The topic of this presentation is that abortion is the killing of a human being, and it is morally wrong. Don Marquis, in his paper Why Abortion is Immoral sets about an eloquent argument that performing an abortion is in the same moral category as killing another human being (Marquis 183, 189-198, 201-202). He begins by explaining why he believes it is wrong to kill: first he says that it is wrong because it brutalizes the one who kills, and also that it deprives others of the individual's presence. However, he goes on to argue that these are not the major consequences of killing someone. The major consequences, he believes are that killing a person "deprives them of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one's future" (Marquis 189-198) This, Marquis argues, makes killing wrong because the killing "inflicts one of the greatest possible losses on the victim" (Marquis 189-198).
What makes this worse, argues Marquis, is not that the victim is deprived of the activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments of his future life which he enjoys now, but that there are also things which he may not enjoy now, but would have enjoyed in the future, and he is deprived of these, too (Marquis, 189-198). Killing, then, is wrong because it deprives an individual of their future.
Marquis points out that it is accepted that it is wrong to kill babies and young children because it is presumed they have future value (Marquis 189-198). The future of a standard fetus includes "a set of experiences, projects, activities, and such which are identical with the futures of adult human beings and are identical with the future of young children... it follows that abortion is prima facie seriously morally wrong" (Marquis 189-198). In closing, Marquis sums up his argument eloquently by saying, "Since a fetus possesses a property, the possession of which in adult human beings is sufficient...