Altman And Brison On Abortion

1. What key premise of the pro-life argument does Thomson criticize as false? Explain her argument.

In Thomson’s pro-life argument, the key premise she describes as false is “that the fetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception” (47). In the eyes of Thomson, abortion is morally impermissible. She does explain how most agree that the fetus is a human well before birth with evidence supporting on how by the tenth weeks of development, it already has a face, arms, legs, fingers, toes and even internal organs along with brain activity being detectable. Though she states this, the sees the premise as false and this is not the point of her argument. She is not “arguing for the right to secure the death of the unborn child” (66), but for the right of the woman’s choice to control her body. She sways her argument in using real life

Identify and contrast the relevant freedoms central to the dispute between Altman and Brison.

Both Altman and Brison write their opposing sides of pornography. Pornography is defined as “the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or words that also includes women dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities; enjoying pain or humiliation or rape; being tied up … injury, torture, shown as filthy or inferior; bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual” (Brison, 378-379).
Altman would argue that one’s sexual autonomy entails a moral right to porn, even depictions of sexual violence and that is the price we pay for sexual autonomy. According to Altman, sexual autonomy is that “individuals ought to have a broad liberty to define and enact their own sexuality” (387). He uses sexual autonomy to defend his case saying that person are “agents who have the broad right to decide for themselves on how to live their lives” (388). This right overrides the degrading and violent part of porn because adults need this as part of their sexual