Prompt #1: Right to Life vs Abortion Tooley argues, through the use of examples and refutation of objections, that the right to life is dependent on holding the concept of one’s self as a continuing entity and subject of experiences and other mental states, something which fetuses lack. In Tooley’s view, this makes abortion permissible. While I will not argue that abortion is impermissible, I will argue that the premises Tooley relies on are inconsistent. The argument Tooley presents focuses on what basic moral properties are necessary for a thing to have the right to life. Tooley believes that to specify a certain point in the timeline of development after which it is immoral to destroy a human being, there must exist a morally relevant …show more content…
These distinctions are important to his argument because they allow us to have a clear picture of what the properties for right to life might encompass. According to Tooley, the state of ‘being a person’ entails the state of ‘having a serious moral right to life.’ However, Tooley believes being a person is not synonymous with being a human being, as the interchangeable use of the terms can assume fetuses and newborns automatically have a serious right to life, which Tooley does not agree with, as well as make the disagreement about whether or not it is a fact that fetuses and newborns qualify as humans rather than the moral principles this would entail. The separation between right to life and other rights is one of these principles, and Tooley claims that having a right to something can also be stated in its most basic form as “If A desires x, then others are under a prima facie obligation to refrain from actions that would deprive him of it.” When expanded to clarify applicable circumstances and avoid objections, this statement comprises Tooley’s main argument, the self-consciousness
We can begin to see the error in this view by considering Thomson’s comparison of the right to life with the right to vote. Thomson fails to advert the fact that some rights vary with respect to place, circumstances, maturity, ability and other factors, while other rights do not. We recognize that one's right to life does not vary with place as does one’s right to vote…. But to have the right to life is have moral status at all (Lee and George 17).
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.
The pro-life feminist believes that the autonomy of one’s body does not generalize if a fetus is present. In the case study involving Bob and Linda Thompson, a married couple with two children who end up pregnant after the failure of an IUD, the pro-life husband is thrilled by the news and informs the children, whereas the wife wants an immediate abortion of the four-month-old fetus in order to continue her career. Callahan would agree with the husband and believe Linda should continue the pregnancy as the right to control her body does not give her the right to control the body of her child. This fetus is immature and powerless, and though it is not yet a person, it is developing into one. Callahan believes that “women can never achieve the fulfillment of feminist goals in a society permissive toward abortion,” (Callahan 161) and disagrees with the views of philosophers Harrison and Petchesky. Furthermore, though Linda believes that it is her body and she has control over what she does with it, Callahan disagrees as another body will result from this 266-day pregnancy, and the process is genetically ordered. The abortion of the fetus is not like an organ donation as the development of the fetus is a continuing process, and Callahan finds it hard to differentiate the point after conception where the immature life
In her essay, “A Defense of Abortion,” Judith Jarvis Thompson outlines the most common arguments that people defend, and explains her views regarding each of these. She shares numerous examples and situations that she believes will support her views. One of her most prominent arguments is that of whether or not a fetus has moral standing as a “person.” She highlights the so called “battle” between an innocent life, the fetus, and the bodily rights of the mother. Within this argument, Judith outlines for us several situations which can provide people with a different outlook regarding abortion. Throughout Judith’s essay, she does not truly give a clear stance, but rather allows her readers to choose for themselves.
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.
Abortions occur for all types of reasons, whether it is because the pregnancy was unplanned, rape-induced, or that it holds a life threatening capacity for the woman herself. Pro-lifers believe once one is conceived, he or she are entitled to a right to live. It does not matter whether or not the pro-lifers are able to prove that a fetus consists of personhood. The life of a potential person should not be able to override the right to one’s body. Judith Thomson presents a though experiment where personhood is granted to a fetus, but how that mere fact still fails to override the woman’s right to her body.
Mary Anne Warren’s “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” describes her justification that abortion is not a fundamentally wrong action for a mother to undertake. By forming a distinction between being genetically human and being a fully developed “person” and member of the “moral community” that encompasses humanity, Warren argues that it must be proven that fetuses are human beings in the morally relevant sense in order for their termination to be considered morally wrong. Warren’s rationale of defining moral personhood as showcasing a combination of five qualities such as “consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, capacity of communication, and self-awareness” forms the basis of her argument that a fetus displays none of these elements that would justify its classification as a person and member of the morally relevant community (Timmons 386).
“I argue that it is personhood, and not genetic humanity, which is the fundamental basis for membership in the moral community” (133). This is the central idea in Mary Anne Warren’s argument on the personhood of a fetus. She argues that in order for a genetic human being to be considered a person, he or she would have to possess all of the six criteria’s of personhood which include sentience, ability to reason and emotionality. In order to determine the viability of the personhood of a fetus she argues two things. Firstly, Warren argues that even on the surmise that a fetus has a strong right to life, abortion can still be seen as morally permissible. Warren demonstrates this by using Judith Johnson’s Violinist analogy, which asks the basic
The standard argument against abortion claims that the fetus is a person and therefore has a right to life. Thomson shows why this standard argument against abortion is a somewhat inadequate account of the morality of abortion.
Over the duration 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 consideration to her reproductive rights. The drawback, however, is that there is no agreement upon when life begins and at which point one crosses the line from unalienable rights to murder.
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.
Marquis’ argues that like adult humans, fetuses have the ability to experience a future and by preventing them from experiencing that future through abortion is the same as killing an adult human.
In the essay, “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion” Mary Anne Warren provides an argument for the permissibility of abortions at any stage of a woman’s pregnancy. In the argument, Warren firstly states that the potential to become a human is not the same as being a human, and therefore is not deserving of the same rights. Warren then asserts that to be a human, a person must possess the following characteristics or traits: consciousness, self motivated activity, reasoning, awareness of oneself, and the ability to communicate.1 Furthermore, Warren then states that since fetuses, at their very early stages, do not possess these traits, they are not human.1 She then continues on to deduce, that if being similar to a person grounds a right
Singer first points out that the different opinions on abortion come from the debate on when a human life actually begins. He formulates the common argument against abortion as follows: it is wrong to kill an innocent human being; a human fetus is an innocent human being; therefore, it is wrong to kill a human fetus. It is because killing a human being is undoubtedly wrong and immoral that the opposition instead attempts to deny the second part of the argument “a human fetus is an innocent human being”. By doing so, critics argue that the fetus does not have the status of a human being. This debate results in focusing on whether, or when, the fetus can be considered a human being, and therefore given the same rights against being killed as another human being. Singer however claims that it is difficult to find a moral dividing line between a fetus and a human being because the development of the human egg to a child is gradual. To prove his point, he describes four commonly proposed moral lines (birth, viability, quickening, and consciousness), which he then denies with strong arguments.
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