Don Marquis Rhetorical Analysis

In this paper I will argue that except in the case where the conception was happened unwillingly such as rape, and pregnancy which might harm the mother of the fetus, abortion is morally wrong and thus should not be allowed. In the following paragraph of this paper, I will discuss, evaluate, and raise an objection to Don Marquis’s main argument of his essay “Why Abortion is Immoral”.

In this section I will explain Don Marquis’s arguments in the essay “Why abortion is wrong”. Marquis believes since killing a person, the effect of murder on the victim, will cause the victim loss one’s future life including experiences, enjoyments and other activities that are valuable for the person, hence it is morally wrong to kill an actual person. Based on

this claim, he then generates that it is also wrong, as much as to kill a person, to kill a fetus; children and infants also have their futures of value, if it is wrong to kill a baby who has a future-like-our theory is wrong, then it is also wrong to kill a fetus who also have a set of future activities and experiences.(Marquis) An example to better understand this claim would be to set ourselves in the same situation.

For example, if a college kicked a current student out due to college’s own selfish reason will cause the student loss his value of future benefits from enrolling in a college is unjustified and wrong, then it is not difficult for us to agree to do such thing to a accepted but not yet enrolled high school student is also unjustified and wrong. The main argument from the above claim is that if we agree if killing a person after one’s birth will cause them to loss their value of future is wrong, then we must also agree killing a fetus who we presume has a value of future just like ours is also seriously morally

wrong. And Marquis explained that he believes this argument doesn’t rely on the inference of killing a person or killing a potential person. It is more focused on the analysis of the loss of a future-like-ours theory rather than the loss of a personhood. He argues that most pro-choicer claimed that abortion is ok because fetus can’t be count as a person like us but only a human cell. However, although it is not wrong to end the life of a human cell but it is too arbitrary to consider a fetus as a random human cell because it is presumably a fetus also have a set of future values like persons like us. Marquis raised an objection to Kant’s account, that we do not have direct duties to animals at all because they are not persons, in order to support his own argument. He also concluded that abortion could be justified I some rare instances, which if the pregnancy would harm the mother of the fetus. However, these rare instances don’t include unwilling conception such as rape.
In this section I will evaluate Marquis’s major argument and raise an objection to it.

I see Marquis’s argument as a combination of fallacies. First of all, the basic argument of Marquis can be seen as the following: 1.it is wrong to kill someone which will cause one to loss their valuable future; 2.Abortion will cause the fetus to loss it’s valuable future; 3.Therefore it is morally wrong, unless in rare circumstances, to abort a fetus. It seems logical and easy to follow with his claims and premises to come out to such conclusion. Although I personally agree that it is morally wrong to abort a upcoming life, but Marquis has some error in his reasoning on his definition of valuable life, and the loss of it. By talking about the loss of a valuable life, we have to first have a clear idea of what does a valuable life stands for and what does the ‘loss’ of it means.(Sinnott) Marquis explained a valuable life contains future experiences, activities, and etc. And killing one is wrong because by killing one will cause one to loss these ‘upcoming’ future experiences. But, can you actually loss a ‘future’? He is having fallacies of inadequate evidence in some way and also a fallacy of equivocation in his conclusion.(Sinnott) We can only lose something, if and only if we had it at once. Obviously, a ‘future’ is not something we can own right now, not even in the future. For example, you want to win a scholarship during a writing competition. There aren’t many people at the contest,

and only you and another student, let’s call him Jim, had passed the previous task and come to the final round. At this situation, since one of you guys must win the scholarship so it is reasonable to say it is either you or Jim will win the contest; presume there won’t be any uncontrollable causes such as the contest cancelled, end of the world, etc. The scholarship was held by the writing organization; Jim won the final round and thus won the scholarship, can you say it is Jim who caused you to lose a valuable scholarship if it was never given to you? The premises of Marquis are all relevant and sound enough but these premises aren’t enough to make a transition and establish his conclusion. And what if there are some rare instances, such as conception happened as rape, and a pregnancy that would hurt the mother of the fetus? Therefore, although I agree with Marquis’s main concept of his argument, but I think it is not morally wrong when an abortion has to happen due to the above reason I mentioned.
In this paper I have argued that abortion is morally wrong except in extreme circumstances such as rape and pregnancy which will harms the mother of the fetus. Marquis’s arguments are all relevant and sound to the conclusion but since there is misleading fallacy in his premises, his argument is isn’t strong enough to other pro-choice people.