Analysis Of Judith Jarvis Thomson's A Defense Of Abortion

In Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion”, she tackles the controversial topic of pregnancy termination using multiple analogies that put the concept in a different light. By putting this sensitive topic in a different context, the author opens the door to unbiased debate. For the sake of ease, she permits that a fetus is a life from the moment of conception, as her argument focuses on whether abortion is morally permissible, not arbitrary timelines of fetal development. Even with this allowance it is not morally wrong to get an abortion. The mother’s right to choice trumps a fetus’ right to life, even if the mother voluntary risked pregnancy. Firstly, the right to life does not include the use of another’s body. Thomson states that, “if a human being has any just, prior claim to anything at all, he has a just, prior claim to his own body” (p. 292).1 So if a women has a claim to her body, it logically

If you wake up and find you are attached to a famous violinist who is using your kidneys to survive, does his right to life outweigh your bodily autonomy? Thomson does not think so. In the scenario she proposes, the Society of Music Lovers performed the operation without your knowledge, and upon waking you ask to be unplugged from the violinist. The staff at the hospital denies your request as the violinist has a right to life which outweighs your right to make decisions regarding your body; therefore, you must stay attached to him indefinitely. This sounds outrageous, but Thomson asserts that this is what we expect of women who become pregnant. Women who become pregnant are expected to stay attached to another being in order to sustain its life whether she wishes to or not. If she asks for an abortion, opponents want to refuse because the fetus life is supposedly more valuable than the woman’s autonomy of her own