Introduction In his paper “Why Abortion Is Immoral”, Don Marquis attempts to put forward and defend his argument of why abortion is morally equivalent to the killing of a human. Using the deprivation account of the wrongness of death, he is able to apply the same immorality of killing a human to killing a fetus, even if it is not classified as a human, by claiming that both subjects have the capacity for a future like ours. Yet, Marquis fails in explaining why having a future like ours starts when an embryo becomes a fetus and not earlier in the developmental process, leading to absurd outcomes from his logic that causes his argument to fall apart. In this essay, I posit that the use of the deprivation of account on a fetus leads to logically absurd outcomes, and therefore nullifies Marquis’ the claim that abortion is prima facie wrong.
Marquis’ Argument Marquis’ argument on the immorality of abortion is based on the deprivation account of death. The deprivation account of death says that the primary reason that death is considered bad is that it deprives the victims of death the goods of life now and in the future. Marquis writes that “The loss of one’s life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one’s future…”
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Marquis tries to posit that the future-like-ours argument becomes applicable when the subject becomes a fetus, but does not sufficiently explain why it is this specific point in the developmental process that the future-like-ours argument begins applying. In reality, the future-like-ours argument can be applied earlier in the process, as early as after insemination, due to the conditions that Marquis lays out. Because of this, the use of contraception is morally equivalent to abortion, which is an absurd consequence of the holes in Marquis’