Summary Of Judith Jarvis Thomson's A Defense Of Abortion

If a woman concedes to voluntary sexual intercourse, she has incurred a responsibility to care for the fetus, since she is responsible for its existence and subsequent dependence on her body for sustenance. Consequently, she has a moral obligation to sustain it until birth, an obligation that ought to be legally enforced by proscribing abortions. (Manninen 41)

In disagreement many people say that one person's right to life always outweighs another person's right to autonomy. However Thomson's argument makes a very interesting unwanted pregnancies resulting in permissible abortions. To counteract her claims I'm going to use a hypothetical situation as she did. Let's say a mother gives birth to a set of conjoined twins. The twins grow up having a somewhat troublesome life considering the fact that neither one has the opportunity to achieve autonomy. Once they get older, lets say age 18, twin A obtains the information that twin B's survival depends on the use of twin A's vital organ's. However twin A would survive if twin B was too be separated from him thus granting twin A his right to autonomy. It seems that it is obvious that it not permissible for twin A to kill twin B. The following argument shows a more concrete view of the situation. It is morally impermissible for twin A to kill twin B if he has the right to life and the right to twin A's body. Twin B does have a right to life. Twin B prima facie has

Second, the author uses her “expanding child” example. “Trapped in a tiny house with a growing child and you are up against a wall, and in a few minutes, you will be crushed, on the other hand the child won’t be crushed. The only thing that will save her life is to kill the child. Is abortion permissible to save the pregnant woman’s life? Because the mother being compared to that of the house, this brings up the idea that the mother should be able to do as she pleases with her body, and that her body carries more significance than the fetus’ right to life. This brings in the argument of a third-party intervention, such as a doctor. If a doctor did not agree to perform an abortion, to save this mother, then the mother would be denied her rights, and the right to decide what is done with her body. If a woman doesn’t have a right to their body, then you should not be unplugged, thus, save the violinists life. This reasoning is concluded with two smart statements, “It seems to me that to treat the matter in this very way (refuse abortion for the mother’s health) is to refuse to grant the very status of person which is so firmly insisted on for the fetus by anti-abortion advocates. (243) and “a fetus who existence is due to rape” has no right to use their mother’s bodies, and aborting them is not depriving them of anything they had a

Thomson uses many different examples in which he describes the different situations and premises that an abortion might have to states his points. There are 3 main examples that he uses the most, first is the violinist, secondly Henry Fonda and Thirdly the peoples seed. In his first argument he uses the experiment of the violinist and a person being kidnapped. The violinist is well known and famous and is in need for a kidney. In this situation the kidnap you because he can connect to your kidney and survive. But Thomson puts the point in which no one gave them the right to your body, despite the point that it could be just for a few days of months, he relates it to Abortion as that no one says that the fetus if a person has the right not

In her article, “The Defense of Abortion”, Judith Jarvis Thomson states an analogy involving a violinist. She first states that you are allowed to unplug yourself in the violinist scenario, second abortion after rape is analogous to the violinist scenario, therefore, you should be allowed to unplug yourself and be allowed to abort after rape (Chwang, Abortion slide 12). In this paper, I will argue that abortion is morally acceptable even if the fetus is considered a person. This paper will criticize premise two from the traditional argument against abortion string that killing innocent persons is wrong (Chwang, Abortion slide 9). Following the violinist analogy will be an objection to this analogy and my respons to them. One of the

In Thomson’s two arguments about rape and failure of contraceptive she has some points that are in fact true and not much can be questioned. In her first argument about rape, it makes sense to say that if someone were to use your body against your will and you have no say about it and be and you are forced to be stuck without a choice to get up and disconnect yourself even if it does kill the famous violinist is wrong. But when you deprive someone of their life it can’t be seen to be correct in any case. Thomson’s first premise is in fact true and gives her argument against rape logical strength. Both the violinist and the fetus are using the person’s body

In the “Violinist Analogy,” Thomson argues that in cases of rape and other ways in which a woman might become pregnant without making the decision to have sex, it is not immoral to have an abortion. She makes this argument through the analogy that you are hooked up to a “famous unconscious violinist” and if you unplug yourself you are causing the death of that violinist. This point works very well in the argument that it seems as though abortion is allowable in cases of rape.

