This issue should be judged on the basis of whether or not a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end. To resolve this, a necessary condition of resolving the abortion controversy is a more theoretical account of the wrongness of killing. After all, if we merely believe, but do not understand, why killing adult human beings such as ourselves is wrong, how could we conceivably show that abortion is either immoral or permissible?
Premise 1: If an action deprives an individual of a future of value like ours, it is prima facie seriously wrong.
Premise 2: Abortion deprives a standard fetus of a future of value like ours.
Conclusion 1: Therefore, abortion is prima facie seriously morally wrong.
What primarily makes killing wrong is neither its effect on the murderer nor its effect on the victim's friends and relatives, but its effect on the victim. The loss of one's life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer. The loss of one's life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one's future. Therefore, killing someone is wrong, primarily because the killing inflicts one of the greatest possible losses on the victim.
The effect of the loss of my biological life is the loss to me of all those activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments which would otherwise have constituted my future personal life. These are either valuable for their own sakes or are means to something else that is valuable for its own sake. When I am killed, I am deprived both of what I now value which would have been part of my future personal life, but also what I would come to value. Inflicting this loss on me is ultimately what makes killing me wrong. This being the case, it would seem that what makes killing any adult human being prima facie seriously wrong is the loss of his or her future.
The claim that what makes killing wrong is the loss of the victim's future explains why we regard killing as one of the worst of crimes, because it deprives the victim of more than perhaps any other crime. Furthermore, the account of the wrongness of killing defended here 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. The claim that the primary wrong-making feature of a killing is the loss to the victim 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.
The claim that the primary wrong-making feature of a killing is the loss to the victim of the 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 central 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 abortion is prima facie seriously morally wrong proceeds independently of the notion of person or potential person or any equivalent.
Since the loss of the future to a standard fetus, if killed, is at least as great a loss as the loss of the future to a standard adult human being who is killed, abortion, like ordinary killing, could be justified only by the most compelling reasons. This argument should be taken as showing that abortion is presumptively very seriously wrong, where the presumption is very strong as strong as the presumption that killing another adult human being is wrong.
One way to overturn the value of a future-like-ours argument would be to find some account of the wrongness of killing which is at least as intelligible and which has different implications for the ethics of abortion.
One rival account is based upon the obvious fact that people strongly desire to continue to live. This suggests that what makes killing us so wrong is that it interferes with the fulfillment of a strong and fundamental desire. The problem with the desire account is that we do regard it as seriously wrong to kill persons who have little desire to live or who have no desire to live or, indeed, have a desire not to live. We believe it is seriously wrong to kill the unconscious, the sleeping, those who are tired of life, and those who are suicidal. We desire life, because we value the goods of this life. The goodness of life is not secondary to our desire for it.
Another rival account says what makes killing wrong is the discontinuation of the experience of living. If it is the continuation of one's activities, experiences, and projects, the loss of which makes killing wrong, then it is not wrong to kill fetuses for that reason, for fetuses do not have experiences, activities, and projects to be continued. However, the discontinuation account will not be adequate at all, if it does not refer to the value of the experience that may be discontinued. If the patient's future is a future of value, we want our account to make it wrong to kill the patient. Obviously, then, it is the value of that patient's future which is doing the work in rendering the morality of killing the patient intelligible.
A strategy for avoiding these anti-abortion consequences involves arguing that fetuses lack a property that is essential for the value-of-a-future argument to apply to them. One move is based upon the claim that a necessary condition of one's future being valuable is that one values it. Given this one might argue that, since fetuses cannot value their futures, their futures are not valuable to them.
This move fails. My future can be valuable to me even if I do not value it. This is the case when a young person attempts suicide, but is rescued and goes on to significant human achievements. Such young people's futures are ultimately valuable to them. A fetus's future can be valuable to it in the same way.
Another attempt to reject the anti-abortion position argues that an embryo cannot be a victim, because it lacks sentience, and mere metabolism is not enough to ground victimizability. The problem is that both plants and the permanently unconscious clearly lack what I have called a future life like ours. The real reason we believe plants and the permanently unconscious cannot be victims is that killing them cannot deprive them of a future life like ours; the real reason is not their absence of present mentation. Of course, embryos can be victims: when their lives are deliberately terminated, they are deprived of their futures of value, their prospects. This makes them victims, for it directly wrongs them.
