Marquis's incorrect application of the FLO argument

            While Marquis’s assessment of the reason for which we consider killing wrong seems accurate, I do not think it makes sense to speak about depriving something of having a future like ours until there exists a being that has had and will have a consciousness.  Of course, Marquis would say that this is not necessary, but I think the case of contraception sufficiently shows that applying the FLO argument without looking first for such a being can lead to some issues.

            While I agree that both looking at the future of the sperm or ovum individually or looking at the two futures of the sperm and ovum as two things have problems, looking at the one future of the ovum and sperm together does not.  Marquis says that doing so does not make sense because there is “no actual combination at all” due to the large number of sperm released at a time, while ignoring the fact that we can simply look at the future of the ovum and the sperm that would have combined with the ovum.  Just because there are many possibilities does not mean that using contraception will not have prevented one of those possibilities.  When performing IVF, often multiple embryos will be implanted even though ideally only one would implant and become a baby.  If someone destroys all the embryos, isn’t a pregnancy prevented?  Just because there were multiple possibilities and it was not clear which embryo would actually have become the baby does not mean that a pregnancy was not prevented.  Similarly, just because there are many sperm does not mean that contraception does not prevent the formation of a zygote that has a future like ours.

            If this is true, it seems to me that Marquis has two options: 1) decide that the sperm and ovum do have a future like ours or 2) decide that the sperm and ovum do not have a future like ours.  If he chooses 1, I feel that I could keep going down the line as ask why then it is not wrong to prevent someone from eating a hamburger because the carbon atoms in the hamburger could have formed the makeup of a fetus that has a future like ours.  It seems that there would have to be a point where he says something like, “This now falls into the biological category where we can consider its (or their) future (like ours)”, a move which he resists in the context of the antiabortion argument.  If he chooses 2, it seems that he is assigning some sort of status to the fetus that the ovum and sperm do not have rather than looking only at their futures.  At this point, he would have to engage in the same discussion about the status of the fetus that he was trying to avoid in the first place.

            Therefore, I do not think the FLO argument can be properly applied without a being that has had and will have a consciousness.  Once there is such a being, it is clear whose future is being cut off.  Otherwise, issues will arise like the ones seen in the contraception objection in which there is either no point or an arbitrary point at which a future suddenly becomes relevant.  Of course, issues like “what is consciousness” will become problems from accepting my position, but I think the issues with the Marquis’s application of the FLO argument are far more serious.