1 / 7

Abortion Pro: Don Marquis

Abortion Pro: Don Marquis. Assumption: “…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.”

mackensie-lee
Download Presentation

Abortion Pro: Don Marquis

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. AbortionPro: Don Marquis • Assumption: “…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.” • Prima facie - “all other things being equal”. A prima facie principle is one which holds as a matter of course but which can be overriden by other considerations.

  2. AbortionCon: Don Marquis • Is it prima facie wrong to kill a human being? • Something with a human genetic code? • A person? (= rational, self-conscious being, social being?)

  3. AbortionCon: Don Marquis • Pro-lifer: Must show why biological characteristics should make a moral difference. • Pro-choicer: Must show why psychological characteristics should make a moral difference

  4. AbortionCon: Don Marquis • “[the pro-choicer] may attempt to find reasons why killing infants, young children, and the severely retarded is wrong which are independent of her major principle that is supposed to explain the wrongness of taking human life, but which will not also make abortion immoral. This is no easy task.” (p. 100)

  5. AbortionCon: Don Marquis • What makes murder wrong the deprivation of a worthwhile future • The deprivation of a worthwhile future is present in abortion, but not in contraception, because there is no existing being who is being deprived of a future, only bare potential

  6. AbortionCon: Don Marquis • There is no duty to maximize potential. • There IS a duty to NOT to deprive existing beings of worthwhile futures.

  7. AbortionPro: Little • Early human life as valuable and “respect-worthy” but neither sacred nor having rights • Gradualism • Gestational assistance • Violinist example • Wrongness increases as fetus’ value grows with development

More Related