Why Abortion Is Immoral

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Why Abortion Is Immoral Don Marquis
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ABORTION IS (ALMOST ALWAYS) IMMORAL

• Marquis thinks that, with rare exceptions,
  abortion is . . . seriously immoral, and that it
  is in the same moral category as killing an
  innocent adult human being.
• For Marquis, the morality of abortion is
  determined by whether or not a fetus is the sort
  of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end.
• Marquis is not considering in this paper such
  difficult cases as pregnancies that threaten the
  life of the mother, or pregnancies that result
  from rape or incest, or pregnancies in which a
  genetically defective fetus will not grow into a
  normal healthy adult.

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TWO RELEVANT QUESTIONS

• Abortion concerns two very fundamental and
  difficult questions one metaphysical and the
  other moral.
• The metaphysical question is What is a person?
  Or, when does an entity become a person and when
  does it cease to be a person?
• The moral question is When is killing beings
  morally acceptable and when is it morally
  unacceptable? Or, what kind of beings is it
  morally permissible to kill, and when?

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THE METAPHYSICAL ISSUE

• The metaphysical question concerns the concept of
  a person, and involves listing all of those
  things or conditions that we take to be necessary
  to define the concept and that are jointly
  sufficient as a definition of a person.
• Does a being have to . . .
• Be conscious to be a person?
• Have a certain level or understanding of things?
  
• Have the ability to make decisions for herself?
• Have a certain kind of body?
• Be able to act and to take responsibility for his
  actions?
• Have the ability to form part of a society?

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THE MORAL ISSUE

• Most moral cultures or societies think that
  killing is justified in some circumstances and
  not in others.
• This is why we have different words that pertain
  to different acts of killing, even though the
  acts have killing in common
• Murder of different degrees based upon intent.
• Manslaughter of different degrees.
• Mercy killing.
• Self-defense.
• Accidental killing.
• Killing in war, etc.

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METAPHYSICS AND MORALITY

• The metaphysical question and the moral question
  have to be tied together in such a way that we
  can determine both when a being is or becomes a
  person, and when killing a person or killing
  something that can become a person is and is not
  justified.
• Concerning fetuses, this is the question of when
  a fetus becomes a person or has enough
  characteristics of a person so that the moral
  laws that protect people from harm are to be
  applied to the fetus.
• It is also the question of when a fetus is
  insufficiently developed to the point that the
  rights of a person do not apply to it in virtue
  of its not having enough of the characteristics
  required of beings to be considered human.

