Thomson's Arguments For The Legalization Of Abortion

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 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

Judith Jarvis Thomson and Don Marquis both have different views on abortion. Thomson believes that in some cases, abortion is morally permissible, due to the life of the mother. Marquis believes that abortion is almost always morally impermissible, except in extreme circumstances, because the fetus has a future life. I will simply evaluate each of the authors reasoning’s that defend their belief, and give my argument for why I believe Judith Thomson’s essay is more convincing.

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.

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 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

Thomson’s 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 analogies do not work in all cases, and sometimes they only work in very atypical cases, but still make a strong argument. There are also objections made to Thomson’s argument, which she then replies to, which makes her argument even stronger. Her replies to these arguments are very strong, saying biology does not always equate responsibility, and that reasonable precaution is an important factor in the morality of abortion. There are some major issues in her responses to these objections.

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 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

Thomson’s main idea is to show why Pro-Life Activists are wrong in their beliefs. She also wants to show that even if the fetus inside a women’s body had the right to life (as

In her "A Defense of Abortion," Judith J Thomson argues, for the sake of argument, (1) that fetuses are people, (2) people have a right to live, (3) fetuses have a right to live, (4) the right to life always outweighs the right to decide what to do with one's body, (5) abortion violates the fetus' right to life. Thomson's essay primarily focuses on premise four. She comes to the conclusion that right to life does not always outweigh the right to decide what to do with one's body. Thomson uses various examples to support her argument against premise four.

Judith Jarvis Thomson proposes her argument in her article, A Defense of Abortion. There, she explains to her readers during what circumstances is abortion justifiable. Thomson uses the argument by analogy strategy to explain to her readers her argument. She tries to reach her conclusion by comparing it to similar cases. The point she is trying to make is to tell her readers that abortion is morally permissible only in some cases, like when the mother has been a victim of rape, when contraception has failed or when the pregnancy is of danger to the mother. She explains to her readers that abortion is justifiable only in some cases, not all. Thomson uses the case of a violinist to show her readers that abortion is morally permissible when a woman has been victim of rape. She also uses the people seeds story as an analogy to explain that abortion is morally acceptable when contraception has failed. Thomson also mentions the right to life in her article. She uses the right to life to explain to us that it is morally justifiable for the mother to abort the fetus when the fetus is endangering the mother’s life. In order to help her readers understand the notion of right to life she is trying to propose to us, she does so by using the Henry Fonda example. In my point of view, I find most of Thomson’s analogies irrelevant to the argument she is trying to make. I will explain to my readers why I find Thomson’s analogies irrelevant.

Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion," written in 1971 is one of the most read and talked about articles on abortion. It was written at a time that for the most part everyone was against abortion. One way to get people who were generally pro-life due to religious beliefs to read her article was to find a common ground. After finding and addressing the common ground as a premise, Thomson finds a way to support abortion with original arguments. Although she does have clever points, abortion is a topic that many people don’t change their opinion on because of the morality of the subject.

Unlike the case of rape, pregnancy is a consensual act. Though an individual may not initially intend on getting pregnant, it is through the consensual act of intercourse that a fetus is conceived. Therefore abortion is not a permissible solution to an “unwanted” or “inconvenient” pregnancy. At one point in her piece, Thomson even brings up this concern to her readers, stating: “Suppose a woman voluntarily indulges in intercourse, knowing of the chance it will issue in pregnancy, and then she does become pregnant; is she not in part responsible for the presence, in fact the very existence, of the unborn person inside her? No doubt she did not invite it is. But doesn’t her partial responsibility for its being there itself give it a right to the use of her body?” . Essentially, Thomson’s argument is too weak to support the defense of abortion for all