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Why Abortion Is Immoral
Don Marquis
Marquis argues that abortion, with rare exceptions, is seriously immoral. He
bases this conclusion on a theory that he presents and defends about the wrong-
ness of killing. In his view, killing another adult human being is wrong precisely
because the victim is deprived of all the value-"activities, projects, exporiencos,
and enjoyments"--of his or her future. Since abortion deprives a typical fetus of a
"future like ours," he contends, the moral presumption against abortion is as
strong as the presumption against killing another adult human being
The view that abortion is, with rare exceptions, seriously immoral has received lit-
the support in the recent philosophical literature. No doubt most philosophers affili-
ated with secular institutions of higher education believe that the anti-abortion posi-
tion is either a symptom of irrational religious dogma or a conclusion generated by
seriously confused philosophical argument. The purpose of this essay is to under-
mine 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.
This argument is based on a major assumption: If fetuses are in the same category
as adult human beings with respect to the moral value of their lives, then the pre-
sumption that any particular abortion is immoral is exceedingly strong. Such a pre-
sumption could be overridden only by considerations more compelling than a
woman's right to privacy. The defense of this assumption is beyond the scope of this
essay!
Furthermore, this essay will neglect a discussion of whether there are any such
compelling considerations and what they are. Plainly there are strong candidates:
abortion before implantation, abortion when the life of a woman is threatened by a
pregnancy or abortion after rape. The casuistry of these hard cases will not be
Reprinted, as slightly modified by the author, with permission of the sothor and the publisher from
the Journal of Philosophy, Vol.86 (Anril 1980)
FA
plain causes suffering
ug us a misfortune. The suffering caused by the infliction of pain is
what makes the wanton infliction of pain on me wrong. The wanton infliction of pain
CHAPTER AMORTION 27
animals
of pain
follows
specin and
s shares
wrong
ng whe
or the
ize that
Suche
ture of
sound,
ortion
oom
can be
is thar
the case of cookraception
abor-
ce the
5$ as
like
Ass of
abor
ling
will
no
that
ery
218
is utterly arbitrary, for no reason can be given for making a spert the subject of
harm rather than en byom. Assigning the hare to some oyum is utterly arbitrary,
for no reason can be given for making an ovom the subject of harm ruber than a
sperm. One might attempt to avoid these problemas hy insisting that contraception
deprives both the sperm and the ovem separately of a vabaable future like ours. On
this alternative, too many futures are lost. Contraception was supposed to be wrong.
because it deprived us of one future of value, not two One might aleanpe to avoid
this problem by holding that contraception deprives the combination of
ovum of a valuable future like ours. But here the definite article misleads. At the
time of contraception. There are hundreds of millions of sperm, one (released)
ovum and millions of possible combinations of all of these. There is no swalcom-
bination at all. Is the subject of the loss to be a merely possible combination'? Which
one? This alternative does not yield an actual subject of harm either. Accordingly.
the immorality of contraception is not entailed by the loss of a future-like-ours argo-
meat simply because there is no nonsrbitrarily identifiable subject of the loss in
The purpose of this essay has been to seek out an argument for the serious pre-
sumptive wrongness of abortion butject to the assunuption that the moral permissi
bility of abortion stands of falls on the moral status of the fetus. Since e fetus pos-
sesses a property, the possession of which in adult human beings is sufficieel 10 make
killing an adult human being wrong, abortion is wrong. This way of dealing woth the
problem of abortion seems superior to other approaches to the ethics of abortion,
because it osts on an ethics of killing which is close to self-evident, because the cor-
cial
morally relevant property clearly applies to fetuses, kad because the argument
the usual
equivocations 06 buman life", "human being', me personThe
gument rests neither on religious claims por on Papal dogma ft is wat subject 60
bility of euthanasia and contraception. I deals with our intulions concerning young
the objection of "speciesise." Ils soundness is ompatible with the moral permissi
childrens
Finally, this analysis can be viewed as resolving a standard problem ndeel, the
standard problem concerning the ethics of abortion Clearly, it is weeg wo 54 am
bvaroan beings. Clearly, it is not wrong 10 end the life or sortie antitrarily chosen sin
gle human cell. Fetuses seem to be like arbitrarily chosen human cells in some
respects and like adult humans in other respects the pooblem of the ethics of abor-
tion is the problem of determining the feul property that seirles this moral como
versy. The thesis of this essay is that the problem of the ethics of abortion, so under-
stood, 15 solvable,
avoids
be
8
om
sie
-
in
y
NOTES
1 Judith Juvis Thomsen has rejected this sumption in a los estay. A Defense of Ab
to Philosophy and Public Affairs I. Al 1971.47 66
2 I have been most influenced on this male by Johan Glover, Cousine Beall and Sav-
ing Lewe (New York Penguin, W77) 3 and Robert Yout. What Is So Wrap with
Killing People Philosophy. I 21041919:515-528.
