Why Abortion is Immoral

Don Marquis

Attacking a Straw Man

• The whole point behind philosophical argument (and argument in general) is progress.

• If one does not address the strongest possible argument one can imagine, then no progress is possible.

• Attacking a straw man is attacking a version of an argument that is easy to knock over rather than the version of the argument that has some merit.

• In the common abortion debate, each side misrepresents its opponent as simple-minded and foolish, and attributes to their opponent positions that no rational person holds.

False Dichotomies

• This is another way of misrepresenting an argument. • Example:

– Pompey: “If you’re not for me, you’re against me”– Caesar: “If you’re not against me, you’re for me”

• Another Example:– Pro-life (anti-choice)– Pro-Choice (anti-life)

• (Note that not ALL dichotomies are false, but whenever a dichotomy is presented that IS false, it should be pointed out.)

Some false starts:

• As it happens, Marquis identifies a pair of arguments in the common abortion debate.

• As it happens, neither argument is really any good.

The personhood arguments

1. A fetus is human

2. humans have rights

C. abortion is impermissible

•in this case what is unclear is what connection biology has to morality•If ‘human’ is used in the moral sense, the argument is question-begging.

1. A fetus is not a person

2. non-persons have no rights

C. abortion is permissible

•It is equally unclear what connection psychology has to morality•If ‘personhood’ is used in the moral sense, the argument is question-begging.

General Thesis

• Marquis: One reason that we can plausibly give for the wrongness of killing adults (in most cases) applies equally well to most cases of abortion.

Marquis on the right to life

• The right to life has a positive and a negative interpretation

• The positive right to life is the right to have others preserve your life.

• The negative right to life is the right not to be killed by others.

• Marquis, in discussing why it is wrong to end human life, argues for a negative right to life.

Marquis’s goal:

• Marquis’s goal is to describe one (among many) accounts of why killing in general is wrong and show that that principle applies to fetuses as well as adults.

• This is to be done in such a way that does not make voluntary euthanasia wrong (though it may be wrong for other reasons) and doesn’t make contraception wrong and also doesn’t invoke religions or the status of fetuses as persons or not.

What is wrong with killing?

• It certainly seems that the wrongness of killing must be located in what it does to its victims. (as opposed to barbarizing the perpetrator; after all, if nothing is in itself wrong with killing, how does doing it barbarize?)

Deprivation:

• The harm that killing seems to do is that it deprives someone of their lives, or rather, their futures.

• Simple enough, but the account is incomplete.

Value:

• A fetus has a future like ours, so abortion is wrong for the same reason that murder of innocent adults is, that is deprives the victim of the value of its future.

• This constitutes a prima facie reason for the wrongness of abortion, but it is possible for other ethical principles to intervene.

The argument:

1. Killing is wrong because it deprives its victim of the value of a future like ours

2. Fetuses have a future like ours

C. Abortion is wrong

Other cases

• It is important to Marquis that the FLO account does not have unpleasant consequences for other cases.

• Specifically:– Should not outright bar voluntary euthanasia,– Should not bar contraception– Should account for why killing is wrong but

still sometimes justifiable– (and others in the text, but not these notes)

voluntary euthanasia:

• May be wrong for other reasons, but is permissible in the sense that if a person’s future holds no value to them then they are not deprived of anything in losing it.

• This is different from the ordinary case of suicide, because a person’s future in most cases has value to them even when they do not think that it does. Terminal illnesses change the story.

contraception:

• Is morally permissible because in preventing a conception, who is harmed?

• Does an individual egg or sperm cell have a future like ours?

The Worst of Crimes

• The FLO account does explain why murder is among the worst of crimes: it deprives its victim of something extremely valuable.

• The FLO account also explains why exceptions to the ‘no killing’ rule are so rare: there are few things that weigh against the value of a future, but there are some.