Summary Of Defense Of Abortion Thomson

In her paper, Defence of Abortion, Judith Jarvis Thomson takes a more “pro-choice” approach and argues for the justification of abortion in more circumstances than not. She does this by using different thought experiments that align with different situations in which women can get pregnant. While I agree with her reasonings for the first two circumstances talked about in her paper, I disagree with her justification for getting pregnant while using protection. I believe that even though inconvenient, it is unjust and immoral to abort a fetus when a pregnancy is caused by failed protection. To start, Thomson states that four circumstances come about when a woman gets pregnant. She then follows each situation with a thought experiment to explain
She justifies this point with the violinist case, which states that a famous violinist is about to die so his fan base nonconsensually kidnaps you and hooks your origins up to his for 9 months until he can get better and live on his own again. As the reader, you can choose to stay hooked up to him or cut the cords, which would kill the violinist, but allow you to live your life as you did previously. Thomson argues that it would be extremely unfair and immoral to you to force you to stay attached to the violinist, as you had nothing to do with him being connected to you in the first place. She goes on to compare this to nonconsensual intercourse that causes pregnancy and states that it is morally acceptable to abort the fetus because, just like being attached to the violinist, a woman did not ask for or do anything to warrant being pregnant. Her next argument was on the topic of abortion when the mother's life is at risk. For this, she has you imagine you are inside a house with a baby that just keeps growing and growing. If the baby continues to grow, it will eventually crush you and end your life, but you have the option to kill the baby and save your own