20 CHAPTER ABORTION
on other adult humans causes suffering. The won infliction of pain on animals
Cures suffering. Since chusing suffering is what makes the wanton infliction of pain
wrong and since the wantoa tafliction of pain on samals causes suffering. I follows
that the wantoa infliction of pain on animals is wrong.
This argunsent for the wrongness of the wanton infliction of pain an animals shares
a number of structural features with the argument for the serious prima facie wrong.
nes of abortion. Both arguments start with an obvious assumption concerning what
it is wrong to do to me (or you, reader). Both the look for the characteristic or the
consequence of the wrong action which makes the action wrong. Both recognize that
the wrong making feature of these immoral actions is a property of actions some-
times directed at individuals other than postnatal human beings. If the structure of
the argument for the wrongness of the wanton Indikation of pain on animals is sound,
then the strature of the argument for the prima facie serious wrongness of abortion
is also sound, for the structure of the two arguments is the same. The structure com
mon to both is the key to the explanation of how the wrongness of abortion can de
demonstrated without recourse to the category of person. In neither argument is that
category crucial....
Of course, this value of a future like-ours argumca, sound shows only thm abor-
tion is prima faca wrong, not that it is wrong in any and all circumstances. Since the
loss of the future to a standard ferus, if killed, is, lowever, at least as great a loss as
the loss of the future to a standard aduk human being who is killed, abortion, like
ondinary killing, could be justified only by the most compelling reasons. The loss of
one's life is almost the greatest misfortune that can happen to one. Presumably abor
tion could be justified in some circumstances, only if the loss consequent on failing
to abort would be at least as great. Aceardingly, monally permissible abortions will
be rare indeed unless, pertaps, they occur so carly in pregnancy that a fetus is non
yet detinely an individual. Henke, this argument should be taken as showing that
abortion is presumptively very seriously wrong, where the presumption is very
strong -- strong as the presumption that killing another adult human being is
wroog...
In this essay, it has been argued that the comect ethic of the wrongness of killing
can be extended to fetal life and and to show that there is a strong presumption that
any abortion is morally ampermissible. If the ethic of killing Adopted here cutails,
however, that contraception is also seriously immoral, then there would appear to be
difficulty with the analysis of this essay
But this analysis does not entail that contraception is wrong. Of course, cons-
ception prevents the actualization of possible future of value. Hence, w follows from
the claim that fuures of value should be makiasirod that conuption is prima facie
immoral. This obligation to maximize des not exist, however, furthermore, couh-
ing in the ethics of killing in this paper entils that it does. The ethics of killing in
this essay would entail that creepice is wrong only if something were densed a
human future of value by contraception. Nexhing seslis nied such future by
contraction, wwever,
Candidates for a subject of harm by contraception fall into four categories
*)some sperm ocher, 12) some cum ocoton (3) sperm and An Ovuru sopa
Tately, and (4) a sperm and an ovum together Assigning the harm to some sperm
is utie
harm
for no
sperm
deprive
this
al
becaus
this pro
ovum
time of
Ovuma
blaatio
One TL
the ima
Tree si
the case
This
sumptive
bility of
Sesses &
killingar
problem
because
cial more
avoids th
argumen
the objec
bility of
children
Finally
standard
tuman be
gle uma
respects a
tion is the
versy. The
sored, is
NOTES
1 Judith
PA
2 I hate to
ing is
Nilling
there seems to be good reason for it independendy of public policy considerations.
This consequence is most implausible, and it is a plus for the claim that the loss of
a future of value is what makes killing wrong that it does not share this consequence.
In the fourth place, the account of the wrongness of killing defended in this essay
does straightforwardly entail that it is prima facie seriously wrong to kill children
and infants, for we do presume that they have futures of value. Since we do believe
that it is wrong to kill defenseless little bables, it is important that a theory of the
wrongness of killing easily account for this. Personhood theories of the wrongness
of killing on the other hand, cannot straightforwardly account for the wrongness of
killing infants and young children. Hence, such theories must add special ad hoc
accounts of the wrongness of killing the young. The plausibility of such ad hoc the-
ories seems to be a function of how desperately one wants such theories to work,
The claim that the primary wrong-making feature of a killing is the loss to the vic-
tim of the value of its future accounts for the wrongness of killing young children
and infants directly, it makes the wrongness of such acts as obvious as we actually
think it is. This is a further merit of this theory. Accordingly, it seems that this value
of a future-like-ours theory of the wrongness of killing shares strengths of both
sanctity-of-life and personhood accounts while avoiding weaknesses of both. In
addition, it meshes with a central intuition concerning what makes killing wrong.
