Don Marquis offers the following argument against the moral permissibility of abortion:
1. It is wrong to deprive any determinate individual of having a “future like ours” (FLO), that is, of the future valuable experiences that its future may contain.
2. To have an abortion is to deprive a determine individual (a fetus) of a FLO.
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3. Therefore, it is wrong to have an abortion.
Marquis’s justification for premise one is that a fetus is a person. He believes that fetuses have a future of value and that it is wrong to deprive an adult of their future value. Also, marquis supposes that killing a being with a right to life is seriously morally wrong because it has such future, in other words, a great value. An example that best explain his argument would be something like if the younger you are when you die; the more of your life is taken or lose. Like children, they could drown and die or be killed in the womb. This is sort of how Marquis thinks about abortion. He tries to establish this argument by making it against abortion without depending on the controversial premise. He seems to struggle a little bit with this argument. From what we know, he
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He believes that embryos don’t have a sentience. To do something wrong, we have to deprive from an actual individual of their possible future. In cases like this, there is no individual who is wronged. When it comes to the having a valuable future, one must take an interest in that specific future. Fetuses can’t take an interest in their future so they lack interests. For example, if there is someone who is unconscious that takes no interest in the future but life support CAN be in the interest because it is something that takes no interest in it. So killing the fetuses is wrong because they do not take any interest in. I ultimately believe my objection over contraception succeeds in undermining Marquis’s
1002215550 5. Sinnot Armstrong criticizes Marquis’s article and tries to refute the argument made by Marquis in his tendentious paper “You Can’t Lose What you Ain’t Never Had”. Firstly, he points out the Fallacy of Equivocation committed by Marquis on the word ‘Loss’. The word loss has two meanings which he shows with his race example while showing the ethics of abortion. In the race example he says that if there are two people running in a race and one is faster than the other and beats him; it is a neutral loss as the person who lost was not entitled to win.
This, according to Marquis, applies to abortion as well. He stated that the reason why murder is an issue is because "The loss of one's life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one's future. " The way I see it, this is not the best explanation regarding why murder is wrong*. Even if it was the perfect explanation, it doesn't seem to help Marquis' argument as this doesn't apply properly to fetuses.
Don Marquis’s purpose to his essay is to set out to prove that abortion is seriously wrong. He is addressing that abortion is morally wrong and should not be permitted except in certain cases. The authors thesis is “Abortion, except perhaps in rare instances, is seriously wrong”(Marquis, 754). Marquis’s purpose for exceptions or rare instances is to eliminate those instances that could be considered ethically controversial such as cases like abortion after rape or abortion during the first fourteen days after conception. Marquis provides another exception in the form of a pregnancy that could endanger a woman’s life and abortion when the fetus is anencephalic.
Essay On Why Abortion Is Immoral This article called “Why Abortion Is Immoral” written by Don Marquis argues and why abortion is prima facie impermissible. Marquis accesses both anti-abortion arguments and also pro-choicer’s claim to protect the legalization of abortion. My paper is going to understand and examine the the both sides arguments, and to attempt to recognize abortion is immoral.
In A Defense of Abortion Thompson presents an argument against the morality of abortion by showing the superiority of women’s rights through several different analogous cases. The case of focus will be case eight, “ A Selfless Brother’s Box of Chocolates.” In scenario one, Thompson argues that an older brother has a box of chocolates while his younger brother has nothing; the question of appeal is does the younger brother automatically have a right to these chocolates? The box of chocolates represents a woman’s body while the younger brother represents the fetus. Although it would be nice for the older brother (mother) to share his box of chocolates (mothers body) he is not obligated to share them with anyone even if he is perceived as a selfish, greedy, or a stingy person.
Mary Anne Warren establishes a belief that a fetus’s right to live is overruled by an expecting mother’s right to an abortion because it is not a technically a true person until it is born. Warren supports her argument by saying that a nearly full-developed fetus is no more significant than a small embryo because “…it is not fully conscious… it cannot reason or communicate message… and has no self-awareness” (Warren, page 499). In contrast, our text states that “…some fetuses develop the capacity to survive outside the womb…” after nearly being two-thirds fully developed; this means that a fetus is ultimately capable of communication and awareness through it’s movements (Munson and Lague, page 469).
