Why Abortion is Immoral

Don Marquis
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Course Business

 Extra Credit: Attend Ruth Grant Lecture “What’s
Fair?” and write a ~1 page summary and reaction.
 Friday 5 PM, Honors Commons.
 Details:
http://www.uh.edu/honors/features/events/fairn
ess-series/index.php
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Course Business

 Paper topics will be posted Friday.
 Paper due date: Sunday December 16, midnight, on
turnitin.com pending any serious objections.
Model Introduction

 The view that abortion is, with rare exceptions, seriously
immoral has received little support in the recent
philosophical literature. No doubt most philosophers
affiliated with secular institutions of higher education
believe that the anti-abortion position is either a symptom
of irrational religious dogma or a conclusion generated by
seriously confused philosophical argument. The purpose
of this essay is to undermine this general belief. This essay
sets out an argument that purports to show, as well as
any argument in ethics can show, that abortion is, except
possibly in rare cases, seriously immoral, that it is in the
same moral category as killing an innocent adult human
being.
The current state of the
Debate: Stalemate

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The Root of the Stalemate:
Is a Fetus a ‘Person’?

‘Yes’: abortion is morally akin to murder
‘No’ : ‘abortion is not a wrongful killing. Only
persons have intrinsic moral worth.
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Moving Beyond the
Stalemate

 Indisputable fact: abortion involves killing (ending
the life of) the fetus.
 JJT’s strategy:
 Assume the fetus is a person and show that in some
cases, persons do not have the right not to be killed.
 Marquis’ strategy: determine what makes killing
wrong in general, and see if the same reasoning
applies to the fetus.
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Marquis’ Method

1. Assume that killing you ore me is prima facie (all things
being equal) morally wrong.
2. Discover the natural property that makes such killings
wrong.
 “A natural property will ultimately explain the
wrongness of killing, only if (1) the explanation fits with
our intuitions about the matter and (2) there is no other
natural property that provides the basis for a better
explanation of the wrongness of killing.” (282)
Why is Killing Wrong?

1. Killing brutalizes those who kill?
2. Killing causes suffering to those who knew the
victim?
3. Killing has a terrible effect on the victim:
specifically, depriving the victim of future life
experiences.
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Why is killing wrong?

 “What primarily makes killing wrong is neither its
effect on the murderer nor its effect on the victim’s
friends and relatives, but its effect on the victim. The
loss of one’s life is one of the greatest losses one can
suffer. The loss of one’s life deprives one of all the
experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that
would otherwise have constituted one’s future. (281)
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Why is Killing Wrong?

 Natural Property: Killing us deprives us of a
valuable future.
 General Moral Principle: “It is a serious prima facie
moral wrong to deprive someone of a valuable
future of life experiences.”
 Note: The crucial moral category in cases of killing
is not ‘personhood’ but ‘having a valuable future.’
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The Test.

 “A natural property will ultimately explain the
wrongness of killing, only if:
1. The explanation fits with our intuitions about the
matter
2. There is no other natural property that provides the
basis for a better explanation of the wrongness of
killing.”
Applying the principle

 It is not only wrong to kill biological humans. It
would be wrong to kill alien species who have
valuable futures.
 The wrongness of killing animals depends on the
value of their futures to them.
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Applying the principle

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Applying the principle

 It is prima facie morally wrong to kill children and
infants, because we presume that they have futures
of value. (Although consider the Singer cases…)
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Applying the principle to
abortion

1. It is a serious prima facie moral wrong to deprive
someone of a future of valuable life experiences.
(general moral principle)
2. A fetus has a future of valuable life experience
3. Abortion deprives the fetus of this future.
4. Abortion is a serious prima facie moral wrong.
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Objection?

1. The fetus cannot value its life experience. Therefore
it is not valuable. Value implies a valuer.
Response?
2. The right to life can only be granted to someone
who is capable of desiring its continued existence.
Response?
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Contraception:
Counterexample?

 “If the ethic of killing adopted here entails…that
contraception is also seriously immoral, then there
would appear to be a difficulty with the analysis of
this essay.” (286)
 Question: Why does Marquis accept that this would
count as a counterexample and a “serious
difficulty”?
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Marquis’ response

 “But this analysis does not entail that contraception
is wrong. Of course, contraception prevents the
actualization of a possible future of value. The ethics
of killing in this essay would entail that
contraception is wrong only if something were
denied a [guaranteed] human future of value by
contraception. ” (286-7)
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Marquis’ response

 “Nothing at all is denied such a future by contraception,
however. At the time of contraception, there are
hundreds of millions of sperm, one ovum and millions
of possible combinations of all these. There is no actual
combination at all.”
 Question: What if there were only possible one
combination. Would that make contraception wrong?
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The Story of
Julie and Mark

The Story of
Julie and Mark

 Julie and Mark are brother and sister. They are
traveling together in France on summer vacation
from college. One night they are staying alone in a
cabin near the beach. They decide that it would be
interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the
very least, it would be a new experience for each of
them. Julie was already taking birth control pills, but
Mark uses a condom too, just to be safe. They both
enjoy making love, but they decide never to do it
again. They keep that night as a special secret, which
makes them feel even closer to each other.
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The Story of
Julie and Mark

 What do you think about that? Was it OK for them
to make love?
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