The claim that the primary wrong-making feature of a killing is the loss to the
victim of value of its future has obvious consequences for the ethics of abortion
The future of a standard fetus includes a set of experiences, projects, activities, and
such which are identical with the futures of adult human beings and are identical with
the futures of young children. Since the reason that is sufficient to explain why it is
wrong to kill human beings after the time of birth is a reason that also applies to
fetuses, it follows that abortion is prima facie seriously morally wrong.
This argument does not rely on the invalid inference that, since it is wrong to kill
persons, it is wrong to kill potential persons also. The category that is morally cen-
tral to this analysis is the category of having a valuable future like ours; it is not the
category of personhood. The argument to the conclusion that alsortion is prima facie
seriously morally wrong proceeded independently of the notion of person or poten-
tial person or any equivalent. Someone may wish to start with this analysis in terms
of the value of a human future, conclude that abortion is, except perhaps in rare cir-
cumstances, seriously morally wrong, infes that fetuses have the right no life, and then,
call fetuses persons" as a result of their having the right to life. Clearly, in this case,
the category of person is being used to state the conclusion of the analysis rather than
to generate the argument of the analysis.
The structure of this anti-abortion argument can be both illuminated and defended
by comparing it to what appears to be the best argument for the wrongness of the
wanton infliction of pain on animals. This latter argument is based on the assump
tion that it is prima facie wrong to inflict pain on me (or you, reader). What is the
natural propeny associated with the infliction of pain which makes such infliction
wrong? The obvious answer seems to be that the infliction of pain causes suffering
and that suffering is a misfortune. The suffering caused by the infliction of pain is
what makes the wanton infliction of pain on me wrong. The wanton infliction of pain
d
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or animal. What makes killing wrong is some natural effect or other of the killing.
Some would deny this, For instance, a divine-command theorist in ethics would deny
it. Surely this denial is, however, one of those features of divine-command theory
which renders it so implausible.
The claim that what makes killing wrong is the loss of the victim's future is
directly supported by two considerations. In the first place, this theory explains why
we regard killing as one of the worst of crimes, Killing is especially wrong, because
it deprives the victim of more than perhaps any other crime. In the second place, peo
ple with AIDS or cancer who know they are dying believe, of course, that dying is
a very bad thing for them. They believe that the loss of a future to them that they
would otherwise have experienced is what makes their premature death a very bad
thing for them. A better theory of the wrongness of killing would require a different
natural property associated with killing which better fits with the attitudes of the
dying. What could it be?
The view that what makes killing wrong is the loss to the victim of the value of
the victim's future gains additional support when some of its implications are exam-
ined. In the first place, it is incompatible with the view that it is wrong to kill only
beings who are biologically human. It is possible that there exists a different species
from another planet whose members have a future like ours. Since having a future
like that is what makes killing someone wrong this theory entails that it would be
wrong to kill members of such a species. Hence, this theory is opposed to the claim
that only life that is biologically human has great moral worth a claim which many
anti-abortionists have seemed to adopt. This opposition, which this theory has in cor-
mon with personhood theories, seems to be a merit of the theory,
In the second place, the claim that the loss of one's future is the wrong-making
feature of one's being killed entails the possibility that the futures of some actual non-
human mammals on our own planet are sufficiently like ours that it is seriously wrong
to kill them also. Whether some animals do have the same right to life as human
beings depends on adding to the account of the wrongness of killing some additional
account of just what it is about my future or the futures of other adult human beings
which makes it wrong to kill us. No such additional account will be offered in this
essay. Undoubtedly, the provision of such an account would be a very difficult mat-
ter. Undoubtedly, any such account would be quite controversial. Hence, it surely
should not reflect badly on this sketch of an elementary theory of the wrongness of
killing that it is indeterminate with respect to some very difficult issues regarding
animal rights
In the third place, the claim that the loss of one's future is the wrong-making fea-
ture of one's being killed does not entail, as sanctity of human life theories do, that
active euthanasia is wrong. Persons who are severely and incurably ill, who face a
future of pain and despair, and who wish to die will not have suffered a loss if they
are killed. It is strictly speaking, the value of a human's future which makes killing
wrong in this theory. This being so, killing does not necessarily ong some persons
who are sick and dying. Of course, there may be other reasons for a prohibition of
active euthanasia, but that is another matter. Sanctity-of-human-life theories seem
to hold that active euthanasia is seriously wrong even in an individual case where
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