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Recent critics of Don Marquis's antiabortion argument1 have focused on an assumption embedded in the argument: if a fetus has a right to life, then nearly all abortions are immoral. They have contended that a right to life does not include a right to the means necessary for the continuation of that life (such as a woman's womb and blood); thus even if Marquis shows that a fetus has a right to life, he does not show that abortion is immoral.2 For two reasons I believe this strategy should be abandoned and another employed. The first is that Marquis, in response to these critics, has given a somewhat plausible defense of the view that a fetus with a right to life has a right to a woman's womb and blood.3 The second reason is that Peter K. McInerney, an early critic of the argument,4 has essentially shown that Marquis fails to establish that a fetus has a right to life in the first place, making moot the debate over whether a right to life implies a right to things needed to continue living. My purpose here, then, is to refocus discussion of the antiabortion argument on McInerney's refutation of Marquis's case that a fetus has a right to life. Specifically, my aim is to bolster this refutation in two ways: by defending it against an objection in the literature and by supplementing it with a separate refutation that shows Marquis's case that a fetus has a right to life leads to an inescapable dilemma involving twinning. While this new refutation can stand alone, I explain how it dovetails with McInerney's and accordingly package it as a boost to his. Strengthened in these two ways, McInerney's refutation, I believe, leaves little doubt that Marquis fails to show abortion is immoral.
1. The Future-Like-Ours Argument
Marquis's "future-like-ours" antiabortion argument (hereafter "FLO") hinges on a claim about what in most cases makes killing an adult human wrong when it is so. Marquis holds that the wrongness derives from the fact that killing "deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one's future," which Marquis dubs a "future of value."5 He expresses this crucial point, and ultimately FLO, in terms of property...