Some of the objections to Thomson’s violinist analogy include: (a) the violinist is forced to plug into your body without consent, which is only analogous to cases of pregnancy due to rape; (b) abortion actively kills the fetus whereas unplugging the violinist passively lets him die; and (c) a mother fundamentally has a parenting responsibility for her child whereas you have no such special connection and thus no responsibility for the violinist.
The strongest objection, in my opinion, arises from (c), the idea that the fetus is the pregnant woman’s child whereas the violinist is simply a stranger. This argument claims that by nature the woman has a special responsibility for her fetus, and by no means do you have that kind of responsibility
…show more content…
She narrates a case in which the parents “… do not try to prevent pregnancy, do not obtain an abortion, but rather take it home with them”, and contends that they now have full parenting responsibility and no longer have the right to an abortion. As discussed in lecture, Thomson believes that assuming parenting responsibility involves knowingly doing something that has a high enough probability that leads to pregnancy. In this way, she amends her analogy by commenting on the fact that responsibility to the fetus is only assumed in certain cases, successfully refuting her opponents’ …show more content…
One way to implement this argument is by asserting that there is a distinction between (1) being responsible for someone’s existence and (2) being responsible for someone’s life given that they exist. For instance, suppose you are the violinist’s doctor ten year ago, and the violinist had a disease that would soon take his life. The only way to save him was to prescribe him a drug which cures the disease but has a side effect – it will likely cause kidney failure sometime in the future. Knowing that only you have the compatible body to save the violinist if his kidney were to fail, you prescribed him the drug. Ten years later, we arrive at Thomson’s original scenario. In this new case, you are responsible for the violinist’s existence since you prescribed him the drug and gave him life, but one can easily argue that you are not responsible for his dependency on your body because there was no course of action for you to both save the violinist’s life and ensure that he could live independent of you. Now, this analogy becomes similar to pregnancy due voluntary intercourse: the woman is only responsible for the fetus’ existence, not for the fetus’ life, unless she herself assumes responsibility.
Overall, Thomson offers a good response to the parent-child responsibility objection, but at the same time that response does
In his second premise Marquis expands on the idea that the killing of an adult human is a serious moral wrong because by killing them you deprive them of future experiences. He believes that by killing someone you cause “the greatest possible losses on the victim” and supports this idea with the example of terminally ill patients who feel their they are being robbed because their premature death prevents them from enjoying their future (190). Additionally, Marquis challenges the idea that killing someone simply because they are biologically human with the example of intelligent aliens (191).
Melanson, Glen. “How the Contractualist Account of Preconception Negligence Undermines Prenatal Reproductive Autonomy.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 38.4 (Aug. 2013): 420-425. Health Reference Center Academic. Web. 09 Feb. 2014.
...r (directly killing the baby in the womb or slitting the throat of the violinist). I believe the difference is very clear and therefore refutes Thompson's case of the unconscious violinist. This means that premise 4 still stands true.
To help argue her point, Thomson first begins with an analogy comparing an acorn of an oak tree to the fetus in a woman’s body. She begins by giving the view of the Pro – Lifers; “It is concluded that the fetus is…a person from the moment of conception” (page 113). She then goes on to say, “similar things might be said about the development of an acorn into an oak tree, and it does not follow that acorns are Oak trees…” (Page 113). This analogy helps illustrate how much she disagrees with this Pro –life argument. She calls it a “slippery- slope argument” and goes to say, “…it is dismaying that opponents of abortion rely on them so heavily and uncritically” (page 113). Although Thomson makes it clear that she disagrees with the notion that a fetus is a person (…I think the premise is false, that the fetus is not a person from th...
Thomson appeals to the strongest case for abortion, rape, to define the rights of the fetus and the pregnant person. Thomson concludes that there are no cases where the person pregnant does not have the right to choose an abortion. Thomson considers the right to life of the pregnant person by presenting the case of a pregnant person dying as a result of their pregnancy. In this case, the right of the pregnant person to decide what happens to their body outweighs both the fetus and the pregnant person’s right to life.
Over the course of the last century, abortion in the Western hemisphere has become a largely controversial topic that affects every human being. In the United States, at current rates, one in three women will have had an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45. The questions surrounding the laws are of moral, social, and medical dilemmas that rely upon the most fundamental principles of ethics and philosophy. At the center of the argument is the not so clear cut lines dictating what life is, or is not, and where a fetus finds itself amongst its meaning. In an effort to answer the question, lawmakers are establishing public policies dictating what a woman may or may not do with regard to her reproductive rights.
