ABSTRACT
Having found that human foetuses from 24 weeks of development onwards can plausibly be held to possess a right to continued existence, and that it is therefore prima facie wrong to destroy them does not, however, provide a total response to Tooley’s claims. According to Tooley it is inconsistent to assert that it is intrinsically wrong to destroy a potential person, unless one simultaneously asserts that it is intrinsically wrong to fail to actualise a possible person. If correct, this claim would highlight a serious problem for every argument from potential, for it would mean that if one were to argue that abortion is morally problematic, one would also have to support the claim that contraception is morally problematic. How then should one respond to this claim?
