A seminal essay by Don Marquis argues that abortion is wrong because it deprives the embryo of a valuable future. Marquis begins by arguing that what makes it wrong to kill a normal adult human being is the fact that the killing inflicts a terrible harm on the victim. The harm consists in the fact that "when I die, I am deprived of all of the value of my future": I am deprived of all the valuable "experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments" that I would otherwise have had. Thus, if a being has a highly valuable future ahead of it—a "future like ours"—then killing that being would be seriously harmful and hence seriously wrong. But then, as a standard embryo "does" have a highly valuable future, killing it "is" seriously wrong. And so "the overwhelming majority of deliberate abortions are seriously immoral", "in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being".