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RIVAL METAPHYSICAL POSITIONS
ANTI-ABORTIONISTS PRO-CHOICE The
concept of a person 1. Human life is present
from conception. 1. Fetuses are not persons. 2.
Fetuses look like adults resemblance. 2.
Fetuses are not rational agents. 3. A genetic
code makes a person. 3. Fetuses are not social
beings.
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RIVAL MORAL POSITIONS IA
ANTI-ABORTIONISTS PRO-CHOICE The
Morality of Killing - First Version 1. Always
wrong to take a human life. 1. Only people
have intrinsic moral worth. 2. Always wrong to
take a babys life. 2. Only wrong to kill a
community member.
The anti-abortionists first position is too
broad since a living cancer cell that is part of
a human might be considered a human life in being
both living and human.
It is also too broad in treating killing as an
act that is intrinsically wrong rather than an
act may be acceptable depending on such things as
motives and actions and events beyond the
killers control self-defense, war, accidental
killing, etc.
With regard to infanticide the anti-abortionists
view is too narrow since it is not clear that a
fetus should be or could be regarded as a baby.
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RIVAL MORAL POSITIONS IB
ANTI-ABORTIONISTS PRO-CHOICE The
Morality of Killing - First Version 1. Always
wrong to take a human life. 1. Only people
have intrinsic moral worth. 2. Always wrong to
take a babys life. 2. Only wrong to kill a
community member.
The pro-choicers view is too narrow since it is
wrong to kill children and mentally disadvantaged
adults, but neither is fully developed and
neither can form a part of a community as normal
adults can.
Also, the pro-choicers view regarding the
immorality of killing is too wide to fit cases of
justifiable killing. (For instance, a community
member killed in self-defense.)
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RIVAL MORAL POSITIONS IIA1
ANTI-ABORTIONISTS PRO-CHOICE The
Morality of Killing - Second Version 1. It is
always wrong to kill a human being. 1.
Person includes children and the retarded.
The problem here for the anti-abortionist is that
it is not clear that a fetus is a human being,
especially at an early stage of pregnancy - it
seems that a fetus has to reach a certain level
of biological development to be considered a
human being
Marquis says that the anti-abortionist view
suffers from two defects one in treating human
being as a biological category the other is in
treating human being as a moral category.
The problem in treating human being as a
biological category is to explain why a merely
biological category should make a moral
difference.
Why should the immorality of killing be tied to a
particular kind of being? How or why does the
particular biological make-up of a being make it
wrong to kill that being? When does a being
achieve the right kind of biology to make killing
it wrong?
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RIVAL MORAL POSITIONS IIA2
ANTI-ABORTIONISTS PRO-CHOICE The
Morality of Killing - Second Version 1. It is
always wrong to kill a human being. 1.
Person includes children and the retarded.
Marquis says that if human being is taken to be
a moral category then we cant say that a fetus
is a human being in arguing against abortion
since that is what needs to be established
through argument.
Marquis says that the anti-abortionist view
suffers from two defects one in treating human
being as a biological category the other is in
treating human being as a moral category.
We cant say It is immoral to kill whatever is
human premise 1. Fetuses are human premise
2. Therefore it is immoral to kill fetuses
conclusion. The reason is that that fetuses
are human is what has to be proved, and cant be
assumed as a premise without begging the
question.
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RIVAL MORAL POSITIONS IIB1
ANTI-ABORTIONISTS PRO-CHOICE The
Morality of Killing - Second Version 1. It is
always wrong to kill a human being. 1.
Person includes children and the retarded.
Marquis notes that the pro-choice position that
only persons have the right to life has a similar
problem. This comes from defining person in
terms of psychological characteristics - such as
being conscious and having certain attitudes,
beliefs, emotions, and a sense of ourselves as
rational agents, etc.
The problem here is the same as with conceiving
of person as a biological category Why should
having psychological characteristics make a moral
difference?

If the pro-choicer says that there is no reason
to argue for this, that we do in fact treat
psychological characteristics as being morally
relevant, then the anti-abortionist can say that
we do in fact treat biological characteristics as
being morally relevant.
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RIVAL MORAL POSITIONS IIB2
ANTI-ABORTIONISTS PRO-CHOICE The
Morality of Killing - Second Version 1. It is
always wrong to kill a human being. 1.
Person includes children and the retarded.
Marquis thinks that the pro-choicer has
arbitrarily extended the concept of person to
include children and the mentally disadvantaged
people as well as fully-developed community
members, but has arbitrarily excluded fetuses to
allow abortion.
Fetuses have some things in common with a
retarded person, such as a human genetic code, a
certain lack of intellectual ability, and
consequent dependence on other people. Why
protect the retarded adult and not the fetus,
especially when the average fetus can develop
into a fully developed member of society -
something that the retarded person cant do?

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RIVAL MORAL POSITIONS IIB3
ANTI-ABORTIONISTS PRO-CHOICE The
Morality of Killing - Second Version 1. It is
always wrong to kill a human being. 1.
Person includes children and the retarded.
If the pro-choicer says that it is for the
greater good of humanity not to bring an unwanted
child into the world, then how can we argue for
societys obligation to take care of the retarded
and elderly? Wouldnt it be for the greater good
to get rid of them since they are often unwanted
burdens?
One also cannot justify abortion by saying that
fetuses are unproductive, and it is only wrong to
kill productive members of society, since
children, retarded people, and many of the
elderly are unproductive and yet it is wrong to
kill them.
The pro-choicer also cant treat a person as a
moral category without begging the question
because she will have to assume, as a premise in
her argument, that fetuses are not human beings.
That is, only people have the right to life
premise 1, a fetus is not a person premise 2,
therefore abortion is not wrong conclusion.
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BIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY I

• Some consideration of biological and
  psychological characteristics of beings does seem
  relevant to moral questions concerning the right
  to life of such beings.
• But the philosophical question in each case is
  Why should morality apply to some forms of
  biology and psychology and not others?
• Regarding psychology, we do think that mentally
  disadvantaged people do have rights. But if
  morality depends on a certain kind or level of
  psychology, then why do these people have rights?

