Pros And Cons Of Abortion
Arguments in favor of the right to abortion
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[edit] Bodily rights
An argument first presented by Judith Jarvis Thomson states that even if the fetus has a right to life, abortion is morally permissible because a woman has a right to control her own body. Thomson's variant of this argument draws an analogy between forcing a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy and forcing a person's body to be used as a dialysis machine for another person suffering from kidney failure. It is argued that just as it would be permissible to "unplug" and thereby cause the death of the person who is using one's …show more content…
For example, it is argued that the fetus is the woman's child as opposed to a mere stranger;[59] that abortion kills the fetus rather than merely letting it die;[60] and that in the case of pregnancy arising from voluntary intercourse, the woman has either tacitly consented to the fetus using her body,[61] or has a duty to allow it to use her body since she herself is responsible for its need to use her body.[62] Some writers defend the analogy against these objections, arguing that the disanalogies are morally irrelevant or do not apply to abortion in the way critics have …show more content…
Some reject the argument on grounds relating to personal identity, holding that the fetus is not the same entity as the adult into which it will develop, and thus that the fetus does not have a "future like ours" in the required sense.[80] Others grant that the fetus has a future like ours, but argue that being deprived of this future is not a significant harm or a significant wrong to the fetus, because there are relatively few psychological connections (continuations of memory, belief, desire and the like) between the fetus as it is now and the adult into which it will develop.[81] Another criticism is that the argument creates inequalities in the wrongness of killing:[82] as the futures of some people (for example the young, bright and healthy) appear to be far more valuable or desirable than the futures of other people (for example the old, depressed and sick), the argument appears to entail that some killings are far more wrong than others, or that some people have a far stronger right to life than others—a conclusion that is taken to be counterintuitive or
|[pic] |This section requires expansion. |
[edit] Bodily rights
An argument first presented by Judith Jarvis Thomson states that even if the fetus has a right to life, abortion is morally permissible because a woman has a right to control her own body. Thomson's variant of this argument draws an analogy between forcing a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy and forcing a person's body to be used as a dialysis machine for another person suffering from kidney failure. It is argued that just as it would be permissible to "unplug" and thereby cause the death of the person who is using one's …show more content…
For example, it is argued that the fetus is the woman's child as opposed to a mere stranger;[59] that abortion kills the fetus rather than merely letting it die;[60] and that in the case of pregnancy arising from voluntary intercourse, the woman has either tacitly consented to the fetus using her body,[61] or has a duty to allow it to use her body since she herself is responsible for its need to use her body.[62] Some writers defend the analogy against these objections, arguing that the disanalogies are morally irrelevant or do not apply to abortion in the way critics have …show more content…
Some reject the argument on grounds relating to personal identity, holding that the fetus is not the same entity as the adult into which it will develop, and thus that the fetus does not have a "future like ours" in the required sense.[80] Others grant that the fetus has a future like ours, but argue that being deprived of this future is not a significant harm or a significant wrong to the fetus, because there are relatively few psychological connections (continuations of memory, belief, desire and the like) between the fetus as it is now and the adult into which it will develop.[81] Another criticism is that the argument creates inequalities in the wrongness of killing:[82] as the futures of some people (for example the young, bright and healthy) appear to be far more valuable or desirable than the futures of other people (for example the old, depressed and sick), the argument appears to entail that some killings are far more wrong than others, or that some people have a far stronger right to life than others—a conclusion that is taken to be counterintuitive or