Abortion Is Immoral -- by Article Critique

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In page after page (roughly 189-200) Marquis engages in lengthy semantics that appears to mimic the kinds of arguments and questions that were launched in Plato's "The Republic," which of course was Socrates' style of questioning the validity of every conceivable argument and assertion. For example, Marquis uses esoteric language to flush out the wrongness of killing, per se:

"Since we do believe that it is wrong to kill defenseless little babies, it is important that a theory of the wrongness of killing easily account for this.

Personhood theories of the wrongness of killing, on the other hand, cannot straightforwardly account for the wrongness of killing infants and young children. Hence, such theories must add special ad hoc accounts of the wrongness of killing the young. The plausibility of such ad hoc theories seems to be a function of how desperately one wants such theories to work" (192).

Meanwhile, Marquis references iconic philosopher Immanuel Kant ("Kant's argument for the wrongness of inflicting pain on animals rests on a claim that, in a world of Kantian moral agents, is demonstrably false…") (Marquis, p. 194), and pro-choice philosopher Michael Tooley ("Tooley's claim that an entity cannot possess the right to life unless it has the capacity to desire it's continued existence… [is wrong]") (p. 198-99).

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Abortion is wrong, Marquis argues (202), because "Since a fetus possesses a property, the possession of which in adult human beings is sufficient to make killing an adult human being wrong, abortion is wrong."

Conclusion

While Marquis is clearly an intelligent writer, he is trying to tie the reader up in semantically skillful knots with circular, confusing philosophical meanderings. In the real world of American law, a woman's right to chose trumps any philosophical argument. The U.S. Constitution's Ninth Amendment guarantees the right to privacy, which is the basis for Roe v. Wade. Abortion is legal and it will remain legal providing the next appointee to the Supreme Court is made by a president that respects the Constitution and a woman's right to make her own decision, not one forced on her by an arbitrary government in Washington, D.C.

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