Abstract
In response to criticism of the impairment argument for the immorality of abortion, Bruce Blackshaw and Perry Hendricks appeal to Don Marquis’s future-like-ours (FLO) account of the wrongness of killing to explain why knowingly causing fetal impairments is wrong. I argue that wedding the success of the impairment argument to FLO undermines all claims that the impairment argument for the immorality of abortion is novel. Moreover, I argue that relying on FLO when there are alternative explanations for the wrongness of causing FAS begs the question. I conclude, therefore, that the impairment argument remains unsuccessful.
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Bobier, C. The Impairment Argument and Future-Like-Ours: A Problematic Dependence. Bioethical Inquiry 20, 353–357 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-023-10262-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-023-10262-7