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Judith Jarvis Thomson's A Defense Of Abortion

1511 Words7 Pages

Abortion is, and always will be, a complicated issue with many, even more complicated sides. There are those who believe that abortion should be entirely outlawed as it is an unforgivable offense to kill another human being. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who believe that abortion should be subsidized by the government and seen as a normal, everyday procedure. Then, there are those who stand somewhere in the middle, not completely agreeing with either extreme. In the midst of the heated arguments that plague many governments, many think pieces and articles have been released explaining why each side is correct in their belief. Judith Jarvis Thomson wrote a think piece in 1971 titled “A Defense of Abortion.” This article includes …show more content…

It has no experience, no bonds have truly been formed, only a select few (the mother and father being the main exceptions) would mourn its death. The two are simply incomparable when talking about the morality of their termination. However, the analogy does incorporate the horrifying reality of an unwanted pregnancy, which is invasive and parasitic. If a woman is forced to continue with a pregnancy that she does not wish to have, her right to control her own body has been stripped from her, and her bodily autonomy has been revoked. This woman no longer has the right to make decisions about her own body because someone else has deemed that choice wrong. Which is the entire point behind Thomson’s analogy. Instead of focusing on the morality of abortion, she focuses on the legality. She highlights how pregnancy could be more akin to a medical procedure that no one consented to having done and just how much of a woman’s life is altered or even destroyed by becoming pregnant. Imagine if someone did not go to work for nine months and then came back expecting that job to still be there. While most pregnant women do not stop working until later in their pregnancy, their jobs could be at stake once they try to …show more content…

The rapist committed an unforgivable act and many see death as the only reasonable end for the criminal, which is what Kershnar based his article around. Judith Thomson’s analogy of abortion is not a bad one, but it is not an analogy that should be used for the broad spectrum of abortions that happen. Abortions can be for many reasons, not just due to a lack of consent. In the end, there is no reason a sane human being would stay connected to a strange man that is apparently sick. Just because a nurse explains his situation after the fact does not make what happened okay in any way. So, no, I would not stay hooked up with the violinist. No matter how much he needs my blood, it does outweigh my right to consent. In other words, a famous man’s life does not outweigh the life of an average citizen. Despite the complexity of abortion and my constant disapproval of her analogy, the analogy does help highlight the majority of abortions and why they occur. It does lack emotion and focuses more on the legality of the issue, but for many people, that is how they think. Some think logically, while others think more emotionally, and for those that think logically, this analogy might be easier to understand than

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Thomson's Response To This Objection By Judith Jarvis Thomson

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Thomson’s Response to This Objection- I think that Thomson’s response to my objection would be that while we are able to see that the pregnancy/violinist analogy does lack a realistic relevance because the situations that are set up are very different. The reader no matter their belief on the pregnancy/violinist case, or whether they agree with the Thomson case or not, provides no real insight on the rape case. I also think that Thomson would point out that her point in providing this analogy in particular was to stress the inference from said person’s right to life to that said person’s right to the use of another’s body.

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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Next By Barbara Hewson

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Though Barbara Hewson thoroughly demonstrates skill and knowledge in the subject of abortion, she takes the subject of many conflicts and turns it into a mess of unpersuasive words. The development of her stance on this subject shows no growth, and although she demonstrated the use of ethos, her article seems to endlessly cover the same information she had already delivered. Her use of logos and pathos is lacking, and what little use of ethos she has gives the reader only basic knowledge, and does not seem to help deliver her point. Hewson’s intended audience, based on her writing, is people of higher educational levels, or rather, those working on higher education in medical fields. Her lack of usage in basic Aristotelian rhetoric resulted

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Philippa Foot on Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect In an argumentative essay written by Philippa Foot, the doctrine of the double effect is challenged, with respect to the moral permissibility of abortion. To clarify, the doctrine of the double effect is the view that sometimes harm is foreseen however not intended. Although Foot believes the doctrine to be important, she still rejects it—“…arguments in favour of the doctrine of the double effect…but I now believe that the conflict should be solved in another way” (Foot, 7). She proposes instead “alternative distinctions to be drawn” for the problem of abortion—such, positive versus negative rights.

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598 Words | 3 Pages

She states that if every person has a right to live and a fetus is in fact a person, then as a result the fetus has a right to a life and the threat of abortion violates their rights—the unwilling mother, whose rights are also being violated, has also a right to her own body. According to Thomson, abortion is permissible when the pregnancy is the result of a rape—presented by the violinist experiment, a threat to the life of the mother is present—growing baby/small house experiment, and any cases in which attempts to prevent a pregnancy were made—burglar and seeds experiment. It should be pointed out that none of her arguments applies to a pregnancy in which no effort to prevent the pregnancy was made—or in other words, voluntary and conscious sex was involved. Thomson concluded that because her experiments, in her opinion, covered all possible cases of pregnancy and she proved the moral permissibility of abortion in all, then as a result abortion is never immoral, unless done for pointless and superficial reasons in which case it would be considered indecent, questionable, and

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Analysis Of Judith Thomson's A Defense Of Abortion

1079 Words | 5 Pages

This same way of thinking means that a fetus has no choice or ability to make decision when it comes to whose womb they inhabit as a result of failed contraception. Again, I am not arguing that abortion would not be morally permissible in the case of failed contraception but I am saying that there are key differences in intent and rational capacities between a malicious burglar and an unknowing fetus that weaken this analogy. Thomson also says that a burglar who breaks in should not have a right to stay in your house. While this is true, there are very few cases where a burglar will stay in your house if there intent is to steal something and get away. Staying in the house would be irrational if they want to get away with the crime.

