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Discussing the viewpoints about abortion
Discussing the viewpoints about abortion
Discussing the viewpoints about abortion
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The subject of abortion is always and will most likely continue to be a subject of controversy and disagreement. Basically we have two sides, one that is pro-life and the other being pro-choice. Judith Jarvis Thompson clearly takes the pro-choice stance and gives unique arguments on the subject of abortion. On the other hand Don Marquis supports the pro-life position on the topic of abortion. While neither will ever agree, both make points that will make you truly think about how you feel as an individual.
Judith Jarvis Thompson takes a pro-choice stance using examples or viewpoints that are easily relatable to demonstrate her point on the subject of abortion. While the examples she uses are unlikely to occur, they are understandable. Our
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Her argument addresses the pro-choice stance through some odd, yet relatable scenarios. Her first scenario is that of you have been kidnapped and are being attached to a “famous unconscious violinist” and you are told that the violinist must stay attached to you in order to survive until his own kidneys can begin to function. If you unplug yourself or someone else unplugs you then the violinist will die. Therefore posing the question if you feel you have a duty to stay plugged in for a certain period of time? In this case she was specific to 9 months, the same amount of time as a typical pregnancy. Again, it is not the question of you being nice to stay plugged in, but do you feel the duty to stay plugged in? This particular scenario is thought to …show more content…
Marquis is not specific in his arguments in regards to when life begins, but rather a “majority of deliberate abortion is seriously immoral.” While Marquis is not taking the typical stance on pro-life, “It is always wrong to take a human life,” he does feel this viewpoint is too broad. Marquis enters his argument from a different angle than typical pro-life arguments. His primary argument is killing is not an act that is acceptable on any level. Additionally, when someone is killed, they are basically robbed of their future. What if the person killed was to have been the person who would have found a cure for cancer? Then the death of this person would be costly to society. This includes the case of an abortion where we basically are robbing the future of this unborn child. The unborn child taken because of an abortion could very well be the person that would have cured
...ument irrelevant in his argument. I am personally pro- life and do not agree with abortion unless a women was raped and there were extenuating circumstances if the mother’s life was threatened. Marquis FLO argument isn’t valid enough to conduce to his entire theory. Marquis cannot see into the future and determine if a fetus will have a great future. If the pregnancy goes well and the fetus is born, then yes they are entitled to a future, but whether it will be like “ours” is unpredictable making Marquis point of FLO an invalid argument. Abortion is depriving a fetus of a future life in general. If Marquis would have said this instead I would be more willing to agree with his theory. Abortion is morally impermissible because at the end of the day, it is murder. A fetus will grow to be a human with organs and a brain and have some type of future whether good or bad.
In this paper I will discuss Don Marquis’s essay “Why Abortion is Immoral” and Judith Jarvis Thomson’s objections to Marquis’ argument against abortion.
Judith Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” is an essay where Thomson argues that abortion is not impermissible. To be even more precise, she argues for abortion should also be sometimes permissible, but she also grants that there are certain situations in which getting an abortion would be immoral. “Most opposition to abortion relies on the premise that the fetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception.” (Thomson, 48). She uses the rhetorical triangle to help her achieve her argument about abortion. Which uses ethos, pathos, and logos to influence her providing the argument surrounding abortion.
Thus, Marquis’ argument for his pro-life view on abortion is flawed because one of his premises is not completely correct. Marquis argues that fetuses, children, and adults are all human beings and have the right to life. Also, Marquis says that losing one’s life is one of the worst things that can happen to a human being. So he technically declares that it is horrible to die, but not the worst thing to happen to someone. He starts out with the first premise about how the killing of a fetus deprives it of its potential future experiences.
...main for that hour – that it would be indecent in her to refuse” (page 119). My problem with this scenario is that she leaves it unfinished. What happens to the child that is then born? If pregnancy only lasted an hour, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. It’s the part after that (which is taking care of a child) that lasts the rest of your life and is most important. I also feel that Thompson makes assumptions, which make it easier for her to argue her points. In her first argument about the violinist, she says “I would imagine you would regard this as outrageous…” (Page 114). How does she know what people would “imagine?” It seems very arrogant of her to assume that people reading her article would automatically agree with her opinions. I think that the article focuses too much on why the Pro-Life ideas are wrong, instead of why Pro –Choice is right.
