Abortion

                    In Don Marquis' argument against abortion he argues that killing a fetus is comparable to taking the life of an adult, he then goes on to argue about how the potential of a fetus is destroyed by aborting it. While I do agree that abortion is not a decision to be taken lightly and all alternatives should be thought of, it is still permissible if the mother doesn't want the child and wont be able to give it the love and care that it needs. My main problem with his argument of potential is that he's comparing potential to actual ability. While a fetus might be able to grow up and do great things in life, an actual adult can do great things at this moment. The arguments based off of potential are speculation and that could go both ways, so it can't be used as a defense against abortion. The potential argument can go both ways, the fetus could grow up to be a great leader and help a lot of people or they could grow up to be a serial killer and make a hat out of someone. This is why I have a problem with him comparing the possible potential of a fetus to someone that is able to do great things at this moment.
                  Another problem that I have with his argument is that it arguably comes down to the choice of the mother and father alone. While it's not  pleasant thing and shouldn't be done lightly, it is their decision of whether or not they want the child since they are the ones that have to deal with it and take care of it. The concept of killing a child seems horrible, but in the end it might cause more bad than good. An example of this would be that the parents are very poor and already have two kids, and through some odd chance the birth control failed and the wife gets pregnant. They are poor to the point where they are just scraping by and can barely put food on the table or pay rent. Having a child is a very large financial burden and they know that if they have this child they wont be able to feed themselves or their other children and possibly wont even be able to afford a place to live. So are they still obligated to keep the child even though it could possibly ruin the lives of them and their current already living children? While he does mention that there are specific cases where abortion would be permissible, he seems to only include cases of rape or where the mother would die during birth. So overall I don't think that you can rule out abortion for a family like the one mentioned above because they made the fetus and they are responsible for it, so if they don't think that they can adequately take care of it why should they be forced to bring a child into a bad environment where is wont get all of the care that it needs and deserves.