Philosopher Judith Thomson, in her article “A Defense of Abortion,” presents a hypothetical case of a famous violinist who has a health condition that can only be healed by getting “connected” to someone compatible and use his kidneys for 9 months to clean his contaminated blood. A compatible person is then kidnapped, rendered unconscious, and connected without permission to the dying violinist. When the victim wakes up, he gets an explanation and is presented with two options: he stays connected…

Judith Jarvis Thomson: A Defense of Abortion – CRITICAL EXPOSITION The goal of Judith Jarvis Thomson in her defense of abortion is to sway the ideas of those who are against abortion by challenging the arguments they give for thinking so. She begins by stating a premise. “For the sake of the argument” a human embryo is a person. This premise is one of the arguments most opponents of abortion use, but as she points out, isn’t much of an argument at all. These people spend a lot of their time dwelling…

Introduction: Is it immoral to have an abortion? Abortion is the process of stopping a pregnancy through the removal or killing of the fetus. Dan Marquis is adamant that abortion is wrong and that the fetus is a full human being that deserves to live while, Judith Jarvis Thomson would say that should the mother decide to terminate her pregnancy it is her body and her right. However, what if there was a third side to this already complicated issue? I argue that abortion itself is amoral and that circumstances…

Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” is a uniquely reasoned argument for the right to abortion that uses strong analogies to challenge pro-life arguments that are based on the premise that a human life begins at the moment of conception. In this paper I will argue that Thomson is correct in her view and that her analogies solidify her argument, which then becomes impervious to criticism from philosophers like Keith J. Pavlischek or David B. Hershenov who bring up other factors irrelevant…

Abortion is a major issue that has lead to many different opinions, ideas, and various debates. Proponents for abortion often use the fact that a fetus is not a moral person to justify their position, whereas those who are against the issue often claim that a fetus is a moral person and should deserve every right a moral person has, including the right to live. Judith Jarvis Thomson, however, takes an entirely different approach. In her article “A Defense of Abortion” Thomson argues that even if…

'A Defense of Abortion' by Judith Jarvis Thomson In the article 'A Defense of Abortion' Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous 'violinist' argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one person's right to life outweighs another…

Judith Jarvis Thomson argues in “A Defense of Abortion” that abortion in cases of rape is acceptable because of the element of coercion. She makes a preliminary assumption that the foetus has a right to life, but she argues that this right to life does not necessarily include the right not to be killed. She makes this argument in large part through a particularly vivid analogy of an unconscious violinist. Thomson claims that the analogy defends abortion in cases of rape by showing that if a woman’s…

Judith Jarvis Thomson is an American moral philosopher that is well known for her defense of moral justice and description of moral rights. She has published in prestigious papers in ethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of law. Including the most widely written essay “A Defense of Abortion” , that was published in 1971 in the journal of philosophy and public affairs. This essay constructs abortion rights with pregnant woman’s rights to control her own body and it’s life support purpose, as opposed…

if she did not have an abortion. In such circumstances, the woman’s right to self-defence outweighs a fetus’ right to life, however I would not allow that the mother’s right outweighs the fetus’ if the mother wanted to have an abortion of convenience because this denies the child of possible future experiences. Firstly, I will outline Judith Jarvis Thomson’s argument for self-defence. In her article, ‘A Defense of Abortion’, Thomson provides an analogy in favour of abortion. She asks the reader to…

In Judith Jarvis Thomson’s A Defense of Abortion, Thomson explores the relationship between the rights of a fetus and the rights of a human, in this case the mother. Thomson is an American moral philosopher and meta-physician. She is known for her defense of moral objectivity, her account of moral rights, her views about the incompleteness of the term 'good, ' and her use of thought experiments to make philosophical points. In the article, Thomson defends abortions in several certain circumstances…