Two Sides to Abortion: Find a Compromise

650 Words2 Pages

Abortion is the action of deliberately terminating a pregnancy, resulting in the death of the fetus. For years, people around the world have been divided on this issue. Bioethicists have been debating on the morality and permissibility of such act as it raises many questions concerning the parties involved in it. Even though finding clear answers to these questions raised could be difficult and might need hours of reflection, comparing and contrasting the views and principles of philosophers John Finnis and Judith Jarvis Thomson on specific cases might lead to a better understanding of the issue.
Finnis believes that all humans are persons and that every innocent person has the right not to be directly killed. He thinks that the one thing common to all who are regarded as persons is that they are living human individuals (17). For him, refusing this assumption and trying to demonstrate another notion of person would be “arbitrary discrimination” (17). Like Finnis, Thomson chooses to assume that humans are persons from conception even though she might not believe it. She declared herself “inclined to think that we have to agree that the fetus has already become a human person before birth” (40). Also as finnis did, she assumes that distinguishing the moment a fetus becomes a person is “dim” (40). They both discuss the case of rape and involve the presence of a third party in the discussions about abortion. However, Thomson assumes the first two premises of Finnis argument to be true to later make the difference.
Koko 2
Finnis thinks that it is always wrong to kill an innocent person thus the fetus. He believes that a just law and a decent medical ethic forbidding the killing of the unborn cannot admit an exception “to sa...

... middle of paper ...

...t results in killing innocents persons which means that they consider the fetus to be one. On the other hand, they are for it because they do not consider the fetus to be a person thus it does not have the right to life. Knowing whether a fetus is a person or not will always create blurred lines. Maybe the focus should be shifted on the different cases that can emerge. The compromise for this problem might be found between these discussions about personhood.

Works Cited

Eckholm, Erik. “Push for ‘Personhood’ Amendment Represents New Tack in Abortion Fight.” The New York Times. New York Times, 27 Oct. 2011. Web. 03 February 2014.
Finnis, John. “Abortion and Health Care Ethics.” Kuhse and Singer 17-24.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “A Defense of Abortion.” Khuse and Singer 40-50
Kuhse, Helga, and Peter Singer, eds. Bioethics an Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 2006. Print.

Open Document