In the article the violinist was compared to rape, because in the violinist scenario the person was kidnapped and plugged in with the violinist without there person volunteering. It's the same with rape you do not volunteer you have no say in the matter. Thomson said people who oppose abortion should make an exception for rape and he certainly agrees with it. So the violinist scenario and the rape scenario are the same in a way because you didn't volunteer and also you have the option of saving the "person" or killing them. Thomson says, "They can say that persons have a right to life only if they didn't come into existence because of rape". For me this conclusion is right for one the person

Abortion is a polarizing issue that many have firm opinions about. Abortion is a moral issue because it involves whether or not a fetus has the right to life and if ending that life is considered to be murder or not. Don Marquis presents the argument that abortion is morally wrong because it deprives the fetus of a future. Marquis continues that any action that robs a person of a future, such as abortion, is morally wrong. Marquis’ argument for abortion is unsound, especially for cases such as rape. To illustrate, if Marquis argues that any action that robs a person of a future is morally wrong, then it follows that a woman who suffered the consequences of rape is also robbed of a potential future. It is important to consider involuntary pregnancies

In disagreement many people say that one person?s right to life always outweighs another person?s right to autonomy. However Thomson?s argument makes a very interesting unwanted pregnancies resulting in permissible abortions. To counteract her claims I?m going to use a hypothetical situation as she did. Let?s say a mother gives birth to a set of conjoined twins. The twins grow up having a somewhat troublesome life considering the fact that neither one has the opportunity to achieve autonomy. Once they get older, lets say age 18, twin A obtains the information that twin B?s survival depends on the use of twin A?s vital organ?s. However twin A would survive if twin B was too be separated from him thus granting twin A his right to autonomy. It seems that it is obvious that it not permissible for twin A to kill twin B. The following argument shows a more concrete view of the situation. It is morally impermissible for twin A to kill twin B if he has the right to life and the right to twin A?s body. Twin B does have a right to life. Twin B prima facie has the right to twin A?s body. Therefore it is morally impermissible for twin A to kill twin B. In turn this would create the argument that abortion is not permissible even when the pregnancy is not voluntary.

Thomson fault with both arguments is that it does not go beyond identifying if the fetus is human or not. At this point is where Thomson begins her argument. In Thomson’s article, she expands the pro-choice argument by providing experiments to better articulate it to readers. Through Thomson’s violinist experiment, she is able to move the argument for pro-choice supporters in a positive direction, by defining why a woman is not morally responsible for a fetus, which therefore defends abortion.

In pregnancy reduction the same arguments that Thomson uses would apply especially concerning her example of finding yourself trapped in a tiny house with a growing child in it and that you would be crushed to death but the child would not be crushed to death if allowed to continue growing. She concludes that it would not be a bystander’s decision to decide who lives or dies but that you have the right to attack to save your own life. This is pertinent because pregnancy reduction requires a medical procedure, therefore involves a third party, a bystander, that you are asking to help you in your own self defense and because multiple pregnancy is most often a higher risk to the mother as well as the child. She states that both parties are innocent here and “the person threatened” can interfere even if it requires a third party to assist her. What a third party might do in response to a woman’s request for an abortion could vary and they have that right however no third party should stop a woman from defending “her life against the threat to it posed by the unborn child even if doing so involves its death.” Thomson goes on to say that the mother has more rights than the child because the “mother owns the house” and therefore more rights

In Judith Jarvis Thompson’s article “A Defense of Abortion” she explores the different arguments against abortion presented by Pro –Life activists, and then attempts to refute these notions using different analogies or made up “for instances” to help argue her point that women do have the right to get an abortion. She explains why abortion is morally permissible using different circumstances of becoming pregnant, such as rape or unplanned pregnancy.

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 autonomy is damaged she has a right to reclaim it; that right is not an unjust reason for denying a person the resources needed to live, which means that the violinist is not killed unjustly if he dies as a result of her exercising autonomy. That means that his right to life is not infringed upon by killing him if a woman is coerced into caring for him and then refuses to continue to do so, thereby killing him. I argue that in fact this logic extends beyond cases of rape because most pregnant women are subject to coercion and have a right to reassert their autonomy by denying foetus’ use of their bodies.

Thirdly, “Rape is a big excuse for people who are for abortion.” Women who become pregnant through rape and even incest rape suffer the most severe form of emotional tragedy. Should they still go through with having that child even though they may be at a time in their life where a child may completely destroy their life and also the fact that, that child will be the embodiment of that one moment in their life that they try to forget? One of the underlying themes in Jimmyissmart’s paper is humanity. However, how ironic is