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802 Words | 4 Pages

In “A Defense of Abortion” by Judith Jarvis Thomson, she argues for the claim that even if a fetus is a person from conception (and has a full right to life), a pregnant woman still has the right to have an abortion even if she is characterized as self-centered. There is a case where she should not choose to have an abortion because it is seen as morally wrong (435). The opposition to abortion relies on the idea that a fetus is a human being from the moment they are conceived, instead of explaining how that makes abortion wrong. The opposition to abortion would argue that everyone has a right to life, including a fetus, and the mother does have a right to her body, but a person’s right to life is more important, so the fetus should not be killed

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Summary Of A Defense Of Abortion Judith Thomson

1070 Words | 5 Pages

In “A Defense of Abortion,” Judith Thomson argues with a unique approach regarding the topic of abortion. For the purpose of the argument, Thomas agrees to go against her belief and constructs an argument based on the idea that the fetus is a person at conception. She then formulates her arguments concerning that the right to life is not an absolute right. There are certain situations where abortion is morally permissible. She believes that the fetus’s right to life does not outweigh the right for the woman to control what happens to her own body.

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Abortion is a controversial topic, which can stir up feelings on each side of the debate. Those who support abortion argue that it’s a woman’s choice of what to do with their body. Those who are against abortion argue that all life is sacred and that it should never be taken under any circumstance. In this paper, I will discuss Don Marquis and Judith Jarvis Thomson and their views on abortion.

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1765 Words | 8 Pages

I find myself struggling to pick a side because I think both the arguments from Thomson and Hursthouse need to be taken into consideration in the abortion debate. While I don’t entirely agree with Hursthouse’s view that the rights of women and the status of the fetus are irrelevant, my views are somewhat more aligned with her perspective. Overall, Thomson and Hursthouse both recognize scenarios where abortion may be morally permissible, yet their justifications

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233 Words | 1 Pages

Abortion is a topic that has been widely disputed and has long been considered whether it should be permissible. Even though it has been 30 years since abortion in Canada has been fully legalized, it is a topic that has remained taboo and many who choose to get an abortion are still heavily judged by society (Long, 2006). Judith Jarvis Thomson, in her piece, ‘A Defense of Abortion’, argues that abortion is morally permissible in most circumstances (Thomson, 1971). Thomson states how people should be Minimally Decent Samaritans, in that even if someone has no right to their assistance, they should save that person’s life if it doesn’t require significant sacrifice, and that this should be a standard we aim to stay above (Thomson, 1971). This

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624 Words | 3 Pages

Infanticide has a dehumanizing effect in people; moral feelings develop between the parent and infant. Once the infant is out of the womb, he or she cannot be morally considered as disposable material (3, Glover, CC 2015 p. 0164). However, with the definition of personhood explained by Glover, no person actually dies in an act of abortion. Glover concludes that the act of forcing women to endure pregnancy and restricting women of their freedom to choose not only involves a degree of misery, but can be seen as morally evil (4, Glover, CC 2015 p.

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680 Words | 3 Pages

Thomson also firmly believes that “a woman surely can defend her life against the threat it posed by the unborn child…” “But it cannot seriously be thought to be murder if the mother performs an abortion on herself to save her life. It cannot seriously be said that she must refrain, that she must sit passively by and wait for her death” (Thomson, Philosophy and Public Affairs p.47). She explains that this is in a way a form of self-defense and it is the woman’s absolute right to defend herself in any way possible to live. Killing, in this instance, is morally permissible if another person (in this case a fetus) is infringing on your right to

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810 Words | 4 Pages

First off, Thomson’s analogy is based on a few assumptions. The first one is the assumption that the pregnancy is an outcome of rape. A person could counter argue against the violinist’s analogy by stating that it’s a woman’s decision to have sex, and since

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461 Words | 2 Pages

Judith Jarvis Thomson, the author of this article, provides several defenses for abortion, but makes it crystal clear that possessing the right to abort does not equal to the right to kill. A fetus may be seen as an innocent human being with the right to live, but there are plenty of reasons why abortion may be justified. This is an issue that anti-abortion protestors seem to overlook. Pro-life advocates seem to sympathize and empathize with a pregnant woman’s right to decide whether motherhood is just for herself and just for society. Human development is the premise for Pro-Life advocates.

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