The Controversial Issue of Abortion Essay

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 person's right to autonomy. Then appropriate responses to these objections. Concluding the paper I will argue that Thomson's "violinist" argument supporting the idea of a mother's right to autonomy outweighing a fetus' right to life does not make abortion permissible.

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 with analogies she presents. The first case is rape. She proposes an analogy, that you have been kidnapped and wake up in the hospital and they plugged you in with a violinist because it needs a kidney for nine months and if you decide to unplug it,

In today society, the topic about abortion is so popular because of the people that are either pro-life or pro-choice. I am pro-choice because of certain reason by me being and Christian it look like I am being and “Hypocrite” but, I have things I believe and do not let my religion take full control on my personal thought when it comes to certain things in my life. The question was asked why Thomson assumes that a fetus is a person with a right to life in her argument. In the article, “A defense of Abortion”, by Judith Jarvis Thomson, says” I think that the premise is false, that the fetus is not a person from the moment of conception.

In A Defense of Abortion, Judith Thomson’s statement against abortion constructs on her agreement that fetus is a human being, for the sake of argument, therefore has the right to life. She shows that the basic argument against abortion is inadequate. The basic argument of abortion goes: the first premise is that every person has right to life; the second premise is that the fetus is a human being; the conclusion is that the abortion is impermissible. Thomson found this statement invalid, because the conclusion does not actually follow from the premises. She demonstrates that there is a suppressed premise in this argument. Her reconstruction of the argument goes: 1) every person has right to life; 2) the fetus is a human being; 3) the fetus’s right to life is stronger than the mother’s right to determine what happens in and to her own body; 4) therefore the abortion is impermissible.

Abortion is highly controversial and there is quite the debate over the ethics of abortion. The question is does the fetus have the same rights as an adult, so that it has the same right to not be killed. There are many debates on whether or not a fetus is human. Those who believe that there is no life related to a fetus then they believe that it has no rights. On the flip side, others may argue that abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. The question, “When does life begin?” appears over and over again throughout these debates and within cultures.Thompson believes that the question of whether a fetus have the same rights as a human being is irrelevant. Even if the fetus had all the rights of an adult human being, it would still be permissible to abort it.

In A Defense of Abortion, Judith Jarvis Thompson aims to defend abortion against opponents whose main arguments revolve around the fact that a fetus is a person, and therefore should not be aborted. She wants to further the discussion past the slippery slope argument that dominates the topic of abortion: Is a fetus a person at the moment of conception? Thompson moves past this question by basing her arguments on the notion that a fetus is in fact a person from the moment of conception, although this is not a view she believes (Thompson pg. 48). By taking on this view, she can dive deeper into the discussion, and provide reasons for her defense of abortion that do not revolve around a fetus’ personhood.

She also argues that it is morally permissible to have an abortion when the fetus does not have the right to the woman’s body. Thomson lays down the certain circumstances such as rape and failed contraceptives as situations where the fetus does not have permission to use one’s body, thus stating that an

Then I will summarize Thomson’s reasons for why abortions resulting from consensual sex are also morally permissible. Despite Thomson’s arguments for abortion, I will argue that Thomson’s thought experiments are flawed and do not merit as an accurate analogy to justify abortions. Thomson advocates for abortion because she strongly believes and defends autonomy. The underlining principle throughout

In Judith Jarvis Thomson’s article “A Defense of Abortion”, she argues that abortion should be off-limits yet that in some cases it is acceptable. Thomson demonstrates “that abortion is morally permissible” utilizing different situations of becoming pregnant, while comparing and contrasting those circumstances with different analogies. (p. 241) She bases abortion rights on a pregnant women’s legal right to control her own body, rather than trying to deny that a fetus is already a living person. To help argue her point, Thomson first begins talking about how the fetus is a full moral person with a right to live from conception. Yet in extreme cases such as rape or sexual assault, even pro-life groups accept that an abortion is allowed under the certain

Thomson wrote an article about abortion which called “A Defense of Abortion.” In this article, the author claims that it is not correct that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. Then, she suggests drawing a line in development of the fetus look dim. Before this line or point, the thing in a pregnancy is not a person. Besides, it is no doubt that he understands if the fetus has already become a human person birth, it has a right to life as well. However, the author also mentions a deeply controversial problem that if a pregnancy is the result of rap or a pregnancy has a cardiac condition, mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body. We cannot ignore the pregnancy’s right because every person has a

Judith Thomson’s argument through her article, “A Defence of Abortion” is one that adopts the premise that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. By doing this, Thomson is distancing her argument from the various theorists who maintain the moral view that it is wrong to kill another human being, such as (Marquis, 1989). This ultimately allows her to assume various hypothetical situations in which the cognitive status of the fetus is otherwise not considered. This is important. It helps the case she develops to detach itself from the focal points considered in the 'common argument', which illustrates that the development of a human being from conception through birth into childhood and then adulthood is continuous, and to

Judith Jarvis Thomson argued that the “the impermissibility of abortion does not follow from the premises that every fetus is a person and that every person has a right to life” (Thomson) Thomson distinguishes between what we ought to do versus what we are morally required to. This essay will show how abortions are permissible and not permissible according to Thomson.

Thomson’s argument is entitled as “Defense to Abortion“. I agree to Thomson and her argument when it comes to aborting a fetus, even if a fetus is a person. Yes, it has it’s own DNA, and it’s own life but when it threatens the “house” that it stays in, which in this case would be the woman/mother’s womb, I believe the abortion of the fetus, is permissible. Thomson states “it cannot be seriously thought to be murder if the mother performs an abortion on herself to save her life.” (Thomson, Defense on Abortion, pg6) Thomson gives an example of a violinist being plugged into another human, using their blood in high hopes of survival by that person’s kidneys extracting the poison from the violinist’s blood. The person never agreed to do such, being that it was decided by the Society of Music Lovers; but did not go against it by detaching himself from the violinist knowing that it can cause death. This explains that there are events where we don’t have much of a freedom of choice when there is a conscious person/life involved meaning, when there is a conscious life in our hands,

Who do we consider a living, human person? Questioning the nature of humanity itself is where we can begin unraveling a complex topic like this one. The two main arguments for and against abortion are based upon whether the unborn fetus can be seen as human or not, and whether this humanity can be compared to the humanity of the mother. New

Although abortion has been declared a fundamental right, those who oppose having abortions do not view it as a “right,” yet a murderous act against humanity. A human being is conceived at the time of conception. Even though the fetus has yet to become viable, it still has its exceptional characteristics as a human being. According to Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, a pediatric professor at the University of Pennsylvania stated, “I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life beings at the time of conception… I am no more prepared to say that these early stages represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty…is not a human being. This is human life at every stage.” This only enhances the reason as to why an abortion is a wrongdoing when considering human lives. In addition, if relating to the concept that life begins at conception, it only reinforces the idea that the fetus has a foundational right to live.