In a recent episode of his new YouTube series “Philosophy Time” (video below), actor James Franco and co-host Eliot Michaelson interviewed Princeton philosophy professor Elizabeth Harman on her sophisticated argument defending early-term abortions. But judging from Franco’s questions and facial expressions, the actor appears to have heard more sophistry than sophistication, at one point stating her convoluted rationale in terms plain enough to show just how nonsensical it really is.
There are two different kinds of fetuses, Harman explains, ones with a future and ones without. The “moral status” of an early stage fetus, she says, depends entirely on whether it has a “future.” No future, no moral status. In other words, if the fetus never grows up to feel and experience, killing it has zero moral implications.
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