Moral Problems: Abortion, Part 1

09/21/22
Reading: Don Marquis, “Why Abortion is Immoral”

This Class: Morality over the Legality

1. Deadlock in the Abortion Debate (Standard Arguments Clashing)

 Anti-Abortionist: Fetuses are genetically human. It’s always prima facie wrong to take a
human life (or the life of anything genetically human) So, abortion is always wrong.

- Moral Principle is too broad; predicts for example that it aways prima facie wrong to
kill a living human cancer cell culture.

 Pro-Choice: Fetuses are not persons (rational, social beings). It is always prima facie
seriously wrong to kill only person. So, it is not the case that abortion prima facie is
always wrong.

-Personhood grants you a special moral status (in terms of rights)

-Mere human organisms are not members of the moral community.
-Because fetuses lack personhood, there is no presumptive prohibitions against
abortion.
- What are the criteria for personhood? At what point does the fetus become a person?
- Does the fact of being a potential person matter?
- Principle is too narrow; this would mean it is not wrong to kill infants or young
children or people with severe cognitive disabilities.
- Children do not have the capacity for rational moral reasoning.
 Prima Fascie: At first flush or presumptively wrong.

2. A New Strategy

 What makes killing wrong in the first place?

Don Marquis’ Premise:

If whatever makes it wrong to kill us is also true of a human fetus, then insofar as it is
wrong to kill us, it is also wrong to kill a fetus (abortion is wrong).

What Makes Killing Wrong?

1. Brutalizes the killer.

- No. This would make the act of killing unintelligible from the outset. It cannot non-
circularly explain the wrongness of killing.
 - Negative impact on the psychology of the killer.
- References the very thing we are trying to explain ( presupposes this)

2. The loss others would experience in our absence.

- No. Otherwise we would care if hermits died, and their deaths would be a direct
violation of this idea.

3. The Loss to the Victim.

- Yes, arguably what makes any death regrettable is a sense of loss; this sense of loss is
predicate on a valuable future. We rob the victim of the value of their future.
- Loss to the victim of the value of their future.
- Not mere loss of biological life; but the things that can be valued.
o Explains why we regard killing as wrong, and why people with serious illnesses
believe that dying is a bad thing for them.
 Support:

1. Explains why killing is one of the worst crimes

3. Why people with serious illnesses often believe that dying is very bad for them.

- This is strong since it underlines the feature of what makes death unappealing.

4. Favourable Implications of Maquis’ Account

a. Marquis’ account circumvents the problem of killing infants, young children, and the
mentally ill (problem for the abortionist theories) It is seriously wrong to kill infants
and young children.

b. Marquis’ account does not entail that active euthanasia is wrong or that cancer- cell
cultures should not be removed. (Problem for the anti-abortionists)

- Is not as committal as some of the principals of anti-abortionist arguments.

- These do not commit you to a debate about active euthanasia.

c. Unlike some anti-abortionist theories, Marquis’ account is opposed to the idea that
only biologically human lives have great moral worth.

- His view is not compatible with this (animals can have valuable futures). Not a
specieist view.
5. The Future Likes Ours Argument. - Marquis’ Central Argument

1. Depriving a being of the value of a future likes ours makes killing it prima facie seriously
wrong.
(Feature of the wrongness of killing)

2. Killing a fetus deprives it of the value of a future likes ours.

(a fetus has this feature which makes killing wrong)

3. Therefore, it is prima facie seriously wrong to kill a fetus.

- This argument is valid.

 FLO argument shows that abortion is prima facie wrong. The presumption is very strong,
as strong as the presumption that killing another adult human being is wrong.

 Marquis only needs to show that the deprivation of a future is a sufficient condition for
the wrongness of killing, it does not have to be a necessary condition.

 There are other reasons why killing is wrong that does not involve the deprivation of a
valuable future.

5. Necessary and Sufficient Conditions - Mechanism for Rebuttals

 In the implication B A, If A is a necessary condition for B, then B cannot be the case
unless A is. B only if A.

 If A is a sufficient condition for B, then if A is the case, B is the case. If A then B. AB

 If you win the Nobel Prize at age 16, then you will be accepted at McGill.

 Just being a human being does not mean you will be accepted.

 The status of marquis’ argument is a sufficient condition.

 Necessary and Sufficient ( rely on definitions – Perfect Score)

6. Objections

1. The role of desire:

 - A being’s desire to live is not a necessary condition for the wrongness of killing them.
- I don’t have a valuable future, but I do desire to keep living.
2. Contraception:

- Presumably contraception would be wrong if you a depriving a being of an existence

(a necessary condition for a valuable future)

- No being is being denied a future by contraception.

Reply:

- This is true if and only if some being were being denied a valuable future by
contraception. But this is not the case no being is denied such a future.

 Look at First premise:

Also: Mother fetus division.

- Because the argument is valid, we have to determine if a premise is false.