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BIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY II

• We cant even say that rights depend on
  consciousness since we think that our rights
  continue during sleep and comas.
• But if you dont have to be conscious to have
  rights then that leaves room for fetuses, which
  are not conscious, to have rights.
• To say that only beings who are going to be
  conscious have rights then fetuses are protected
  since they will be conscious one day too.

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WHAT MAKES KILLING WRONG I

• Whereas what has been said so far has relevance
  to the subject matter of abortion, Marquis thinks
  that the moral claims made by both sides do not
  touch on the essence of the matter.
• The essence of the answer to the abortion problem
  has to focus on what it is that makes killing
  wrong.
• For Marquis, what makes killing a person wrong is
  primarily the effect on the victim.
• The effect that killing has on the one who is
  killed is that it robs that person of the
  possibility of having a valuable future.

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WHAT MAKES KILLING WRONG II

• Marquis The loss of ones life deprives one of
  all the experiences, activities, projects, and
  enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted
  ones future.
• Marquis Killing someone is wrong because the
  killing inflicts (one of) the greatest possible
  losses on the victim
• (Others might include paralysis, permanent loss
  of consciousness, loss of a loved one, loss of
  limbs, Alzheimers disease, torture, abuse,
  prolonged suffering, imprisonment in harsh
  conditions, etc.)

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WHAT MAKES KILLING WRONG III

• When a person dies, he is deprived of the value
  of his future - everything is given up.
• Inflicting death on someone by killing her
  deprives the person of the value of her future
  and it is this that ultimately makes killing
  wrong.
• Marquis says that his view supports our
  intuitions about the matter we think that it is
  a bad thing for a person to die too early or to
  be deprived of his future by being killed.

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KILLING AND BIOLOGY

• If we maintain that killing is wrong because of
  the loss of someones future then we can leave
  having a particular kind of biology out of the
  matter.
• There may be beings elsewhere in the universe who
  have futures that are as valuable as ours, but
  who may be very different biologically or they
  may be chemical. However, it would be wrong to
  kill them if their futures are valuable.
• Marquiss view of killing being wrong because it
  deprives the victim of the possibility of a
  valuable future might even be applied to other
  species on our planet - dolphins and chimpanzees,
  perhaps.
• To make this argument something would need to be
  added to say just what it is about a particular
  beings future that makes it valuable and so
  wrong to kill that being. He knows that, but
  because his paper is about abortion of human
  fetuses, and not about animal rights, he leaves
  the matter there.

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THE DISCONTINUATION ACCOUNT OF THE WRONGNESS OF
KILLING

• The discontinuation account df. What makes
  killing a person wrong is that people value the
  experience of living and want that experience to
  continue.
• Problem This view does not justify an
  anti-abortion position because fetuses do not
  have experiences, activities, and projects to be
  continued or discontinued.
• The discontinuation account wont be adequate if
  it does not refer to the value of the experience
  that may be discontinued. (Wouldnt it have to
  be good, and not bad? Couldnt killing be used
  to stop terrible suffering?)
• The discontinuation account must be more than a
  bare discontinuation account. It must make some
  reference to the positive value of the patients
  experience.
• The same is true of his future-like-ours account.
  It too must refer to the value of future
  experiences. Marquis says that his view does
  not, by itself, rule out euthanasia.

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THE DESIRE ACCOUNT OF THE WRONGNESS OF KILLING

• The desire account df. People have a desire to
  live, and what makes killing wrong is that it
  interferes with this desire.
• One problem with this account is that it is
  seriously wrong to kill persons who have little
  or no desire to live.
• Another problem is that we desire life because
  we value the goods of life and not simply life
  itself. It is the loss of the goods of ones
  future, not the interference with the fulfillment
  of the strong desire to live, which accounts for
  the wrongness of killing.

