Don Marquis Abortion Rhetorical Analysis

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(SUMMARY ANTI-ABORTION)
Don Marquis, on the other side of the abortion debate begins his essay “Why abortion is immoral” through the frustration of little support being given to the thought. This essay was writen to show the falsified belief that an anti-abortion stance is nothing other than irrational religious dogma or a conclusion generated by a seriously confused philosophical argument. The argument is set forth throughout that abortion is, except in rare cases, seriously immoral. This essay sets forth the belief that abortion is in the same category as killing an innocent adult human being. this reading fails to provide any argument for the “hotly debated” abortion circumstances such as : abortion before implantation, abortion due to …show more content…

According to Marquis, “Being a person is understood by the pro-choicer as having certain psychological attributes”(Marquis, 756). Marquis feels that the pro-choice view is flawed because there is no way showing that a fetus is not a person. Marquis tries to bring Immanuel Kant into the scope. I feel that the argument with Kant is not persuasive. He arrives at the conclusion,”No true Kantian would treat persons as she would treat animals. Thus, Kant’s defense of our duties to animals fails to show that Kantians have a duty not to be cruel to animals”(Marquis, 757). Marquis fails to take into consideration the premise of Kant’s thinking: the categorical imperative. Using the categorical imperative, an action can only be moral if it is applied as universal law. “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”(Kant). How could we make abortion a universal law? Clearly there are so many loopholes and circumstances where abortion could be permissible, but that would not apply to universal law because there would be exceptions. Therefore, Marquis’s use of Kant is not …show more content…

Marquis cites the example of FLO (Future Like Ours). Marquis is highly persuasive using this FLO method because he uses emotional attachment comparing the life of a fetus to a life that we may experience. If we were aborted as a fetus, we would not have the life experiences we did. Marquis relates the life of a fetus to ours and tries to convince us as we would not want to be aborted, neither would the fetus. He cites that the only reason killing could be permissible is if we are killing in self defense, to save our own life. The FLO account of the wrongness of killing says that the loss of a future of value is a misfortune, making abortion

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