Many arguments in the abortion debate assume that the morality of abortion depends upon the moral status of the foetus. While I regard the moral status of the foetus as important, it is not the central issue that determines the moral justifiability of abortion. The foetus may be awarded a level of moral status, nevertheless, such status does not result in the prescription of a set moral judgement. As with many morally significant issues, there are competing interests and a variety of possible outcomes that need to be considered when making a moral judgement on abortion. While we need to determine the moral status of the foetus in order to establish the type of entity we are dealing with, it does not, however, exist in a moral vacuum. There are other key issues requiring attention, such as the moral status and interests of the pregnant woman who may desire an abortion, and importantly, the likely consequences of aborting or not aborting a particular foetus. Furthermore, I assert that moral status should be awarded as a matter of degree, based upon the capacities of sentience and self-consciousness an entity possesses. In a bid to reach a coherent conclusion on the issue, the moral status of both foetus and woman, along with the likely results of aborting a particular foetus, must be considered together. Given the multiple facets requiring consideration, I assert that utilitarianism (Mill 1863) offers a coherent framework for weighing and comparing the inputs across a variety of situations, which can determine whether it is ever morally justifiable to have an abortion.
According to Thomson, unjust killing comes from the result of depriving someone from a right that they own. In the Henry Fonda case, Fonda was given the magical ability to cure a sickness with just one touch over a fevered brow. So, Fonda has the right to volunteer in touching the fevered brow, but is not obligated to do so because the sick person does not own the right of Henry Fonda’s hand. This analogy is very significant in comparison to Thomson’s argument on justified abortion because it shows that the mother should not be held to any constraints because she has the freedom to her body. Given the fact that the mother has the authority to make any decisions she wants; abortion will always be justified because she is not obligated to give
Abortion is an important and rather popular topic in the philosophical world. On one side of the argument, pro choice, Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is permissible because the pregnancy might not have been voluntary or the mother’s life is at risk if she continues on with the pregnancy. On the opposing side of the argument, Don Marquis argues that abortion is wrong because it takes away all the potential things a fetus could value in their future life. In this paper, I will argue against Don Marquis view of abortion. I will begin by explaining that Marquis does not take into consideration the effect the pregnancy may have on the mother, and I will talk about how Thomson does take the mother into consideration. Next, I will criticize
2.[Use transition to connect these ideas to your thesis. Write from an outline. Think through the arguments both for and against your position. Articulate a defense to these ideas. This paragraph seems to focus on the moral argument. Document your claims.] The position I am referring to is if a woman is endangered of dying if she has the baby. There are no other reasons women should be able to have abortion! I think [¶17e] that the lady should have the baby and then put it up for adoption, but then there are also a lot of other people that think that the child will suffer psychologically, because in a lot of cases the child will never get to meet their biological parents. Even if the baby doesn't meet their parents they will not suffer as badly as it would if it were brutally
Thomson starts off her paper by explaining the general premises that a fetus is a person at conception and all persons have the right to life. One of the main premises that Thomson focuses on is the idea that a fetus’ right to life is greater than the mother’s use of her body. Although she believes these premises are arguable, she allows the premises to further her explanation of why abortion could be
In her article Thomson starts off by giving antiabortionists the benefit of the doubt that fetuses are human persons. She adds that all persons have the right to life and that it is wrong to kill any person. Also she states that someone?s right to life is stronger than another person?s autonomy and that the only conflict with a fetuses right to life is a mother?s right to autonomy. Thus the premises make abortion impermissible. Then Thomson precedes to attacks the premise that one?s right to autonomy can be more important to another?s right to life in certain situations. She uses quite an imaginative story to display her point of view. Basically there is a hypothetical situation in which a very famous violinist is dying. Apparently the only way for the violinist to survive is to be ?plugged? into a particular woman, in which he could use her kidneys to continue living. The catch is that the Society of Music Lovers kidnapped this woman in the middle of the night in order to obtain the use of her kidneys. She then woke up and found herself connected to an unconscious violinist. This obviously very closely resembles an unwanted pregnancy. It is assumed that the woman unplugging herself is permissible even though it would kill the violinist. Leading to her point of person?s right to life is not always stronger than another person?s right to have control over their own body. She then reconstructs the initial argument to state that it is morally impermissible to abort a fetus if it has the right to life and has the right to the mother?s body. The fetus has the right to life but only has the right to a ...
middle of paper ... ... She argues that fetuses are not persons or members of the moral community because they don’t fulfill the five qualities of personhood she has fashioned. Warren’s arguments are valid, mostly sound, and cover just about all aspects of the overall topic. Although she was inconsistent on the topic of infanticide, her overall writing was well done and consistent.
Thomson’s argument is presented in three components. The first section deals with the now famous violinist thought experiment. This experiment presents a situation in which you wake up one morning and discover you have been kidnapped and hooked up to an ailing violinist so that his body would have the use of your kidneys for the next nine months. The intuitive and instinctive reaction to this situation is that you have no moral duty to remain hooked up to the violinist, and more, that he (or the people who kidnapped you) does not have the right to demand the use of your body for this period. From a deontological point of view, it can be seen that in a conflict between the right of life of the fetus and the right to bodily integrity of the mother, the mother’s rights will trump those of the fetus. Thomson distills this by saying “the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly”.
However, in order for her thesis to be correct, the Bystander at the Switch case must always be morally permissible. There should be no situation in which it is morally impermissible to kill the one and save the five. If there were such a situation, where both parts of Thomson’s thesis remained true but it would still be morally impermissible to kill the one because of some outside factor, then Thomson’s thesis would no longer be the complete answer.