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

Journal of Medical Ethics 35 (10):651-652 (2009)
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Abstract

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.

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Ezio Di Nucci
University of Copenhagen

Citations of this work

Fathers and Abortion.Ezio Di Nucci - 2014 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 39 (4):444-458.
Embryo loss and double effect.Ezio Di Nucci - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (8):537-540.
Killing fetuses and killing newborns.Ezio Di Nucci - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (5):19-20.
Withdrawing artificial nutrition and patients' interests.Ezio Di Nucci - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (9):555-556.
Broadening the future of value account of the wrongness of killing.Ezio Di Nucci - 2015 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 18 (4):587-590.

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References found in this work

A critique of “the best secular argument against abortion”.C. Strong - 2008 - Journal of Medical Ethics 34 (10):727-731.
Reply to Di Nucci: why the counterexamples succeed.C. Strong - 2009 - Journal of Medical Ethics 35 (5):326-327.

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