Abortion is not only a fluctuating concept in our society, but an ethical and emotional debate, as well. The image I have chosen presents concepts from a cultural and historical background, as well as presents an ethical, emotional, and logical appeal to the audience. The debate about abortion has simply been overblown and exhausted. The truth of the matter is, abortion is murder. Ending a life, whether innocent or guilty, is murder.
Patrick Lee and Robert George assert that abortion is objectively immoral. One of Lee and George’s main reason for coming to this conclusion is that human embryos are living human beings. This essentially validates that abortion is indeed the process of killing a human. Another main point said by the two is a rebuttal to a common argument used in favor of abortion, which states that a potential mother has full parental responsibilities only if she has voluntarily assumed them. The rebuttal to this was that the potential mother does indeed have special responsibilities to raise the child.
Rosalind Hursthouse in her paper Virtue Theory and Abortion, handles with the moral standpoint of abortion from a virtue ethics perspective. Her research is directed towards investigating whether or not an abortion is something a virtuous person would do. Hursthouse examines the morally relevant considerations and in so doing, she rejects the standard questions used to determine the morality of an abortion such as the status of the fetus, and the rights of a women. The morally relevant considerations she sees fit to assess the moral legitimacy of an abortion are concerns with family relationship, personal circumstance, and basic biological facts. Through her considerations, Hurthouses account of virtue ethics gives us adequate moral advice in regards to the question of abortion.
VIII. Abortion is a really serious thing and should only be pondered after the persons involved have considered other alternatives such as give it to the other persons that in need of a baby as adoption. IX. I don’t believe that the abortion argument should be about rights, but about potentiality. X.
In “A Defense of Abortion,” Judith Thomson argues with a unique approach regarding the topic of abortion. For the purpose of the argument, Thomas agrees to go against her belief and constructs an argument based on the idea that the fetus is a person at conception. She then formulates her arguments concerning that the right to life is not an absolute right. There are certain situations where abortion is morally permissible. She believes that the fetus’s right to life does not outweigh the right for the woman to control what happens to her own body.
Hursthouse states, “... the status of the fetus - that issue over which so much ink has been split - is according to virtue theory, simply not relevant to the rightness or wrongness of abortion” (Hursthouse 164). Don Marquis argues that abortion is seriously wrong. Marquis does admit that his argument can include some exemptions which include such cases as
The debate whether abortion is morally permissible or not permissible is commonly discussed between the considerations of the status of a fetus and ones virtue theory. A widely recognized theory of pro-choice advocates can be thought to be that their ethical view is that fetus’s merely are not humans because they lack the right to life since they believe a fetus does not obtain any sort of mental functions or capability of feelings. Although this may be true in some cases it is not in all so explaining the wrongness of killing, between the common debates whether a fetus does or does not obtain human hood, should be illustrated in a way of a virtuous theory. The wrongness of killing is explained by what the person or fetus is deprived of, such as their right to life; not by means of a heart beat or function of one’s body, but by the fact that it takes their ability of potentially growing into a person to have the same human characteristics as we do.
Doris Gudino Professor Chounlamountry Political Science 1 27 July 2015 Pro-Choice Anyone? A woman has, undoubtedly, the freedom to procreate, but once a woman chooses to retreat from that freedom, a commotion arises. Abortion is a woman’s choice for many reasons. It’s her body, therefore, no one else can decide for said person.
A second reason why abortion is wrong is because it deprives the fetus from his future. When we decide to kill a fetus then we are taking away from him a future like ours. The argument is as follows : (1) it is impermissible to kill humans, who if lived, would have a future like ours, (2) if abortion is not done, the fetus would have future as we do have, (3) so it is wrong to kill the fetus (4) therefore abortion is impermissible. A similar argument was given by Don Marquis in his article “Why Abortion is Immoral”. He stated that what makes killing wrong is neither the effect on the murder, nor the effect on the victim’s relatives or friends, but the effect is on the victim himself.