ipl-logo

Why Don Marquis's Essay 'Why Abortion Is Immoral'

3011 Words13 Pages

Anthony Miller Dr. Shane Duarte Philosophy University Seminar March 23, 2024 The Permissibility of Abortion I, Anthony Miller, did not use any sort of AI to write this paper. In Don Marquis’s paper, “Why Abortion is Immoral,” he carefully explains why he considers abortion to be wrong and morally impermissible. His first claim is that if we believe that killing an adult is impermissible, then we have no way to prove that killing a fetus is permissible. Marquis claims that killing a fetus is seriously wrong and is only considered permissible in a few circumstances. He states that the only circumstances where killing a fetus is permissible is when the fetus is killed before implantation, when a woman's life is threatened due to pregnancy, and …show more content…

All in all, I believe that Marquis' argument could have been way more clear in order to come to his conclusion that abortion is impermissible. I believe that his argument is missing many different scenarios in the process of pregnancy that lead to abortion. While his argument does prove that abortion can be impermissible due to the loss of a valuable future, he does not take into account many different situations when abortion can also be permissible. For example, he does not take into account whether the mother truly wants the fetus or not. He does not mention whether the mother gave the child the right to use her body or not. His argument could have been more sound if he were to mention this, but I believe that he did not take this into account because he knew that he could easily be proved wrong. Everything he said in his argument was based on things that he knew his audience would agree with. He had a good idea that his audience would agree with the fact that killing an adult is wrong, so therefore killing a fetus is

Show More
Related
128 Words | 1 Pages

Don Marquis’s purpose to his essay is to set out to prove that abortion is seriously wrong. He is addressing that abortion is morally wrong and should not be permitted except in certain cases. The authors thesis is “Abortion, except perhaps in rare instances, is seriously wrong”(Marquis, 754). Marquis’s purpose for exceptions or rare instances is to eliminate those instances that could be considered ethically controversial such as cases like abortion after rape or abortion during the first fourteen days after conception. Marquis provides another exception in the form of a pregnancy that could endanger a woman’s life and abortion when the fetus is anencephalic.

Read More
1230 Words | 5 Pages

This happens when Marquis throws in the part about how it is wrong to take a human life; which may or may not be true, but if that is the case then killing a human cancer-cell culture is wrong. He uses that as an example, because he knows everyone will say that no killing a human cancer-cell culture is not wrong; he uses this to make a very clear point, that anti-abortion is too broad. Since he thinks this, does this make him a pro-choice? No, because he then goes on and says how a pro-choice’s argument is too narrow. A pro-choice person may say how it is only seriously wrong to kill only persons.

Read More
97 Words | 1 Pages

According to the journal Why Abortion is Immoral of Don Marquis, a philosophy professor at Kansas University, he stated that “he tries to show that aborting a fetus is, except in exceptional circumstances, a serious moral wrong.” In fact, killing is not accepted in the society. specially to kill potential human being who has a valuable ability like ours. Although the fetus is not considered as human being and it also have a spirit and sacred, the fetus will be a human being after nine months and ten days, therefore no one could destroy another person’s

Read More
886 Words | 4 Pages

According to him, stating that fetuses are not people is based on the logic that fetuses are not rational. He then says that this lack of rationality is no reason to assert that they are not people. The reason why this argument fails is that pro choice individuals are not claiming that to be a human deserving rights one has to be rational. The point that many pro choice individuals are actually trying to make is that fetuses are not people because they don't have sentience, nor have they ever. They don't have brainwaves, nor have they ever.

Read More
943 Words | 4 Pages

Without the proper funds to support a child’s growth and development, it cannot be claimed that the mother is morally wrong for aborting the fetus when that fetus would not have the potential to have experiences and projects that would lead to a fulfilling life. Another point to be mentioned is that there could be outlying mental, or physical, discrepancies that the mother may face, making the potential future life of the fetus unable to support any form of experience or activity that allows for the future of the fetus to be fulfilling and provide happiness. He states,”The loss of one’s life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one’s future.” (Marquis 423). If unfortunate circumstances, like substance abuse, physical, or mental abuse, arise following the fetus being born, then it could be argued that the mother upholds the right to abort the fetus as it would not be able to have the potential life Marquis describes in

Read More
273 Words | 2 Pages

Patrick Lee and Robert George assert that abortion is objectively immoral. One of Lee and George’s main reason for coming to this conclusion is that human embryos are living human beings. This essentially validates that abortion is indeed the process of killing a human. Another main point said by the two is a rebuttal to a common argument used in favor of abortion, which states that a potential mother has full parental responsibilities only if she has voluntarily assumed them. The rebuttal to this was that the potential mother does indeed have special responsibilities to raise the child.

