Who Is Don Marquis

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Don Marquis, in his essay “Why Abortion is Immoral,” argues that abortion is morally impermissible.

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Marquis is challenging the potential of personhood. This view asserts that abortion is wrong because it prevents a potential person (the fetus) from developing into an actual person. According to this view, the moral status of the fetus depends on its potential to become a person with a valuable future.

Marquis argues that if we accept the potential personhood view, we must also consider other entities with similar potential. He points out that human cancer cells are genetically human, yet they don’t have a right to life. By highlighting this, Marquis challenges the notion that genetic humanity automatically grants moral rights.

If “human” means “morally human,” the potential personhood view becomes question-begging. It …show more content…
He argues that the pain and suffering experienced by those close to the deceased only contribute to the wrongness of killing. This explanation, according to Marquis, is inadequate because it ignores the importance of individual rights. He argues that every living being has an inherent value and dignity simply by being alive, and killing violates this right. Therefore, even if the consequences of killing are severe, this does not in and of itself make killing morally wrong.

Marquis suggests that the loss experienced by family and friends is subjective and can vary from person to person. One person's loss may be greater than another's, but this does not explain why killing one person is always wrong. A killing is morally wrong regardless of what it does to others, according to Marquis. This explanation could have unintended consequences. As long as killing brings loss to others, then it may be morally acceptable to kill those who have no one to care about them. This undermines the moral significance of life and the fundamental right to

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Abortion: A Woman's Prerogative Essays

the controversial decision a women will no longer have to be forced into being a single mother, a housewife, or being forced to have a baby while being in poverty. Women now had a choice. That case alone should be enough to silence those pro-lifers who believe that this should be overturned and stating that it is immorally wrong to have an abortion. Abortion can also be argued to be seen as criminal because the unborn child is not able to defend itself at all. As explained by author Caitlin…

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Don Marquis Argument Analysis

type of abortion, and I will refute Don Marquis argument against abortion as it fails to consider the mother’s autonomy and rights. Marquis has demonstrated the impermissibility of abortion in his paper Why abortion is immoral. After analyzing the standard pro-choice, and pro-life arguments, he concluded that most arguments seem to broad or too narrow. Marquis then determined that if the moral question “Why is it wrong to kill an adult human being” (Marquis 189), can be logically deducted, rather…

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sophisticated and famous arguments opposing abortion in literature: Don Marquis’ “An Argument that Abortion is Wrong.” In the second section, I will not focus on examining his basic argument, which known as…

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Don Marquis Abortion Analysis

Within this essay by Don Marquis, Marquis explains his opinion that abortion is definitely more on the pro-life side of the spectrum. He also believes that abortion is the act of killing a being with a right to life and killing a being with a right to life is seriously morally wrong because it robs such a being of its future. Marquis means to convey that the act of killing an unborn child should be seen just as cruel as the murder of an innocent adult man. Before beginnings to discuss his own view…

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Essay about Response to Don Marquis' "Why Abortion Is Immoral"

Don Marquis' "Why Abortion is Immoral" In his essay "Why Abortion is Immoral," Don Marquis argues against the morality of abortion on the premise that the value of a fetus' future is so great that it is immoral to take that potential future away from it. Essentially, he contends, abortion is tantamount to murder: killing an individual is prima facie wrong because the loss of the goods of one's future is the worst loss a human can suffer. He calls this potential future a "future-like-ours,"…

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there was an evolution in abortion cases. Abortion went through a phase where it became legal to perform them in hospitals or in private clinics. This made it a lot safer for women to abort a pregnancy, but quickly following these events, many people who were against abortion began to harass those getting abortions and protest even to the point of violence in some cases. Points of View The issue of abortion has been a problem for many years. A large part of the debate over abortion is the ethical…

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of a fetus for the sake of the woman who carries it. In the article, “An Argument that Abortion is Wrong” by Don Marquis, abortion is wrong for the same sake that killing and murdering a human being is wrong; there can be no justification. Throughout the article the main arguments for pro-life are as highlighted: fetuses have their right to life, the “Future like Ours” account of the wrongness of killing, furthermore, the use of arguments…

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Judith Jarvis Thomson On Abortion

Jarvis Thomson aims to defend abortion while Don Marquis aims to fight it, in most cases. With the topic of consensual sex, their views are opposing. Thomson believes in cases of consensual sex there is no moral obligation on the right of the woman. She created an analogy as a scenario in which a woman could be pregnant but wishes to terminate the pregnancy. The scenario itself is based off of an entity she created called the “person-seed”. A house-owner, who installed screens on his…

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Ethics Paper 2

any of these six characteristics; therefore it is not necessary to grant it personal status. Moreover, the right of the fetus as a potential person does not outweigh the moral rights of the actual person who wishes to have an abortion. Lastly, the one I was most convinced with was from Don Marquis, Why is Abortion Immoral? Simply because killing adult human beings deprives them from a valuable future; fetuses are not an exception; they also have a valuable future. Therefore killing a fetus is wrong…

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