In Thompson’s “A Defense of Abortion” she tries to answer the question: “Is voluntary abortion ever permissible?” Throughout the paper, she uses a variety of thought experiments in order to parallel pregnancy due to rape, accidental pregnancy, and pregnancy that threatens a mother’s life, among many other situations. Using these examples, she illustrates her main point: that unless a fetus has a right to demand it, the mother is not morally required to make large sacrifices to keep the fetus alive
In “A Defense of Abortion” by Judith Jarvis Thompson, Thompson works to argue that even if a human fetus is considered a person, abortion is still often morally permissible. This paper will work to explain Thompson’s positions on the different accounts of the right to life, and to provide an evaluation of them and explain why they are not plausible, specifically regarding three of the analogies on-which she based her entire argument: the violinist, the coat, and the case of Kitty Genovese, as well
There have been arguments more than decades over abortion, some philosopher says it’s oaky to have abortion; other considers it as murder of an unborn child. However philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson shares her thoughts through her writing “A Defense of Abortion”. According to her abortion is not morally right thing to do but in certain situations it is permissible. She gave her reader mainly three examples and she wanted to convey her message through it. Three of her main example was – famous violinist
In the article, “A Defense of Abortion” by Thomson, the author states the two points that contradict the most the right of a fetus and the right of a mother. The authors main stance, is there are abortions that are morally permissible and impermissible under certain circumstances. Thomson, makes the assumption that a fetus is a person so she can prove abortion is permissible in some situations. The author states, under three cases abortion is permissible and she further elaborates on the premise
In “A Defense of Abortion", Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that a life is a life regardless if it was still in the fetus. Possibly the best argument that was made by Thomson was that a fetus has already been a human person long before birth. In this Paper, I will argue that this argument fails because a life should be consider living when it is “conscious”. In “A Defense of Abortion", Thomson starts by talking about what most opposition to abortion would use as a premise, that “We are asked to notice
argument, “A Defense on Abortion,” is a piece written to point out the issues in many arguments made against abortion. She points out specific issues in arguments made, for example, about life beginning at conception and if that truly matters as an argument against abortion. Thomson uses multiple analogies when making her points against the arguments made against abortion. These analogies are used to show that the arguments made do not really make sense in saying it is immoral to have an abortion. These
In the reading “In Defense of Abortion and Infanticide,” Michael Tooley argued why he thinks abortion as well as infanticide is ok. His main argument was that, “An entity cannot have a right to life unless it is capable of having an interest in its own continued existence.” He appealed to Joel Fienburg’s interest principle. Tooley says that a zygote cannot be spoken of as a subject of interest or have desires, therefore a zygote cannot have a right to life. While I agree that a zygote cannot have
In class, we discussed arguments that we're made by ethicist about abortion. Out of the two, Thompson has the weakest argument. For an argument to be weak, the argument can be challenged by a counter argument. In A Defense of Abortion, Thompson uses an analogy about the violinist to get the reader to reframe their opinion on the subject on whether abortion is morally right or morally wrong solely based on rights. The story involves placing the reader as the protagonist of the story and the doctors
In “A Defense of Abortion” written by Judith Jarvis Thomson, the author analyzes premises for which she believes that abortion should be permissible, but argues in some cases abortion should also not be allowed. Her analysis is different from most papers on this subject, because she immediately throws the argument of if the fetus is a person out the window. She calls it a “slippery slope argument”(Thomson 54). Thomson, instead, presents that a fetus does have the right to life, but she uses thought
Thomson’s Defense of Abortion (Q3) In 1971, philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson wrote an article analyzing the morality of abortion, offering an (albeit limited) defense of the right of a woman to have an abortion. Her A Defense of Abortion was groundbreaking in that it portrayed the value of using philosophical reasoning in modern debates of morality. Thomson grants for the sake of the argument that the fetus is a human being from conception, and that therefore, it has a right to life. In the extreme