If the ethic of killing adopted here entails that contraception is also seriously immoral, then there would appear to be a difficulty with the analysis. But this analysis does not entail that contraception is wrong. The ethics of killing in this essay would entail that contraception is wrong only if something were denied a human future of value by contraception. Nothing at all is denied such a future by contraception, however.
Candidates for a subject of harm by contraception fall into four categories: some sperm or other, some ovum or other, a sperm and an ovum separately, and a sperm and an ovum together. Assigning the harm to some sperm is utterly arbitrary, for no reason can be given for making a sperm the subject of harm rather than an ovum. Assigning the harm to some ovum is utterly arbitrary, for no reason can be given for making an ovum the subject of harm rather than a sperm. Insisting that contraception deprives both the sperm and the ovum separately means too many futures are lost. Contraception was supposed to be wrong, because it deprived us of one future of value, not two. Holding that contraception deprives the combination of sperm and ovum of a valuable future fails because at the time of contraception, there is no actual combination at all. Accordingly, the immorality of contraception is not entailed by the loss of a future-like-ours argument simply because there is no nonarbitrarily identifiable subject of the loss in the case of contraception.
This issue should be judged on the basis of utilitarian calculations of actualized future value and the competing rights of the fully-conscious humans involved. Marquis explicitly makes the assumption that whether or not abortion is morally permissible stands or falls on whether or not a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end. There are two issues that arise in assessing this claim: (1) Is the fetus the sort of thing that could have any rights or toward which we could have obligations? (2) Are these rights or obligations prima facie or absolute? Marquis's claim seems to conflate the two issues, assuming that whatever rights of, or obligations to, fetuses there are, they must be absolute. The assumption that any obligations we have to fetuses are absolute, presented without argument, is philosophically irresponsible.
The question of abortion inextricably involves at least two lives and a compelling bundle of rights on the side of the woman carrying the fetus, whatever we decide about the status of the fetus. Ignoring these rights makes about as much sense as considering the issue of the moral permissibility of killing adult, fully-conscious humans without considering the justification of self-defense. We must apply utilitarian calculations to determine whether or not a birth is a good or bad thing based on the projected future of the child and the present reality of the parents.
Premise 1: If an action deprives an entity of a potential future, it is only prima facie seriously wrong if that entity possesses a self-realized future of value and if preserving it does not necessitate overriding the competing rights and futures of actual persons.
Premise 2: A fetus possesses only a potential future of value rather than a self-realized one, and preserving it inherently competes with the overriding rights and futures of actual persons.
Conclusion 1: Therefore, abortion is not prima facie seriously morally wrong.
Premise 3: If it is inherently morally wrong to deprive a potential person of a future of value, then it is equally morally wrong to deprive a potential-potential person (a specific sperm and egg) of a future of value.
Premise 4: It is not morally wrong to deprive a potential-potential person of a future of value through contraception.
Conclusion 2: Therefore, the principle that it is morally wrong merely to deprive an entity of a potential future of value is logically flawed.
Fundamentally, the problem with his argument is that he equivocates the idea of a potential future of value with a self-realised future of value to make his argument. If you try to use either of those definitions of a future of value in a way that doesn't equivocate, his theory doesn't work. Marquis realises the value of his future, whereas a fetus does not, yet he uses the self-realised future of value to justify the potential future of value. Fetuses obviously don't have a self-realised future of value, so they cannot be protected by the principle that we shouldn't kill beings with a self-realised future of value.
Future value can be judged as potentially good or bad. It's not a black and white matter where future value is something that is morally necessary to preserve. Marquis's point that people have futures and prospects is overly optimistic and not very realistic, and is clearly from the perspective of a relatively rich, well-off person. For every person like him, there are countless people for whom life isn't an overall positive experience, either because of hardship or, worse, poverty. Furthermore, many people seek abortions because they are either unable or unwilling to support a child. Either case would likely result in a lot of suffering for the child if it were to be born; their needs will likely be left unfulfilled, or they might have to endure abuse or neglect. Children being born into squalor, famine, war, violence could be seen as having a net negative future value. Thus, abortion is more moral than having children in these circumstances.
