AbortionPro: Don Marquis

• Assumption: “…whether or not abortion is morally permissible stands or falls on whether or not a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end.”

• Prima facie - “all other things being equal”. A prima facie principle is one which holds as a matter of course but which can be overriden by other considerations.

AbortionCon: Don Marquis

• Is it prima facie wrong to kill a human being?– Something with a human genetic code?– A person? (= rational, self-conscious being,

social being?)

AbortionCon: Don Marquis

• Pro-lifer: Must show why biological characteristics should make a moral difference.

• Pro-choicer: Must show why psychological characteristics should make a moral difference

AbortionCon: Don Marquis

• “[the pro-choicer] may attempt to find reasons why killing infants, young children, and the severely retarded is wrong which are independent of her major principle that is supposed to explain the wrongness of taking human life, but which will not also make abortion immoral. This is no easy task.” (p. 100)

AbortionCon: Don Marquis

• What makes murder wrong the deprivation of a worthwhile future

• The deprivation of a worthwhile future is present in abortion, but not in contraception, because there is no existing being who is being deprived of a future, only bare potential

AbortionCon: Don Marquis

• There is no duty to maximize potential.

• There IS a duty to NOT to deprive existing beings of worthwhile futures.

AbortionPro: Little

• Early human life as valuable and “respect-worthy” but neither sacred nor having rights

• Gradualism• Gestational assistance• Violinist example• Wrongness increases as fetus’ value grows

with development