Coming into this article I have to say I had a very liberal view towards abortion. I never really thought about the rights of the unborn child, but rather the rights of the mother. Don Marquis presents the “right to life” argument in a convincing way and gave me some hesitance about my opinion of abortion. However, while not a direct rebuttal to Marquis’s article, Judith Jarvis Thomson helps restore my opinion by arguing for the permissibility of abortion in certain situations.
The view that what makes killing wrong is the loss to the victim of the value of the victim’s future makes sense to me. And this is what really strengthens the case against abortion. Nothing has more of a future than an unborn child. Therefore, by killing a fetus, theoretically we are losing more of a future than by killing an adult. However, I believe that a conscious human being’s life is worth more than a fetus even though there is less future left. The impact of those close to this individual would be greater, and the mere fact that this person has an interest to be alive makes his life of greater importance than a fetus with no interests. But this begins to get complicated if we are talking about certain lives being worth more than others.
What I think matters the most is the interest of the mother. As Thomson illustrates in a number of examples, including the violinist one, a mother does not have a duty to carry an unborn baby whose existence is due to rape. The mother has the right to decide what to do with her body. I would go farther and say that the mother has this right even in pregnancies that were not due to rape.
One thing that neither author really touched on was the life prospects of the child after birth. It’s just assumed that the child will have a good life. Do unborn fetuses have a right to a life of being abused by their parents? Or not receiving the kind of nurturing, upbringing, or attention we’ve come to expect in raising a child. Obviously, the child can be put up for adoption if it is clear that the child will not have a home, or parents that will take care of him. But, as we all know, there are many stories of abusive households. If the case were clear the baby would be going into an abusive household, why not allow abortion? And even further, if the mother simply does not want to go through pregnancy, why not allow abortion?
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For so long, I felt strongly about being against abortion. I believed that under no circumstances should an unborn baby be aborted, period. But as I got older, my views had changed with different situations that I heard about. Now I think about the unborn child of a mother who was raped, or the unborn child that has a severe disability. This brought to my attention what Might Skunk mentioned that neither author never touched on, life prospects of the child after birth. I ask myself these questions, how does it feel to the child that grows up knowing that their mother was raped and they were the result? Or how a child has to struggle miserably through life with such severe handicaps that who knows what would happen, perhaps the parents had high hopes in the beginning when the child is born to do everything they can to help them, but possibly giving up on the child later in life. There is so much more involved when it comes to making decisions in cases like these.
ReplyDeleteMarquis gets the intuition pumps running by pointing out the similarity between abortion and killing an innocent human being, which is the depriving of one's (or, that thing's) valuable future. I am going to claim that Marquis is mistaken about this.
ReplyDeleteSo, killing is wrong because it robs one of his future and abortion is wrong because it robs the fetus of its human-like future that is valuable.
Despite the initial intuitive appeal, I can't buy his argument for two reasons. I think mighty skunk was pointing to the first reason: it seems to me that a consequence of Marquis' view would be that a fetus is more valuable than adult humans, because a fetus has in front of it a greater 'quantity' of human future (and that's valuable) comopared to an adult human being, who is already aged and has less of a future left to be lived.
Yes, when the Titanic was sinking, they let women and children get on the lifeboat first; but I don't believe that this was because the lives of children were more valuable than the lives of adult men. I am more attracted to the vew that all things being equal, all life is equally valuable.
My second point:
Marquis' claim is that when adequately cared for, a fetus will develop into a human being and realize a valuable life as a human being. Thus, abortion is robbing the fetus of that valuable future.
I think more needs to be said on why robbing something of it's future is morally wrong. First of all, I do not think there is such a thing as a right to a valuable future--hence, no right is violated by depriving one of a future. Second, in principle, very many things, when correctly cared for, can develop to enjoy a valuable future, even a human future (for instance, any one of my cells could be used for cloning, and that would result in a human being--however, I don't think it's morally wrong to destroy some of my living cells...).
Both authors have a good points that their arguments are not too far from each other except Thomson's view for some exceptions for mother's right to protect herself from danger on her life by her disease in carrying the baby or unwanted baby by rape case which she did not commit herself on her responsibilty.
ReplyDeleteMarquis's argument was so strict that there are no room to work or protect for mother's right. If she is going to die because of her pregnancy before baby's born, then they would loosing both their lives and futures. In this case, there are no values or futures in their lives. Either baby or mother dies, we could not apply any utilitarian theory here or Kantanian theory.
Our lives are only one time. we should protect our lives whether it is short or long. It does not matter that we should protect or responsible for our lives. No one would say that you are murder because you killed your baby to save your life from disease. All individual ahs a right to protect individual own life from harming or from danger.
If mother dies because she was carrying her full term of baby. It can be a sad story for a baby and on own her whole family. Who could be replace mother's role for her other children if there are any or wife for her husband. How about their qualitative future lives without mother or wife? as far as Marquis argument is for baby's future life, Is it important to considering other's future lives?
I just wanted to make a brief comment on what you have addressed as not touching on the fact that we are assuming that all unborn children will be given a good life if they are brought to term. My feeling is that Don Marquis was trying to touch on how we can not assume this and that the desire account is compatible only with the "value of a future-like-ours account (p.551). I may be wrong, but this was what I had interpreted what he was saying.
ReplyDeleteUsing the "value of a future-lie-ours account" as a argument against abortion, how does it fit into the lives of fetuses that are know to posess a serious genetic disease that will is not terminal but wilil create a life of pain and suffering for the child? That life in a sense would not be like ours, would it then be morally justified to terminate the pregnancy?
ReplyDeleteOk I am pulled because I am very pro choice but I am very moved by Marquis’s argument. The paper flows like those brackets people use to map out march madness or some other tournament. So you have this side and this side, this one wins here this one wins here, then you are down to very specific opposing views and only one will win so I found myself on Marquis's side by the end with no clue how I got there. I was drawn to the anti abortion team by a map that seemed logical and obvious. For example, there was one of the match up's I was particularly divided.
ReplyDeleteI am a pro-choice woman that is raising a son with severe physical and cognitive impairments. It didn't occur to me until reading Marquis's argument that in order to be pro-choice I should be all for terminating the lives of severely disabled persons. eeeek. I mean my son can't communicate enough to say don't kill me but I think he enjoys his life as much as he can with what he has been given. So when forced to choose a side I go with banning abortion if it protects handicapped people.
The limits of both sides are illustrated time and time again but I soon learned you can be whole heartedly pro or anti abortion with out swallowing some tart medicine.
I feel that a "future like ours" is broad enough to encompass those that have a harder road due to elements out of their control. However a world full of wanted children is still a better world. By wanted I mean wanted by someone, anyone, as long as they have pure intention. But there are many children out there no one wants any part of.
What I find abstract is the term "like". A future “like” ours means something different to everyone but I think we assume we all have the same picture in our minds. Know what I mean?
Lebenswelt, I am curious to hear more on your view that people do not have a right to a valuable future. Is there a difference between a valuable future and a future with experiences one values? Or are those just semantic differences?
ReplyDeleteI would like to know your reasoning as to why you believe that, because it is the crux of Marqui's argument. You pointed out the absurdity of extending the argument to skin cells, but I believe it possible, if not necessary as well as logical, to extend Marqui's "future like ours" argument to the topic last week, stem cell research.
Would embryos then also have a "future like ours"? Does the argument apply to embryos not used for IVF or those used for stem cell research?
It seems as though it would because with the right amount of care all embryos would have futures they value as adult humans (just as fetuses would). All of this is to say that I'm interested in the argument against a right to a valuable future.