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My purpose in The morality of abortion and the deprivation of futures (this journal, April 2000) 1 was to diagnose the intuitive appeal of the future like ours anti-abortion argument in terms of an unnoticed equivocation on "a future of value" and to show that on either of the most plausible interpretations of this expression, the future like ours argument was unsound. 1 I thought a critique of the future like ours argument was worth doing because it is one of the few anti-abortion arguments that do not depend explicitly or implicitly on theological premises rooted in ecclesiastical or scriptural authority.
My purpose in this essay is to demonstrate that Donald Marquis's attempt to rehabilitate the future like ours argument in Deprivations, futures and the wrongness of killing, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics December 2001, rests upon a misreading of The morality of abortion and the deprivation of futures. 2 For this reason it will be necessary to take a close look at the precise language and arguments Marquis employs in an effort to save the future like ours argument. Marquis's interpretation of my argument is also marred by logical errors which lead him to attribute to me implausible moral claims that I neither endorsed nor are implied by any claim I did endorse. Readers interested in unravelling these mistakes are referred to the appendix.
There may be other as yet unstated anti-abortion arguments founded upon intuitions regarding lost futures of aborted fetuses, but if the future like ours argument is fatally flawed, then this most influential version of futurist anti-abortion arguments can be laid to rest. Anti-abortion advocates in liberal democracies founded on religious toleration and separation of church and state will have to look elsewhere for a non-sectarian defence of stringently anti-abortion public policies.
The future like ours argument appears to capture what many people find objectionable about abortion: An innocent human being is killed and thereby deprived of a future of love, laughter, accomplishment and everything else that makes life meaningful. Here is Marquis's most recent formulation 3 :
The future like ours argument
Premise 1: Having a future of value is the basis for the right not to be killed.
Premise 2: Fetuses have a future of value.
Conclusion:...