Read More
1865 Words | 8 Pages

Wade should be reconsidered and potentially overturned due to the potential moral backlash. As a society, humans condone various forms of violence, sexual misconduct, and other unbecoming behavior. Certain laws within the United States criminalize animal abuse on the basis of animals holding a moral significance within the grand scheme of reality, but yet our moral qualms are divisive when considering the potential of a new human life. As it currently stands, infants in the womb are not considered viable and are not considered morally significant. This may in fact be an overstatement in the sense that humanity and the law does in fact care about the protection and safety of a potential human life, but regardless of this notion, the law reflects support for the belief that the moral significance of a mother’s life is more important than that of the fetus.

Read More
1450 Words | 6 Pages

Conclusion: Therefore, terminating a fetus through abortion is impermissible (Marquis, pg.7). Marquis defends Premise 1 by providing a couple of examples. Part 2: Does the future of value

Read More
247 Words | 1 Pages

His outlook on the matter is, if we as humans believe that killing another human being (i.e., adult, child) is wrong, but we do not understand why, then why is it acceptable to kill a fetus when we do not know if it is considered a living being (Jones & Kooistra, 2011). Judith Jarvis Thomson, another

Read More
1384 Words | 6 Pages

Essay On Why Abortion Is Immoral This article called “Why Abortion Is Immoral” written by Don Marquis argues and why abortion is prima facie impermissible. Marquis accesses both anti-abortion arguments and also pro-choicer’s claim to protect the legalization of abortion. My paper is going to understand and examine the the both sides arguments, and to attempt to recognize abortion is immoral.

Read More
692 Words | 3 Pages

"Why Abortion Is Immoral" is the most praised genius life piece in the writing. Marquis (M) starts by taking note of that couple of logicians think fetus removal is unethical, actually, the genius life position has no contemporary philosophical help: The view that premature birth is, with uncommon special cases, truly unethical has gotten little help in the current philosophical writing. Almost certainly most scholars subsidiary with common organizations of advanced education trust that the counter premature birth position is either a manifestation of silly religious authoritative opinion or a conclusion created by genuinely confounded philosophical contention. The reason for this article is to undermine this general conviction.

Read More
1520 Words | 7 Pages

“An Argument that Abortion is Wrong” The debate over abortion has been going on for years, as this controversial topic has never been settled and never will be. It is due to the fact that people are entitled to their own opinions and beliefs, of whether or not abortion is permissible or impermissible. One view on abortion comes from the scholarly paper of “An Argument that Abortion is Wrong,” by Don Marquis. In this paper, Marquis attempts to show that abortion is morally impermissible by appeal to his account of the wrongfulness of killing, the “Future Like Ours” (FLO) account. With this account, abortion is impermissible due to the FLO account because life is meant for one to experience and value it, one cannot do so if they are prematurely

Read More
687 Words | 3 Pages

This is what he does not address and does not take into account. Therefore, his argument is weak for the lack of information. He also goes on to say, “Yet in other areas of reproduction (or life in general) safety alone is not seen as sufficient grounds to make something illegal. The risks should be explained to the prospective mother, and she should then have the right to decide for herself, as with any other medical procedure, whether to accept them”

Read More
1277 Words | 6 Pages

VIII. Abortion is a really serious thing and should only be pondered after the persons involved have considered other alternatives such as give it to the other persons that in need of a baby as adoption. IX. I don’t believe that the abortion argument should be about rights, but about potentiality. X.

Read More
992 Words | 4 Pages

A second reason why abortion is wrong is because it deprives the fetus from his future. When we decide to kill a fetus then we are taking away from him a future like ours. The argument is as follows : (1) it is impermissible to kill humans, who if lived, would have a future like ours, (2) if abortion is not done, the fetus would have future as we do have, (3) so it is wrong to kill the fetus (4) therefore abortion is impermissible. A similar argument was given by Don Marquis in his article “Why Abortion is Immoral”. He stated that what makes killing wrong is neither the effect on the murder, nor the effect on the victim’s relatives or friends, but the effect is on the victim himself.

Read More

More about Why Don Marquis's Essay 'Why Abortion Is Immoral'

Open Document