The loss of the value of the future is inherently a neutral act, since if we aren't around we don't feel anything. Marquis describes a pain that a murder victim experiences upon missing out on a lot of future events. Even if we assume that that future is a bright one filled with happiness, this pain doesn't really exist in the case of a quick, painless death. We simply stop existing, and so does our capacity to think. Once a person dies, they are very likely unable to look back on the experiences they would have had and grieve them. Therefore, in the case of a quick, painless death like abortions are, there is no such pain. Indeed, if we think that indefinite torture is worse than death, we can see that there is something worse than simply losing your future: a forced future with a negative value is certainly worse.
Then we must take into account the future of the parents. Having and being forced to take care of an unwanted child could itself be a net negative on their future. Consider also that the future of the parents is now, whereas the future of the fetus or infant is far in the future. The rights of the mother regarding abortion are paramount. After all, she is the only actual person involved. Consequently, it is to her that one owes overriding obligations. Even if we might ultimately agree that the fetus is the sort of thing whose killing is so morally wrong as to overwhelm completely a woman's rights to privacy, health, medical care, and even life, the point surely needs argument.
Marquis acknowledges that in some cases, abortion may be morally justified, however, he fails to defend what cases these are. It seems that his position, that abortion is wrong due to the deprivation of future life, is incompatible with permitting abortion in the circumstances of rape, as there is still a fetus with a potential future life involved. Additionally, it seems that in the situation where either the mother or fetus will die in childbirth, Marquis must favor the fetus. The fetus seemingly possesses more potential life than the mother strictly based on age, but it seems absurd not to favor the mother’s life in these scenarios.
If we acknowledge fetuses have a potential future of value, and should be protected, we need to look at what this entails. Fetuses cannot survive independently from humans; human intervention is necessary for their continuity. If we are going to say that abortion is wrong, due to a potential future of value, this means that we are obliged to nurture anything with a potential future value similar to our own. This complicates things. There are many, many things that have a potential future of value similar to our own, that could achieve that future with human nurturing. Theoretically, with sufficient manipulation, any human cell has the potential to eventually become a viable human being. Does this mean that we have a duty to protect every human cell? I would think not.
A typical objection to Marquis’s view is that his position deems contraception immoral, as it denies the potential for future human life. Marquis' argument need not apply only to potential persons. How about potential potential persons? The value of the future to the fetus has nothing to do with the fetus itself. There is no inherent property of the fetus that is its future value. The value of the future is simply our hypothetical conception of the course of its life. If the future value of potential human beings is a good, why isn't the future value of potential potential human beings a good?
Marquis gives four candidates for the subject of harm by contraception and argues there is no nonarbitrarily identifiable subject of the loss. This defense is inadequate. Just because there is no nonarbitrary subject of the loss of a future-like-ours in the case of contraception, does not mean a loss does not occur. If my parents had used contraception on the night I was conceived, I wouldn't be here. The specific sperm and egg that became me would not have joined, and I would have never existed. That sperm and that egg could totally be considered a future me just as much as a zygote can. The difference between the outcome using contraception and a reality in which I was conceived, but aborted, is something I just can't see. It's a difference that lies only in minute and arbitrary details and distinctions.
Every decision we make can either increase or decrease the number of futures. If Marquis' case does compel us to maximize the number of futures, we are morally obligated to make all sorts of ill-advised choices, such as mass-producing zygotes, engaging in sex constantly, never using contraception, et cetera. When we use contraception in this case, we are denying the future value of a hypothetical fetus, just as with abortion we are denying the future value of a hypothetical person. This of course results in an absurdity: It would be the moral duty of every fertile woman to be pregnant 24/7 under Marquis' view. Because this is logically absurd, we cannot argue against abortion based merely on a potential future of value.
