Thomson Defense Of Abortion Summary

To begin with, Thomson uses a thought experiment about a hypothetical famous violinist, to further her argument that abortion is morally permissible. In this thought experiment, you are kidnapped and unconsciously plugged to a famous violinist so that your kidney can remove toxins from the violinist’s kidney and ultimately save his life. Thomson argues that you are not required to stay plugged to the famous violinist even if unplugging yourself from the violinist would result in his death. Thomson argues that while everyone has the right to life, no one has the right to dictate what happens to another person 's body.

The next issue is, in Thomson’s opinion, the most important question in the abortion debate; that is, what exactly does a right to life bring about? The premise that “everyone has a right to life, so the unborn person has a right to life” suggests that the right to life is “unproblematic,” or straight-forward. We know that isn’t true. Thomson gives an analogy involving Henry Fonda. You are sick and dying and the touch of Henry Fonda’s hand will heal you. Even if his touch with save your life, you have no right to be “given the touch of Henry Fonda’s cool hand.” A stricter view sees the right to life as more of a right to not be killed by anybody. Here too troubles arise. In the case of the violinist, if we are to “refrain from killing the violinist,” then we must basically allow him to kill you. This contradicts the stricter view. The conclusion Thomson draws from this analogy is “that having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person’s body—even if one needs it for life itself.” This argument again proves the basic argument wrong. The right to life isn’t as clear of an argument as I’m sure opponents of abortion would like it to be or believe it is.

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.

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

In Judith A. Thomson’s article, ‘A defense of abortion’ Thomson defends her view that in some cases abortion is morally permissible. She takes this stance even with the premise that fetuses upon the moment of conception are in fact regarded as persons. However one criticism of her argument would be that there is a biological relationship between mother and fetus however there is no biological relationship between you and the violinist. Having this biological relationship therefore entails special responsibility upon the mother however there is no responsibility in the case of the violinist. Thomson argues against those who are opposed to abortion with her violinist thought experiment.

With Thomson’s violinist analogy she shows that although disconnecting him would result in death, it would not be morally incorrect. This argument can be applied to a woman’s pregnancy, suggesting that if you accept the prior statement and can find no reasonable difference between the violinist and the fetus occupying the woman’s body, then you should accept that abortion can be acceptable. Thomson

In Thomson’s defence of abortion she argues that abortion is permissible when a mother’s life is not at risk. Working on her interpretation of the secular conservative argument, she first assumes that the premise of a foetus being a person is true, then moves onto the second premise, that a person has the right to life. Analysing what the right to life means, she first looks at the idea that the right to life is the right to have the bare minimum a person needs in order to survive. She quickly rebuts this by providing the Henry Fonda analogy and the violinist analogy. Both of these show that just because a person needs something to survive, like Henry Fonda’s cool hand or another person’s kidneys, a person doesn’t have the right to take it. With this in mind she modifies the argument so that the right to life is the right not to be killed. This she rebuffs with the violin analogy, noting that by pulling the plugs you would in effect be killing the violinist. While the violinist didn’t have the right to your kidneys, it could be argued that he does have the right for you not to intervene. However these are your kidneys, and you should not be forced to allow him continued use. Having ascertained that the right to life is not the right to the bare minimum needed to survive, nor the right not to be killed, she concludes that the right to life is the right not to be killed unjustly, or the

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.

Now on a different note, Thomson's main argument is set out to undermine the anti-abortionist argument. The anti-abortionist argument states: Every person has a right to life, the fetus is a person and hence has a right to life. The mother has the right to control her own body, but the fetuses' right to life is stronger than her right to control her body. Therefore, abortion is wrong. How Thomson goes about this is through analogies, and her main argument is through her violinist argument. Thomson asks you imagine that you find yourself hooked up to a famous unconscious violinist. If he can't use your kidneys for nine months, he'll die.

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 as to explore a logical counterargument and explain why it’s stance is impermissible.

Thomson’s paper talks about how abortion is not always impermissible for abortion, she uses a term ‘’people seeds’’ for her one of her example in referencing sperm in proving this. The example she uses with the people seeds is how it acts as pollen that drifts through the air freely and if you were to open your window, one might get in by accident even if you had fine mesh screens as cover. This is compared to having sexual intercourse with protection which is the mesh screen and people seeds as the sperm that has the possibly of getting in even if there’s only a small chance. A pro-life would say that if you didn’t want to get pregnant, you wouldn’t have had sex in the first place. Thomson believes this is unreasonable because she believes sex has two independent variables and living your whole life without sex because

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

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 this argument it has been established then, that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception. Thompson now introduces her “violinist analogy.” This is a key term in her argument. In this analogy she asks the reader to imagine you wake one morning and find yourself in bed with an unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and you alone have the right blood type to save him. You have been kidnapped in the middle of the night, and the violinist’s circulatory system is now plugged into yours. The director of the Hospital is now telling you “Sorry, the Society of Music Lovers did this to you – we would never have permitted it if we had known.” To get unplugged from the violinist will kill him, but in nine months he will be totally recovered from his ailment and you can be safely unplugged from one another. Thompson then asks, “Is it a moral responsibility for the kidnapped person to agree to this situation?” This situation she has concocted is comparable to that of a woman being raped. Pro – lifers say every person has a right to life and that right to life is stronger than the mothers right to decide what happens in her body. Thompson then goes on to say that instead of being plugged to the violinist’s body for nine months – its changed to your whole life. According to the pro –life

Another argument that Thomson makes is that the right of life does not give the right to use someone else’s body. So if you decide to unhook yourself from the violinist it stands to reason that you are not denying the violinist the right to live, but rather the right to use your body in order to live. This argument is justified by saying that when you get an abortion you are not violating the fetus’s right to live, you are only denying it the right to use your body, to which the fetus has no claim. I believe that if the analogy that Thomson uses is to be relevant it would be in only the cases dealing with rape. The person who was hit behind the head did not consent to being hooked up to the machine, just as a person who is raped usually does not give consent to being raped.