In Don Marquis’ Article, “Why Abortion Is Immoral”, He

Marquis then goes on to disassociate the ‘desire account’ as an influential element of his debate. It is pro-choice belief that takes into account it is someone’s desire to keep living that makes it wrong to kill a person as it interferes with their direct wishes. Once again when relating this view to abortion there is an obvious logical flaw. A fetus does not have the capability to be self aware let alone able to express a desire for the continuation of its life. Dose this make the action morally permissible? If so then Marquis elaborates this idea relating it individuals in circumstances where they either do not desire the continuation of their life or they are unable to express such a desire for instance in a coma. He concedes that it is still deemed wrong to kill them even though there would be no expressed desire for life at the time of the killing. Because the argument is broad it cannot be practically applied in the case of abortion.

There are many factors that are taken into consideration when determining if abortion is morally permissible, or wrong including; sentience of the fetus, the fetuses right to life, the difference between adult human beings and fetuses, the autonomy of the pregnant woman, and the legality of abortion. Don Marquis argues that abortion is always morally wrong, excluding cases in which the woman is threatened by pregnancy, or abortion after rape, because fetuses have a valuable future. Mary Anne Warren contends that late term abortions are morally permissible because birth is the most significant event for a fetus, and a woman’s autonomy should never be suspended.

Judith Jarvis Thomson and Don Marquis both have different views on abortion. Thomson believes that in some cases, abortion is morally permissible, due to the life of the mother. Marquis believes that abortion is almost always morally impermissible, except in extreme circumstances, because the fetus has a future life. I will simply evaluate each of the authors reasoning’s that defend their belief, and give my argument for why I believe Judith Thomson’s essay is more convincing.

An interesting thing that Marquis then does is go on to talk about FLO, or “future like ours”. He claims that killing deprives a person of a future that is like ours, and says that abortion is killing a fetus that will have a future like ours. Taking someone’s entire future away from them is the worst of crimes, and he argues that abortion is this kind of deprivation of future.

In “Why Abortion is Immoral”, Don Marquis offers his anti-abortion argument known as a “future like ours" (Marquis, 558). Marquis takes a step back from focusing on the complicated moral status of the fetus, and instead asks seemingly less controversial questions: what makes killing an innocent adult wrong, and what right we adult humans possess not to be killed? His answer serves as the first premise for his argument: killing is prima facie morally wrong because it deprives an individual of their future of value. His second premise is that killing a fetus, i.e. abortion, also deprives it a future of value, which he refers to as a “future like ours” (559). Marquis concludes that because fetuses possess the innate property that is sufficient to make killing adult human beings wrong, that killing fetuses is also wrong. Simply stated, abortions are prima facie immoral, for the same reason that killing an innocent adult is prima facie immoral (559)

This essay will look at Marquis’s “future like ours” argument and challenge the premises and implications of his conclusion. I will not be considering exceptional circumstances, such as rape or major health implications, as Marquis’ focus was on general deliberate abortions. I will argue that the ideas of personhood, future-directed preferences and bodily autonomy establish a great moral difference between killing an adult and killing a foetus. In disproving Marquis’s conclusion and his counter-examples to criticisms, I will draw upon utilitarian and rights-based theories.

3. If a life is valued based off the future possible contributions then a fetus’s life is more valuable than the mothers’.

In his essay "Why Abortion is Immoral," Don Marquis argues against the morality of abortion on the premise that the value of a fetus' future is so great that it is immoral to take that potential future away from it. Essentially, he contends, abortion is tantamount to murder: killing an individual is prima facie wrong because the loss of the goods of one's future is the worst loss a human can suffer. He calls this potential future a "future-like-ours," which is the basis for his contentions. In the next few pages I will delineate the general progression of his argument, and later, will evaluate the plausibility of said argument. Though Marquis makes both logical and compelling claims, there are

The debate about abortion focuses on two issues; 1.) Whether the human fetus has the right to life, and, if so, 2.) Whether the rights of the mother override the rights of the fetus. The two ethicists who present strong arguments for their position, and who I am further going to discuss are that of Don Marquis and Judith Thomson. Marquis' "Future Like Ours" (FLO) theory represents his main argument, whereas, Thomson uses analogies to influence the reader of her point of view. Each argument contains strengths and weaknesses, and the point of this paper is to show you that Marquis presents a more sound argument against abortion than Thomson presents for it. An in depth overview of both arguments will be

In “A Defense of Abortion” by Judith Jarvis Thompson, Thompson works to argue that even if a human fetus is considered a person, abortion is still often morally permissible. This paper will work to explain Thompson’s positions on the different accounts of the right to life, and to provide an evaluation of them and explain why they are not plausible, specifically regarding three of the analogies on-which she based her entire argument: the violinist, the coat, and the case of Kitty Genovese, as well as to explore a logical counterargument and explain why it’s stance is impermissible.

In his essay Why Abortion is Immoral Don Marquis attempts to argue that abortion is almost always wrong except for a few special circumstances such as when the life of the mother is being threatened by the pregnancy. In his thesis Marquis asserts that abortion is in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being and the ethics of abortion is solvable. The strongest argument that Marquis presents to defend his thesis is the claim that what makes killing wrong is the loss of the victim’s future. In this paper, I will argue that this argument fails because aborting a fetus is not in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being.

In the article, “Why Abortion Is Immoral”, Don Marquis begins his discussion by arguing that standard arguments or standard explanations for and against abortion are rather similar and fairly unsophisticated. He states that the debate has become “intractable.” In the sense that the two sides of the issue have become a dug-in and no one is willing to listen to the other side at this point meaning that it is an entrenched opinion. He argues that we need a fresh start to the issue a better way to think about wrongful killing, in the philosophical literature is something debated that whether wrongful killing such as murder is bad because of the effect on the murderer or the effect on the society or the effect on the victim.

In “Why Abortion is Immoral,” Don Marquis argues that abortion is immoral because it denies the victim, which is the fetus or embryo, of their right to a future-like-ours. He argues that killing is prima facie wrong, and that this logic can be applied to a fetus. In this paper, I will address the ambiguity within the future-like-ours theory, which I will refer to as the FLO theory, and argue that the fetus’ right to a future of value does not override and should not be prioritized over the right to a future of value for the fetus’ host, which is the mother.

While thorough, Marquis’ argument oversimplifies the comparison between the immorality of killing an innocent adult and the (supposed) immorality of killing a fetus; thus, he erroneously commits moral equivalency. Marquis equates these two creatures on the premise that both share the sufficient feature that makes killing wrong: the loss of a future of value. However, the conclusion that follows, that having an abortion is as wrong as killing an innocent adult, is not sound. Marquis neglects important considerations that make these actions morally distinct, and is therefore guilty of using a false analogy. Arguably the most morally relevant difference between these individuals, is that an adult is an autonomous being, whereas a fetus is fully dependent on the mother. Therefore, abortion is a two-person issue, and as such, we cannot evaluate a singular future-of-value as we would in an instance of an adult’s murder.

The following essay will examine the morality of abortion with specific reference to the writings of Don Marquis, Judith Jarvis Thompson, Peter Singer and Mary Anne Warren. I will begin by assessing the strength of the argument provided by Marquis which claims that abortion is impermissible because it deprives a being of a potential “future like ours,” and then go on to consider the writings of Singer, Thomson and Warren to both refute Marquis claims and support my assertion that abortion is morally permissible primarily because of the threat to the freedom and bodily autonomy of women extending the right to life to a foetus in utero would pose.