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Having a Future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Charles B. Daniels
Charles B. Daniels
Affiliation:
University of Victoria
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Extract

In a recent article, Don Marquis canvasses the arguments on both sides of the abortion controversy and then puts forward his own argument against abortion:

A. To deprive someone of the value of his or her future is prima facie wrong.

B. The future an adult has is included in the future of the fetus it developed from.

C. Abortion deprives the fetus of the value of its future.

D. Therefore, abortion is prima facie wrong.

I wish to show that this reasoning in no way settles the issue of whether abortion is wrong. Section 1 concerns premise B, Sections 2 and 3 C, and Section 4 A.Notes

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , Fall 1992 , pp. 661 - 665
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1992

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References

Notes

1 Marquis, Don, “Why Abortion Is Immoral,” Journal of Philosophy, 86, 4 (April 1989): 183–202.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

2 Ibid., p. 189–90. It is hardly worth remarking that the opening sentence of this quotation is not universally accepted. Certainly among those who contemplate suicide are many that fail to see its truth. And while life is necessary if there is to be a good life, life is also necessary if there is to be a bad life. From this some conclude that whatever value life itself has derives solely from the value of the events that take place in it.

3 Ibid., p. 192.

4 In the passage cited first it is fairly clear an assumption is being made that the adult I that values certain things now is identical with the future adult I that may later value other things. This is why, according to Marquis, depriving me of my life now may well deprive me of more of value to me than what I value now.

5 Marquis, “Why Abortion Is Immoral,” p. 201.

6 Ibid., p. 190.

7 Ibid., p. 198.

8 Ibid., p. 190.

9 Ibid.

10 The now is especially germane if embryos and fetuses are distinct entities from the adults they sometimes develop into. Suppose a fetus, if not aborted, would develop into an adult who would come to value certain things. What the adult would come to value is quite irrelevant to what the value is of the fetus's future for the fetus, since the two are assumed to be distinct. Only the fetus can now be deprived of its future; since by aborting the fetus, one does not deprive the adult of anything at all, because the adult never did or will exist, and only while existent can a being suffer deprivation. It is only because I, the present existent adult, may come to value certain things which I do not now value — that it even begins to make sense to talk of my being deprived of these future valuables were my life to be taken now.