Response To Marquis On Abortion

Marquis argues that killing a fetus deprives it of a valuable future/future like ours, and concludes by saying abortion is not morally permissible. I agree with Marquis’ argument that it is wrong to kill a fetus through abortion because I believe that they have a valuable future as all humans do. While I agree with Marquis that majority of deliberate abortions are seriously immoral, I do believe that in some cases it is permissible. For instance, choosing to have an abortion after being sexually assaulted or due to life threatening circumstances would be acceptable reasons for having an abortion. Being that the loss of one’s life is one of the greatest losses that can occur, I strongly concur with Marquis’s argument. I will first explain Marquis view and thoughts on …show more content…
The use of contraception is not immoral because there isn’t an individual to be deprived of a valuable future that early on. A sperm and an egg are two organisms, and before fertilization there is no specific individual organism meaning that it could not be “deprived of its future”. Neither the individual sperm, nor the individual egg, has a future of value. Only after fertilization occurs, does a fetus exist that possesses a valuable future. (Marquis 469) Marquis acknowledges that contraception prevents a possible future of value. However, he does not agree that contraception is morally wrong. He backs up his arguments by stating that, “There are hundreds of millions of sperm, one (released) ovum and millions of possible combinations of all of these. There is no actual combination at all…...This alternative does not yield an actual subject of harm either. The immorality of contraception is not entailed by the loss of a future like-ours argument simply because there is no non-arbitrary identifiable subject of the loss in the case of contraception….” (Marquis