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Is a fetus a person essay
Arguments against abortion
Opposing arguments about abortion
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In this paper, I will discuss the pro- abortion argument presented by Judith Thomson. The main idea of Thomson’s argument is that abortion is morally permissible. In supporting her position, Thomson presents several arguments regarding the implications of the right to life that she believes the anti- abortion might have dwelled on. As I explain her arguments, I will also attempt to criticize her view on the topic.
As Thomson observes, most of the common argument on abortion is to define whether or not a fetus is a person. This type of argument, Thomson believes, does not lead to the conclusion of whether or not abortion is permissible. Therefore, she assumes that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception for sake of her arguments. Since fetus is a person and a person has a right to life, fetus is, then, has a right to life. Rather than arguing for or against the statement, Thomson approaches by evaluating the right to life and criticizing the false implications that one might have on having the right to life.
The first implication is the idea of having the right to life can outweigh any other rights that come in conflict with it. By this, it means that your personal rights will not matter when they are compared to my right to life. This the extreme view, where abortion is still not allow even if the mother might die from bearing the fetus, since the fetus has the right to life. Thomson objects this implication of the right to life and proposes a scenario in such that the mother may take action to save her own life. In her scenario of the growing baby, the tiny house that you and this baby are stuck in is similar to a mother’s womb. If you continue to let the baby grow, you will be crushed to death but nothing will happe...
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...mine if it is an unjust killing? With this argument, Thomson turns towards the more common cases, where women are aware of pregnancy risks when they voluntarily engage in sexual activities.
Having knowledge of the risks but the woman still engage in the activities, wouldn’t that put her, at least, to be partially responsible for giving the fetus rights to use her body? In the people- seed scenario, a person has taken all the precaution measures to prevent the people- seed from drifting in, yet a seed roots itself inside the house. Thomson argues that the house owner cannot be fully responsible for this seed who will grow into a person. As a counter response to those that argue the owner could have live without windows, Thomson proposes that women may also have a hysterectomy to avoid becoming pregnant when being raped.
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.
Alternatively, one might think that having the right to life means that one has the right not to be killed. Again, though, Thomson thinks that the violinist case shows this to be false; surely one can unplug oneself from the violinist, even though doing so kills him. Pathos were included when she provided the example of the violinist. If one attempts to alter the definition by suggesting instead that having the right to life means having the right not to be killed unjustly, then one has done little to advance the debate on abortion. She states that the third party don’t have the right to have the choice of killing the person. She went with the logos and pathos way when she was trying to explain what was going to happen. It shows how Thompson agrees with how the choice of life is not up to the third party or anybody else. With pathos and logos, Thomson further argues that even if women are partially being usually responsible for the presence of the fetus, because it is a voluntarily by engaging in intercourse with the full knowledge that pregnancy might result, it does not thereby follow that they bear a special moral responsibility toward
As per the thought experiment, Thomson further argues that abortion only deprives the fetus of the use of a woman’s body and nothing else. This disanalogy is often ignored, for it only strengthens Thomson’s argument. Nitpicking between small differences offers no compelling logic to defeat the thought experiment. Similar to how opponents of Thomson’s rationalization carefully attack the smallest details, a distinction cannot be made of what life is more valuable.
In this essay, I will hold that the strongest argument in defence of abortion was provided by Judith Jarvis Thompson. She argued that abortion is still morally permissible, regardless if one accepts the premise that the foetus is a person from the moment of conception. In what follows, I agree that abortion is permissible in the ‘extreme case’ whereby the woman’s life is threatened by the foetus. Furthermore, I agree that abortion is permissible to prevent future pain and suffering to the child. However, I do not agree that the ‘violinist’ analogy is reliable when attempting to defend abortion involving involuntary conception cases such as rape, whereby the foetus does not threaten the woman’s health. To achieve this, I will highlight the distinction
In her essay, “A Defense of Abortion”, Judith Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible in most cases even when the fetus is considered a person. She does this by claiming that the right to bodily autonomy supersedes the right to life in almost every case and that the intention of the mother is important in defining when an abortion is permissible. Through multiple thought experiments she shows that the Western perspective often places more importance on the right to autonomy than the right to life even though it is claimed otherwise, and that if a mother does not intend to become pregnant she is not morally obligated to carry the fetus to term in most cases. I will examine these thought experiments and their implications in Thomson’s argument, present a rebuttal and speculate on her response.
In Judith Jarvis Thompson’s article “A Defense of Abortion” she explores the different arguments against abortion presented by Pro –Life activists, and then attempts to refute these notions using different analogies or made up “for instances” to help argue her point that women do have the right to get an abortion. She explains why abortion is morally permissible using different circumstances of becoming pregnant, such as rape or unplanned pregnancy.
In this paper I will be arguing in favor of Judith Jarvis Thomson view point on abortion. I am defending the use abortion and only in the first trimester. I will consider Don Marquis objections of the practice but ultimately side with Thomson.
The overall thesis that Thomson presents in “A Defence of Abortion”, is that abortion is permissible no matter the personhood status of the fetus. Their argument addresses various aspects of the issue: the rights of the fetus, the person pregnant with the fetus, how those rights interact with each other, third parties and moral obligation. They claim that the rights of a fetus are not any more important than the rights of the person pregnant. However, they also address cases where there is a sense of moral obligation not to have an abortion. Their discussion about third party participation can be used for other types of third party participation.
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
How would you feel if someone decided that you should never get a chance at life? That
Judith Jarvis Thomson, in "A Defense of Abortion", argues that even if we grant that fetuses have a fundamental right to life, in many cases the rights of the mother override the rights of a fetus. For the sake of argument, Thomson grants the initial contention that the fetus has a right to life at the moment of conception. However, Thomson explains, it is not self-evident that the fetus's right to life will always outweigh the mother's right to determine what goes on in her body. Thomson also contends that just because a woman voluntarily had intercourse, it does not follow that the fetus acquires special rights against the mother. Therefore, abortion is permissible even if the mother knows the risks of having sex. She makes her points with the following illustration. Imagine that you wake up one morning and find that you have been kidnapped, taken to a hospital, and a famous violist has been attached to your circulatory system. You are told that the violinist was ill and you were selected to be the host, in which the violinist will recover in nine months, but will die if disconnected from you before then. Clearly, Thomson argues, you are not morally required to continue being the host. In her essay she answers the question: what is the standard one has to have in order to be granted a right to life? She reflects on two prospects whether the right to life is being given the bare minimum to sustain life or ir the right to life is merely the right not to be killed. Thomson states that if the violinist has more of a right to life then you do, then someone should make you stay hooked up to the violinist with no exceptions. If not, then you should be free to go at a...
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 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.
Thomson recognizes that this thought experiment has a very limited application – specifically to those instances where a pregnancy is the result of coercion or violence. In the sec...
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,