Abstract

Some critics of Don Marquis's ‘future‐like‐ours’ anti‐abortion argument launch what has been called the Identity Objection. The upshot of this objection is that under a psychological theory of personal identity, a non‐sentient fetus lacks precisely what Marquis believes gives it a right to life – a future like ours. However, Eric Vogelstein, in a recent article, has argued that under this theory of personal identity a non‐sentient fetus, in fact, has a future like ours, which he believes dissolves the Identity Objection. But Vogelstein is mistaken. Even if he is correct that there is a sense in which a non‐sentient fetus has a future of value under a psychological theory of personal identity, the sense in which it has one is importantly different from the sense in which we have one, meaning that, under such a theory, a non‐sentient fetus does not have a future like ours.