On how to interpret the role of the future within the abortion debate

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

In a previous paper, I had argued that Strong's counterexamples to Marquis's argument against abortion-according to which terminating fetuses is wrong because it deprives them of a valuable future-fail either because they have no bearing on Marquis's argument or because they make unacceptable claims about what constitutes a valuable future. In this paper I respond to Strong's criticism of my argument according to which I fail to acknowledge that Marquis uses "future like ours" and "valuable future" interchangeably. I show that my argument does not rely on not acknowledging that "future like ours" and "valuable future" are interchangeable; and that, rather, it is exactly by replacing "future like ours" with "valuable future" that I construct my argument against Strong. I conclude with some remarks on how Marquis's concept of "future like ours" should be interpreted.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Medical Ethics
Volume35
Issue number10
Pages (from-to)651-2
Number of pages2
ISSN0306-6800
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2009

    Research areas

  • Abortion, Induced, Female, Human Rights, Humans, Pregnancy, Value of Life

ID: 136849182