that in order for something to be deprived of a future, we must
In this paper I will explain Judith Thomson’s argument that abortions are not morally wrong under the condition that the fetus is considered a person. By setting this condition, Thomson advances the argument on why abortions are morally permissible by getting past the triviality of whether the fetus is a person or not. I will explain three cases she presents in which she argues that an abortion is morally justified: (1) It is not wrong to abort a pregnancy that resulted from rape (2) It is not wrong to perform an abortion in order to save the mother’s life (3) In many cases, it is not wrong to abort if the pregnancy resulted from protected, consensual sex and does not threaten the mother’s life. Finally I will present an objection
In this moral standards of society, abortions are becoming more controversial issues. In this paper, I intend to argue against Don Marquis’s argument that a fetus’s having a potential “future just like ours” is a sufficient statement for claiming that “abortion is, except possibly in rare cases, seriously immoral, that it is in the same category as killing an innocent human being” (p.183) I will first explain the reason how Marquis using the “future just like ours” theory to persuasive his argument of abortion is wrong. And given the argument about future of value point, I want to argue about the difference of losing future and the nature property, which Marquis claims that a future is a natural property that attaches to fetuses and any human
Marquis is not specific in his arguments in regards to when life begins, but rather a “majority of deliberate abortion is seriously immoral.” While Marquis is not taking the typical stance on pro-life, “It is always wrong to take a human life,” he does feel this viewpoint is too broad. Marquis enters his argument from a different angle than typical pro-life arguments. His primary argument is killing is not an act that is acceptable on any level. Additionally, when someone is killed, they are basically robbed of their future. What if the person killed was to have been the person who would have found a cure for cancer? Then the death of this person would be costly to society. This includes the case of an abortion where we basically are robbing the future of this unborn child. The unborn child taken because of an abortion could very well be the person that would have cured
In her article Thomson starts off by giving antiabortionists the benefit of the doubt that fetuses are human persons. She adds that all persons have the right to life and that it is wrong to kill any person. Also she states that someone?s right to life is stronger than another person?s autonomy and that the only conflict with a fetuses right to life is a mother?s right to autonomy. Thus the premises make abortion impermissible. Then Thomson precedes to attacks the premise that one?s right to autonomy can be more important to another?s right to life in certain situations. She uses quite an imaginative story to display her point of view. Basically there is a hypothetical situation in which a very famous violinist is dying. Apparently the only way for the violinist to survive is to be ?plugged? into a particular woman, in which he could use her kidneys to continue living. The catch is that the Society of Music Lovers kidnapped this woman in the middle of the night in order to obtain the use of her kidneys. She then woke up and found herself connected to an unconscious violinist. This obviously very closely resembles an unwanted pregnancy. It is assumed that the woman unplugging herself is permissible even though it would kill the violinist. Leading to her point of person?s right to life is not always stronger than another person?s right to have control over their own body. She then reconstructs the initial argument to state that it is morally impermissible to abort a fetus if it has the right to life and has the right to the mother?s body. The fetus has the right to life but only has the right to a ...
Don Marquis pointed out that abortion is serious wrong morally.His’ article,”Why Abortion Is Immoral?”,has been highly anthologized at April 1989. Marquis just explains why abortion is immoral without assuming the personhood of the fetus.It totally skips the argument of Judith Thomson, which is about the right of the mother to choose abortion. Also, Marquis criticizes the argument between anti-abortion and pro-choice always uses the same points to attack each other.It is the result of the stand-off results and forming a vicious cycle. However, he claims his argument can avoid the stand-off result in the debate of whether the fetus has the right or not by the FLO theory alone. And then, is it really correct in ethics aspect?In my opinions,
middle of paper ... ... She argues that fetuses are not persons or members of the moral community because they don’t fulfill the five qualities of personhood she has fashioned. Warren’s arguments are valid, mostly sound, and cover just about all aspects of the overall topic. Although she was inconsistent on the topic of infanticide, her overall writing was well done and consistent.
...le standard of living, and invocation of wisdom and benevolence. Although her action is the morally right one to to take, that is not to say abortion is an act without inequities. Hursthouse refers to this injustice as a “moral failing”. (262) In this case, it would be attributed to the society of Country X, which has allowed for the killing of a human fetus to be morally preferable to its birth.
His second argument deals with the value of life. Pro-abortionists claim that because a fetus cannot value its life, its life has no value. Marquis says, however, that
To refute the statement of pro-abortion that an entity cannot control and decide the right to life unless it has the ability to desire to continue their lives, Marquis claims that a fetus fails to care about or take an interest in something does not mean that the fetus cannot have a right to it (Marquis199). Instead, the fetus can and should have the right to it because they have potential interest in it, furthermore, killing is wrong and fetus can be victims since “their lives are deliberately terminated,” and also “they are deprived of their futures of value and their prospects” (Marquis