Abortion Arguments

I just completed reading the second response to Don Marquis' Why Abortion is Immoral from the Journal of Philosophy. This response was slightly better than Cudd's (see Ethics blog re: her completely ridiculous and insulting arguments). This philosopher argues that a fetus does not have a future like ours, as Marquis claims.

A fetus cannot possibly have a future like ours, because this would require the fetus to have a mental capacity in which it plans, has intentions, etc. Because a fetus does not always have these features, argues the philosopher (name escapes me and is hard to retrieve), the it does not "possess" a future. When the fetus is capable of thought in some rudimentary sense, then it will obtain a future.

However, this is again moving the argument back to the moral status of the fetus. This response requires the reader to contemplate whether the fetus is, at the time of being an undevelloped person (personoid), a human being and a person at the same time. However, this is again the argument from which Marquis escapes.

Whether the fetus has, at any given time, the ability to contemplate its future is moot. Per Marquis, the fetus has the potential for a future, which should be fulfilled in the passing of time. The fetus' ability to plan for, change or affect this future is unimportant for this argument. Rather, the fetus has a good potential (not necessarily great, one must take several factors, such as still birth, into account) to actualize a potential future.

For the second time, Marquis' argument stands strong against these critiques. Having not taken a public view on abortion myself, and therefore not being extremely interested in what the correct argument is, I am not too disturbed by philosophers apparent inability to confound Marquis.

However, from the stance of Marquis' argument of the "wrongness of killing," I deeple want to find a reasong to prove his definition wrong. Marquis claims that killing is wrong because it deprives a person of a potential future, which ought to hold things such as experiences, enjoyments, activities and projects. This theory, at the moment, is very seductive. For some reason, it makes sense, and I cannot immediately think of a valid and sound rebuttal. Unfortunately, the argument is DEVASTATING to my moral theory, which (the short version), claims that all morality is a result of our duty to propagate the human species.

If killing is wrong because it deprives someone of their future life, the definition comes into conflict with my previous idea - that killing is wrong because it eradicates what might be a potentially important member of our species. However, if the ethical wrongness of death is involved with what is important to the individual rather than to the aggregate whole of humanity, many of my other theories fall. In the Duty Theory, human life is important because we must {instinctually} continue human-kind. However, in Marquis' contention, human life is important to the individual more than anything, who others, specifically, potential killers, must respect.

I would find it easier to absorb this theory into my contractarianism, however, the problem of duty still vexes me. I am excited to possibly learn from this - it is important that I find holes in my argument for morality so that I can ever improve my thoughts. However, I thought that I had put an adequate amount of thought into my theory as to keep it from being toppled so easily. I worry that I may be mistaken in many other aspects.