Features of an Aristotelian self-realization argument.
1) An individual’s liberty may be restricted if he or she frustrates another's attempt
at self-realization.
2) The community determines the good life; in doing so it follows the universal
standard of realizing one’s potential as a human being.
3) The pursuit of excellence or perfection (attaining one’s full potential) is the
motive for being moral.
4) The intention is all important: an action may have harmful consequences but
may be forgiven if the intentions were good.
The central problem with a self-realization theory is the tyranny of perfectionism: it
is unclear which potentials and whose potentials to realize?

Don Marquis, "Why Abortion Is Immoral?"
Marquis argues that most abortions are immoral because they deprive the
fetus of a future like ours. This future-like-ours is a future of value; hence, to deny
such a future is wrong.
Those opposed to abortion give a version of the premise that the fetus is a
human being (looks like a human being, possesses a human genetic code). Those in
favor of abortion offer a version of the premise that the fetus is not a person (or a
rational agent or a social being). Each in turn relies on a second premise. Those
opposed to abortion ordinarily make this second premise broad -- for example, to
take human life is prima facie wrong. Those in favor of abortion identify a premise
that is narrow in scope so that the fetus will not fall under it: "it is prima facie
seriously wrong to kill only persons" or "it is prima facie wrong to kill only rational
agents."
The first of these moral premises would include the killing of cancer cells.
The second would not explain why killing infants, young children, severely
retarded, or the mentally ill is judged wrong. Each side attacks the other for
unacceptable moral premises.
Each side retreats: the anti-abortionists modify their principle to read: "to take
the life of a human being is prima facie wrong." The pro-choicers extend the
category "person" to young children and infants, but not to fetuses. Each is faced
with arbitrariness: it seems arbitrary to categorize the fetus as a human being (since
some development is ordinarily required to
qualify as a human being), and it seems arbitrary to describe an infant but not a
late-stage fetus as a person.
Marquis does not give up on the search. He examines why people ordinarily
regard it as seriously wrong prima facie to take the life of an adult human being.
He concludes that it is prima facie seriously wrong to deprive someone of a future/
a future of value/ a future-like-ours. To do so deprives me as the victim "of those
activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments which would otherwise have
constituted my future personal life." (216b)
Marquis claims that his position
1) is incompatible with the view that it is wrong to kill only beings who are
biologically human;
2) entails that it may sometimes be wrong to kill nonhuman animals;
3) does not entail that active euthanasia is always wrong;
4) entails that it is straightforwardly wrong to kill children and infants;
5) does not entail that contraception is wrong.
6) does not rest on religious claims or Papal dogma.
7) can't be accused of speciesism: the soundness of the argument is
compatible with euthanasia and contraception.
Marquis attempts to avoid a tyranny of perfectionism by limiting what his
position entails and by attempting to identify a fact that most or all persons would
agree to—namely, that the fetus is deprived of a future like ours.