Preview

Thomson Abortion

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
860 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Thomson Abortion
Why Is Abortion A Concern To People?

Philosophical and Historical Perspectives

I.Introduction

One of the biggest moral issue today is woman's rights with abortion. Many people argued for the rights to keep abortion while others argued for banning it. In the article "The Rights of a Woman Do Not Outweigh the Rights of A Child" by Judith Jarvis Thomson, who is a philosopher and invented an analogy for her debate, talks about how a child has more right than the mother in the case of abortion and that abortion is the same thing as "killing" , Thomson says. Thomson claims the idea that anyone can argue that all abortion is impermissible. The article "Abortions Should Be Restricted to Before Twenty Weeks Gestation" by Douglas Johnson who is
…show more content…
Johnson starts off by going back to history telling the audience Roe v. Wade was announced during the "Dark Ages" stating "In the ensuing decades, knowledge regarding the development of unborn humans, and their capacities at various stages of growth, has advanced in quantum leaps." (Johnson), putting an example of why doctors should administer anesthesia into an unborn child around twenty weeks of pregnancy. Thomson's article starts off by explaining the alteration between baby rights and mother's rights coming from her very own perspective. She begins with how a woman has the right to choose her own lifestyle and how they want to live as long as it does not take away someone else's right to live and jumping straight to facts explaining her reasons. A difference between Johnson's and Thomson's articles is that Thomson gives her own analogy for her choice and debate on abortion and describes it as "...someone waking up strapped to a famous, but unconscious violinist." (Thomson). She uses this analogy to give the audience a different and better view on abortion. Thomson also uses number of rebuttals on her arguments and debates after each one of her paragraphs from each content. The two articles contrast in using examples. Thompson brings out more examples and has a bigger argument with abortion and the …show more content…
"Abortion Should Be Restricted to Before Twenty Weeks Gestation" has shown the audience Johnson's point in why there's a certain time period when abortion should be illegal by giving the reasons and details coming from studies. "The Rights of a Woman Do Not Outweigh The Rights of A Child" gives others who are against abortion a better mindset on why a child deserves more or equal rights as the mother. Both articles have its differences and also have its few amount of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    For many years, abortion has been perhaps the most controversial issue in America. The controversy is between protecting an unborn child’s life and taking away a woman’s constitutional freedom to choose. Those who are Pro-Choice believe that a woman should be allowed to control their own body and no one has the right to compel their morals on them. Pro-Life advocates like Jennifer Simmons, believe that a constitutional amendment should be pass giving equal protection to all including unborn children. To voice her opinion and spread her beliefs, Simmons wrote a paper to reach out and convince those undecided minds that Pro-Life is morally the only choice.…

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The goal of Judith Jarvis Thomson in her defense of abortion is to sway the ideas of those who are against abortion by challenging the arguments they give for thinking so. She begins by stating a premise. “For the sake of the argument” a human embryo is a person. This premise is one of the arguments most opponents of abortion use, but as she points out, isn’t much of an argument at all. These people spend a lot of their time dwelling on the fact that the fetus is a person and hardly any time explaining how the fetus being a person has anything to with abortion being impermissible. In the same breath, she states that those who agree with abortion spend a lot of their time saying the fetus is in fact not a person. Either way, no argument is really formed. No reasons are given. For sake of challenging an actual argument, she is disregarding this issue. With this premise out of the way, she addresses the basic argument the pro-choice campaign believes. “Every person has a right to life. So the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body; everyone would grant that. But surely a person’s right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mother’s right to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus may not be killed; an abortion may not be performed.” The remainder of her paper is a series of analogies meant to challenge the basic argument mention above. When looking at the analogies separately, they are in no way related to the abortion topic, but the conclusions drawn from each can be applied. Because these examples aren’t directly related to the debate, our emotions won’t necessarily be involved and we can clearly think about what is the “right” thing to do for each specific scenario.…

    • 1957 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    After reading “A defense of Abortion” by Judith Jarvis Thomson and what he had to say with his violinist analogy involving the kidney replacement. I agree with what he has to say on not only abortion itself but, whether or not a fetus should have the right to the women’s body. I don’t think that the fetus should be given the right to use the women’s body because what if she does not what to have a baby and ends up getting pregnant anyway. Also, each time a woman engages in sexual intercourse, she is not inviting the fetus to live inside her body. This is why birth control and other contraceptives are not a sure deal when dealing with sexual intercourse. What if the birth control method fails and the women end's up getting pregnant? She did…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Thomson begins her argument by questioning the validity of the argument proposed by anti-abortion activists. Thomson explains that "most opposition to abortion relies on the premise that the fetus is a human being….from the moment of conception" (153). Thomson thinks this is a premise that is strongly argued for, although she also feels it is argued for "not well" (153). According to Thomson, anti-abortion proponents argue that fetuses are persons, and since all persons have a right to life, fetuses also posses a right to life. Regardless, Thomson argues that one can grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception, with a right to life, and still prove that abortion can be morally justified. In order to prove this argument Thomson proposes the example of "the sick violinist."…

