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Summary Of A Defense Of Abortion Thomson

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In “A Defense of Abortion” Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is not always immoral, even when we assume for the sake of argument that a fetus is an innocent person. In cases of rape and even some cases of protected consensual sex, Thomson says it is not immoral for a woman to kill a fetus by denying it use of her body. There are two pieces to Thompson’s argument. First, she rejects the common assumption that to kill an innocent person is always morally wrong. And she uses a clever counterexample (the violinist) to show that even aside from the case where you would need to kill an innocent person to save your own life, it is not always morally wrong to kill someone by denying him use of your body when he needs it to live. Second, she uses the violinist example as an analogy with some cases of pregnancy, which include rape and some protected consensual sex, to show that those cases of pregnancy are not cases where abortion would be immoral, even if they involve killing an innocent person. …show more content…

There are two objections to the second part of Thomson’s argument from the analogy. One is the analogy is poor because even in cases of rape, the fetus is not a stranger but a biological relative, and since we are assuming it is a person, it would be a family member and the woman’s child. The second objection is that the analogy is poor because in cases of consensual sex, even if protected, the woman becomes responsible for the child’s predicament by willingly engaging in an activity that she knows might result in pregnancy. And this makes her responsible for at least bringing the child to term (and perhaps putting it up for adoption) rather than killing it when the pregnancy is

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Thomson's Response To This Objection By Judith Jarvis Thomson

178 Words | 1 Pages

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 Selfless Brother's Box Of Chocolates Summary

1055 Words | 5 Pages

In A Defense of Abortion Thompson presents an argument against the morality of abortion by showing the superiority of women’s rights through several different analogous cases. The case of focus will be case eight, “ A Selfless Brother’s Box of Chocolates.” In scenario one, Thompson argues that an older brother has a box of chocolates while his younger brother has nothing; the question of appeal is does the younger brother automatically have a right to these chocolates? The box of chocolates represents a woman’s body while the younger brother represents the fetus. Although it would be nice for the older brother (mother) to share his box of chocolates (mothers body) he is not obligated to share them with anyone even if he is perceived as a selfish, greedy, or a stingy person.

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Summary Of Defense Of Abortion By Judith Jarvis Thomson

565 Words | 3 Pages

Thomson asserts that it would be admissible to unplug it since you were kidnapped and suddenly bestowed with this liability without your consent. She connects this situation with a rape-induced pregnancy. By making the readers imagine themself in a similar situation, she is successful in her argument. Although we cannot fathom what a woman who got pregnant due to sexual assault is experiencing, the readers are able to attain a glimpse through Thomson's representation. Because it was involuntary, aborting the fetus will not be unjust.

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Rosalind Hursthouse Abortion Case Study

572 Words | 3 Pages

Rosalind Hursthouse has a very different opinion on abortion and does not relate it to the murder of children or the rights of women. Instead, she justifies it through what a virtuous person would do. In the case study with the Thompson’s, Hursthouse would relate it to the relevance of the familiar biological facts and how pregnancy is a known result of sexual intercourse. The fact that Linda’s fetus is four months old would not be of relevance in Hursthouse’s opinion as clear lines are not visible as to when the fetus is attached and developed. The main focus of Hursthouse would be to question whether the abortion would be a result of a person acting “virtuously or viciously or neither” (Hursthouse 474).

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Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Don Marquis

1739 Words | 7 Pages

On the opposite side of the level headed discussion, Thomson's contention is effective and greatly convincing. She has spent more exertion persuading the perusers of her new meaning of the privilege to-life idea rather than simply assaulting all the option choices like Marquis did. Thomson's utilization of test musings was a superb technique to pass on her contemplations without the limitation and uneasiness regularly connected with a delicate, sensitive subject like fetus

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Summary Of Marquis Arguments On Abortion

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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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Summary Of A Defense Of Abortion Judith Thomson

1070 Words | 5 Pages

She argues that with this situation you are aware of risk of becoming pregnant, and with this risk you are accepting the “invitation” of having a fetus to use your body. She thinks you have responsibility for the fetus even though it was not your intention to become pregnant. Going back to her main argument, this would be violating the right to life, as depriving a fetus of its right to life when it has permission to use your body would be unjust killing. I do think that voluntary sex entails giving permission to a fetus to use the woman’s body. I agree with Thomas that even though you may give yourself as much protection as possible during consensual sex, if the sperm enters and causes a pregnancy, you were still completely aware of this consequence.

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Henry Fonda's Arguments Against Abortion

696 Words | 3 Pages

This is what Thompson suggest when she gives the argument about Henry Fonda’s hand. She sates that you are dying and the only thing that can save you is the touch of Henry Fonda’s who lives on the west coast. While it would be nice for her to fly to over to save you she doesn’t have the obligation to do so. Nor you don’t have the right for her to do this such as Thompson ties mother has no right to carry her child. She connects this by saying if the mother life is at risk by carrying out the pregnancy out she has the

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Jarvis Thomson And Rosalind Hursthouse: The Permissibility Of Abortion

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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Summary Of A Defense Of Abortion Thomson

1258 Words | 6 Pages

By challenging the widely held premise that a fetus, considered a human being from conception, possesses an absolute and unassailable right to life, Thomson invites readers to reconsider their perspectives on this divisive issue. This analysis will delve into the intricacies of her argument, examining key premises, the ultimate conclusion, and evaluating the validity and soundness of Thomson's rationale. Premises: The Fetus as a Person: Thomson begins by acknowledging the prevalent belief that every person possesses an inherent right to life. However, she adopts, for the sake of argument, the assumption that a fetus is a person, setting the foundation for a nuanced examination of the implications of this right. The pervasive belief in the absolute right to life for a fetus becomes a focal point of Thomson's scrutiny.

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Don Marquis Why Abortion Is Immoral Analysis

1539 Words | 7 Pages

Introduction In his paper “Why Abortion Is Immoral”, Don Marquis attempts to put forward and defend his argument of why abortion is morally equivalent to the killing of a human. Using the deprivation account of the wrongness of death, he is able to apply the same immorality of killing a human to killing a fetus, even if it is not classified as a human, by claiming that both subjects have the capacity for a future like ours. Yet, Marquis fails in explaining why having a future like ours starts when an embryo becomes a fetus and not earlier in the developmental process, leading to absurd outcomes from his logic that causes his argument to fall apart. In this essay, I posit that the use of the deprivation of account on a fetus leads to logically absurd outcomes, and therefore nullifies Marquis’ the claim that abortion is prima facie wrong.

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Summary: A Defense Of Abortion By Judith Thomson

612 Words | 3 Pages

For this week, we focused on an article entitled, “A Defense of Abortion,” by Judith Thomson. The article covered the topic of abortion and used an interesting analogy to help put a picture to the views and opinion of abortion that the Author has. Thomson’s analogy painted a picture of someone in good health being bed ridden for nine months because they were selected against their will to help keep a famous violinist alive. The scenario painted by the author says that you (the person bedridden) is the only person that is able to keep this violinist alive, while still being unconscious, but still alive. It the scenario was supposed to put the reader in the shoes of the mother that found herself pregnant and now is tied for 9 months to what basically

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A Defense Of Abortion By Judith Jarvis Thomson

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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Essay On Abortion By Judith Thomson

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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