Why Abortion Is Immoral Why Abortion Is Immoral was written by Don Marquis. His thesis is described in the title. He started off by establishing some historical facts about abortion. According him there were no laws prohibiting abortion in the United States until well into the 19th century. By the 20th century every state passed laws to prohibit it. In 1973 in the case Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that the laws outlawing abortion violated women’s rights to privacy.
He then implies that the legal status of abortion could possibly change in the near future. Marquis believes that the crucial moral question about abortion is “Do we have the same reasons not to kill a fetus that we have not to kill an adult? ” He believes it’s wrong because it deprives them of their future. According to Marquis, abortion is seriously immoral with rare exceptions. Professor Marquis starts off the main body of his essay by dissecting the major arguments for the pros and cons of abortion.
He basically simplifies the arguments down to the fact that Anti-abortionist tend to believe that fetuses are people so abortion is murder and pro-choicer views tend to rely on the idea that fetuses are not people and abortion is not a wrongful killing. According to him there is a standoff. In order for abortion to be proven either immoral or permissible he suggests that it must first be fully understood why killing is wrong.
Marquis takes a somewhat subjective approach to make a point and describes why it would be wrong to kill him in his opinion. He would be deprived of activities, projects, experiences and enjoyments of his future personal life. Inflicting this type of loss on someone is why he states killing is wrong. He then goes on to state that his point is supported by two considerations. One is the fact that it explains why killing is regarded as one of the worst crimes.
The other is the fact that it explains why people with terminal illnesses feel their premature death is a bad thing. He describes that the difference between this argument and the one typically held by many anti-abortionist is the idea that only biologically human life is morally important opposed to his claim that other lives including aliens from other planets is also morally important.
Marquis also goes to suggest that since depriving some of a possibly prosperous future is wrong then if their potential future is only painful and grim then depriving them of their future would not necessarily be wrong. Professor Marquis concluded that it is wrong to kill persons and potential persons because it robs them of their future. He also went on to explain that killing can only be justified by the most compelling reasons. Due to this fact he states that abortion is just as wrong as killing another human being which is morally impermissible.
