Tea at Trianon: An Atheist’s Argument Against Abortion

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, February 13, 2026

An Atheist’s Argument Against Abortion

Even from a purely natural point of view, when science tells us that a fetus is a unique human being, abortion is barbaric. From Word on Fire:

Don Marquis was an atheist philosopher best known for his argument against abortion, which makes absolutely no appeal to religion, the soul, or God. So, how does Marquis reason to his conclusion?
He begins with common ground among those who are pro-choice and those who are pro-life. If someone kills you or me right now, that person would do something wrong. What makes it wrong to kill you or me?

If you or I are killed today, it doesn’t take away the good things we enjoyed yesterday: the friendships we shared, the knowledge we learned, and the beauty we enjoyed. But if you or I are killed today, we are deprived of the friendships we could have enjoyed, the knowledge we could have gained, and the beauty we could have experienced in the future. So, killing you or me is wrong because it deprives us of the chance to enjoy goods in the future. Put another way, one reason killing is wrong is because it deprives an individual of a future-like-ours.

So too, if a newborn baby is killed, he is deprived of the friendships he would have formed, the knowledge he would have learned, the beauty he would have experienced. He won’t joke with friends, he won’t master penalty kicks in soccer, and he won’t become a dad. Infanticide is wrong because it deprives an individual of his chance for a valuable future.

But the same thing is true of the human being deprived of life prior to birth. She won’t graduate from kindergarten, she won’t have her first kiss, and she won’t be able to learn jiu jitsu. Abortion is wrong because it deprives an individual of her chance for a future-like-ours.

One objection raised to Marquis’s argument is that his argument shows not only that infanticide and abortion are wrong but also that contraception is wrong. This conclusion may not trouble those who think contraception is wrong, but it would trouble people in favor of contraception. So, if you think contraception is sometimes permissible, then you should also reject Marquis’s future-like-ours argument. (Read more.)