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WRONGFUL KILLING AND EUTHANASIA

• From the fact that the robbery of a persons
  future is what makes killing wrong it does not
  follow that euthanasia or mercy killing of
  terminally ill patients is wrong.
• This is because people who face a future of
  intense pain and suffering are not going to be
  deprived of a valuable future if they die, and so
  helping them die may be a good thing.

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KILLING, INFANTS, AND CHILDREN

• Marquiss view that what makes killing wrong is
  depriving someone of the value of his future
  makes it wrong to kill children and infants.
• Theories of killing that are based on the notion
  of personhood that make it wrong to kill people
  have problems accounting for the wrongness of
  killing infants and children because they are not
  yet fully developed persons.
• The category that is morally central to the
  analysis of the wrongness of killing is the
  category of having a valuable future like ours
  it is not the category of personhood.

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QUESTIONS/PROBLEMS FOR MARQUIS I

• The category that is morally central to the
  analysis of the wrongness of killing is the
  category of having a valuable future like ours
  it is not the category of personhood.
• But how then does his theory handle the killing
  of retarded or mentally unhealthy people who have
  no prospect of a valuable future like ours? His
  theory would seem to have as much trouble here as
  a personhood theory of the wrongness of killing.
• Marquis has to add the notion of a good or
  valuable future to his theory since he wants to
  accommodate euthanasia, but how good or valuable
  is the future of a mentally defective person?
• If it is not valuable, then what would make it
  wrong for society to rid itself of the
  responsibility of having to care for these
  people?

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QUESTIONS/PROBLEMS FOR MARQUIS II

• Marquis says that his theory makes abortion, or
  abortion in most instances, seriously morally
  wrong because it is depriving a being of the
  possibility of a valuable future.
• The future of a standard fetus includes a set of
  experiences, projects, activities, and the like
  which are identical with the futures of adult
  human beings and are identical with the futures
  of young children.
• If it is wrong to kill infants because to do so
  is to deprive them of their future, and the
  future of fetuses are identical with those of
  infants, then it follows that it is wrong to
  abort fetuses.
• The problem here is in maintaining in what sense
  the futures of fetuses, children and adults are
  all identical.

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QUESTIONS/PROBLEMS FOR MARQUIS III

• The future of a standard fetus includes a set of
  experiences, projects, activities, and the like
  which are identical with the futures of adult
  human beings and are identical with the futures
  of young children.
• It may be that no sense can be made of such a
  sweeping general statement. What kind of future
  is open to an individual is based on a number of
  complex factors that not only concern his genetic
  make-up, but the amount of experience he has
  accumulated to that point in life.
• The genetic make-up and experiences of people
  both differ greatly. And the combination of the
  two of them have a great role to play in just
  which experiences, projects, activities and the
  like are going to be possible or likely for a
  person to have.
• A fetus has a genetic make-up, but no experience
  of the world to draw on to help shape its future.
• How might these considerations affect Marquiss
  argument?

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QUESTIONS/PROBLEMS FOR MARQUIS IV

• Marquis wants to avoid the problems inherent in
  basing the incorrectness of killing on the
  concept of a person by replacing that concept
  with the notion of having a valuable future. But
  it may not be possible to talk about the notion
  of a future apart from persons and their
  characteristics. And if you have to do that you
  would seem to have the kinds of problem indicated
  above.
• To make his argument work, Marquis would seem to
  have to treat the future as being some region of
  experience that is essentially open and the same
  for everyone. And it may be difficult to
  maintain such a position.

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ABORTION MAY BE ACCEPTABLE IN SOME CASES

• Marquis admits that his argument about abortion
  being wrong on account of the deprivation of a
  valuable future does not prove that abortion is
  wrong in all circumstances.
• Abortion could be justified in a circumstance in
  which the loss that comes from failing to abort
  is as great as, or greater than, the loss of the
  fetuss future life - such as saving the life of
  the mother.

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CONTRACEPTION

• Finally, Marquis says that his position does not
  entail that contraception is wrong.
• This is because contraception is not preventing
  the value of the future life of a being since
  there is not yet any being to speak of its having
  or not having a future life.