A considerable difference is that Marquis’ beliefs are associated with the uncertainty of the future whereas Tooley’s beliefs are invested in the present. Tooley claims that because a fetus isn 't a fully capable person, a fetus is not afforded a merit in a decision such an abortion. Tooley’s argument is based solely on what the fetus is capable of before birth. Marquis’ argument is based on potential following birth. Marquis holds the value of a human future to a high regard. Marquis makes a profound point when he compares the refusal to kill suicidal teens to the anti-abortion position. He emphasizes that the reasoning for not killing suicidal teens is solely because the teen could possibly posses “the desire at some future time to live.” Thus, simply because one is not capable of desiring life does not mean one is not worthy of
Don Marquis is a philosopher arguing that any form of abortion is immoral. His original thesis states: In the overwhelming majority of cases, deliberate abortions are seriously immoral. He begins by stating why killing is wrong in three statements. He states, “killing is wrong because it brutalizes the killer, it is a loss to others, and it robs the victim of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one’s future” (68). The first two statements do not address the fetus, but the last statement is very arguable, so Marquis emphasizes his argument on this premise. Depriving anybody of their future has many consequences. Some parts of a person’s future are valued now and some parts could be valued later. Therefore, it is wrong to kill any adult human because it is a loss of future (which has value). He addresses the questions of personhood by stating that fetuses have the potential to be humans. Therefore, killing a fetus is depriving the fetus of having a
Judith Jarvis Thomson makes an interesting argument on the defense of abortion. She uses a libertarian framework believing in the doctrine of free will on a rights based account that a women and the fetus that she carries have equal rights. She makes clear, that “the fetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception.” In her specific argument she believes that every person has a right to life, and our obligation to one another as human beings is to not interfere with the rights of others and are not obligated to intervene past that. Her specific argument is convincing.
Marquis’s argument that it is immoral to kill, and abortion is wrong because it deprives one of a valuable future has a lot of problems in my eyes that does not make his view on anti-abortion solid. The lack of arguments that do not raise questions that seem to go unanswered make it hard to be persuaded to change a pro-abortionist mind or even be open to understanding where Marquis’s arguments lead. His “what if” argument leaves room for anyone opposing to “what if” in any direction which is not grounds for an effective argument and hurts Marquis’s because a lot of the questions go unanswered in his essay.
Abortion is a considered a sensitive topic in society; as a result it is not frequently mentioned or discussed. However; Marquis has decided to voice his opinion on the matter.
To conclude, Marquis’s argument that abortion is wrong is incorrect. Thomson gives many examples of why Marquis is wrong, including that the mother’s right to her body
In the Judith Jarvis Thomson’s paper, “A Defense of Abortion”, the author argues that even though the fetus has a right to life, there are morally permissible reasons to have an abortion. Of course there are impermissible reasons to have an abortion, but she points out her reasoning why an abortion would be morally permissible. She believes that a woman should have control of her body and what is inside of her body. A person and a fetus’ right to life have a strong role in whether an abortion would be okay. Thomson continuously uses the story of a violinist to get the reader to understand her point of view.
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 ...
In A Defense of Abortion (Cahn and Markie), Judith Thomson presents an argument that abortion can be morally permissible even if the fetus is considered to be a person. Her primary reason for presenting an argument of this nature is that the abortion argument at the time had effectively come to a standstill. The typical anti-abortion argument was based on the idea that a fetus is a person and since killing a person is wrong, abortion is wrong. The pro-abortion adopts the opposite view: namely, that a fetus is not a person and is thus not entitled to the rights of people and so killing it couldn’t possibly be wrong.
According to Judith Thomson in her book “A Defense of Abortion”, a human embryo is a person who has a right to life. But, just because the human fetus has the right to life does not mean that the mother will be forced to carry it (Thomson, 48). Naturally, abortion may be seen as the deliberate termination of a pregnancy before the fetal viability. Though people have understood this, the topic of abortion has remained a controversial issue in the world. Individuals are divided into “Pro-choice” and “Pro-life” debaters depending on their opinion on the morality of the action. "Pro-life," the non-consequentialist side, is the belief that abortion is wrong, generally because it equates to killing. "Pro-choice," the consequentialist view, however,