Marquis's Argument Position Analysis

Marquis describes a future as achievements, activities, projects, enjoyment and experiences, and to rob a person/fetus of that is a huge loss; this is what makes murder immoral. He believes a loss of a future is a loss of life, as seen with the future like ours argument, but such a claim can be shown as untrue in the case of patients who suffer brain death/irreversible coma. Marquis only highlights the future in an optimistic light and it is in this positivity that it is implied that to be alive equates to having a valuable future. When a patient is brain dead, they lose total function of the brain and all vital functions that the brain would normally regulate seize to continue. They fall into an irreversible coma and ultimately depend on
298). If this position is accepted, abortion is morally permissible as fetuses do not satisfy the conditions for personhood and there is no loss of a future. However under this umbrella, infanticide, the act of killing an infant, is morally permissible as they do not meet the criteria to be considered a person and fetuses and infants are intertwined within the same category. Although the terms Warren has outlined is accepted, it can be agreed upon that infants do possess a valuable future (although they are not termed as persons). Infants have the potential to have experiences, enjoyment, achievement and other values that would have constituted a future and the same can be implied to fetuses. By claiming abortion is morally permissible, and since a fetus does not satisfy the terms of being a person, it is ultimately accepting that it is morally permissible to commit infanticide, as both agents are not persons. These actions rob both a future and a life if the liberal position is accepted. I will now provide a reason as to why the loss of future is not a loss of a life by analyzing the mother’s future (or lack