Don Marquis, "An Argument that Abortion is Wrong"

Killing a fetus deprives it of a future like ours so it is prima facie wrong.

1) discontinuation account - killing is bad because it discontinues the experience of life, which we value ** but we want a theory that values the future, not the present — if someone's life sucks now but will be great in the future, it would be ok to kill them by the discontinuation account but it seems like it shouldn't be ok 2) desire account - killing is bad because we want to keep living and it thwarts that ** however, we generally regard it as wrong to kill people who don't have a desire to live (esp. suicidal people) --> could mean people who in the future would have a desire to live (but fetuses would fall under that)

There's value in futures even if they're not valued by that person at that time — a suicidal person doesn't value their future although it is still actually valuable to them, esp when they go on to do great things.

It's fine, because nothing is denied a future — choosing a sperm or ovum or combination would be completely arbitrary.