Future like ours

Future like ours

Abortion is wrong because it deprives the foetus of a 'future like ours'.

This argument was put forward by Don Marquis. It's particularly appealing because it eliminates all the problems of whether the foetus is a person with rights. It goes like this:

Marquis makes the points that:

• death is a bad thing because it deprives people of all the experiences, activities, enjoyments, projects that would make up their future personal life
• a premature death is a bad thing because it causes the loss of future experiences etc.
• abortion is not the same thing as premature death but abortion deprives the foetus of future experiences in the same way as a premature death deprives a human being of future experiences
• therefore abortion is a bad thing for the foetus in the same way as premature death is for human beings
• therefore abortion is as wrong as killing people (causing their premature death)

Potential people

This argument gets round any need to deal with the foetus as a potential person and to consider the rights of potential people.

Contraception

Some people have claimed that this argument also shows that contraception is wrong, because contraception prevents beings having a 'future like ours'. The reply to this is that at the time that contraception is used there is no being in existence to be deprived of a 'future like ours'.

However the argument would suggest that contraception is wrong where the method of contraception has its effect after the egg has been fertilised.

When this argument allows abortion

This argument seems to allow two cases where abortion would not be wrong:

• abortion is not wrong where the foetus, if born, would be so handicapped that it would not be capable of having any future experiences (or at least none that it was aware of).
• abortion is not wrong where the foetus, if born, would be so defective that all its experiences would be so unpleasant or painful that it would benefit from being deprived of those experiences.

However, this actually leaves us at the top of a slippery slope.

We could argue in a similar vein that abortion is not wrong where the foetus, if born, would be born into a society or a situation so dreadful that all its experiences would be so unpleasant or painful that it would benefit from being deprived of those experiences.

Consider the (admittedly fanciful) case of a child born to a slave in a culture where slave children are slowly burned alive shortly after birth as a sacrifice - would we consider abortion acceptable in such a case?

The argument applied to euthanasia and suicide

The basic ideas in this argument can be used in considering euthanasia - and it's clear that this argument would permit some cases of euthanasia - for example where the person is in a permanent coma and is not going to have any future experiences.

However when applying the argument in this case it's important to remember that the argument is not based on whether the individual concerned values the future experiences that may be in store for them.