Don Marquis's Argument That Abortion Is Wrong?

Don Marquis argues in his article An Argument that Abortion is Wrong that abortion, except in specific rare instances is seriously wrong. He bases this claim off of the principle that killing any innocent human being is wrong. While the central point of most pro-choice individuals is that women should have the right to control their body, Marquis argues that the right of the unborn fetus outweighs the right for a woman to control her body. Before supporting his thesis Marquis lays out one of the main problems in the abortion debate. People in favor of abortion often have a very narrow view on what constitutes a person and this is problematic because it leaves out infants, severely retarded and mentally ill individuals. Cleary killing one of these individuals would be wrong so killing a fetus would also be wrong. In laying out his argument Marquis claims that abortion is always wrong except in …show more content…
One, that it isn’t a guarantee that a fetus will have a FLO only that it potentially could. However, Marquis disagrees that the potentially of the argument debunks it completely. Secondly, other believe that fetuses do not have interests or are conscious beings therefore abortion can be acceptable. This however doesn’t hold true about other temporarily unconscious beings who can’t be taken off life support simply because they aren’t temporarily conscious. Another problem individuals have with the FLO argument is that they believe it gives more value to younger lives than older ones. Although, this can’t be valid because murder punishments are not given out based on the age of the person killed. Lastly, the FLO argument doesn’t necessarily agree with contraception supporters. Having said that using contraception does not harm one individual or individual’s FLO. Marquis argues based on four main arguments why the FLO supports the claim that apportion is seriously wrong except in specific cases even with four