Judith Jarvis Thomson's A Defense Of Abortion

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

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she does not wish to have, her right to control her own body has been stripped from her, and her bodily autonomy has been revoked.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

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