    • 1629 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The statement "defense of abortion", gives us an another view to a problem of abortion. Mostly, Judith Jarvis Thompson protects pro-choice side, and she says that abortion is not immoral, and that it is logically correct action. However there are a lot of anti-abortion philosophers who are not agree with it. So Judith Thompson gives an arguments to proof her sides correctness. She says that mother has all rights to do anything with her body and things in her body. Judith Jarvis Thompson also believes that fetuses are not persons, and killing them is not immoral. However she says that there are also situations, when abortion is incorrect. Also she gave 3 main thought experiments to get another point of view to abortion.…

    • 354 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Judith Jarvis Thompson 's A Defense of Abortion ' a different view of abortion is presented (47 . She contends that even if it is to be perceived that a fetus is a person worthy of the basic right to life still , it does not follow that abortion must be condemned just for that reason of the latter 's right to life . She asserted that abortion involves another individual , and another life for that matter . This means that the mother -her right to life and to her body- must also be considered…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    That a fetus has the right not to be killed unjustly, not not be killed, and the right to life, but not whatever it takes to sustain that life (such as in the example of the kidney donor), and this is an important distinction. This view protects the rights of the fetus, but also protects the rights and autonomy of the mother. Further, it recognizes that some rights are stronger than other rights, giving the mother the proper moral rights as not only a fully realized person, but one that would have to give the fetus life as well. Due to these reasons, I find Thompson’s argument as to why abortion is morally permissible the most…

    • 1359 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    goodwill

    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages

    For the same reason, Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus' right to life but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body—to which it has no right. Thus, it is not that by terminating her pregnancy a woman violates her moral obligations, but rather that a woman who carries the fetus to term is a 'Good Samaritan' who goes beyond her obligations…

    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the Anna Quindlen’s article I believe her greatest argument was the quote“for years I believed that a woman’s right to choose was absolute, but now I wonder. Do I, with a stable home and marriage and sufficient stamina and money, have the right to choose abortion because a pregnancy is inconvenient right now? Legally I do have that right; legally I want to always to have that right. It is the morality of exercising it under those circumstances that makes me wonder.” So we can easily understand that woman have the rights to choose to go through the abortion process or choose to not to go through it and no one can take that from them. With this essay, I believe people can also understand that making the decision to have an abortion and give up your baby can be the hardest decision you can ever make because it can mentally and physically leave an impact on your life.…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In contrast to factual statements, both essays are loaded with the opinions of the authors. For example, (Greenberg) 1996, expresses his irritation with Dr. Joycelyn Elders, a former surgeon general who is pro-choice and who has strongly voiced her support of…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Abortion: Roe Vs. Wade

    • 1687 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Short term being the baby’s life is taken away and long-term on the mother’s mental and emotional state. The mother can have guilt, sadness, and severe bouts of depression because of the choice of having an abortion. The other pro-life article is about a young girl named Afton Dahl. She wrote a persuasive speech on how abortion should be illegal. The article shows how older generations are less conservative than younger generations. Given more information on the view of pro-life by these two articles, we analyzed two articles that were pro-choice.…

    • 1687 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Abortion is one of the most controversial topic in the United State of America and the abortion usually takes a place in the American discussions. Wherever we are going, we hear about abortion and the women's right. In our media, television shows, radio or newspapers we find the different opinions of the abortion. The arguments between people who are against abortion and people who believe that abortion is the women right are often complicated. People judge others without giving the others a second thought and their judgment does not change even though the decisions might help their society or their family. The three major causes for abortion are the physical health problem, rape and poverty, and also there are some benefits for abortion in many cases.…

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Judith Jarvis Thompson and Don Marquis both have markedly different views on the topic of abortion. Thompson generally argues that there are cases where abortion may be morally permissible, due to the rights of the mother, while Marquis argues that abortion is almost always morally wrong, except under extraordinary circumstances, because the fetus has a future life. In this paper, I will evaluate the arguments of both parties, as well as identify what premises, if any, they both agree on. In addition, I will supply my own reasoning for why I believe that Marquis presents the more successful argument.…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The title is somewhat misleading because it's not a complete defense of Abortion it's more of a minimal defense. In Thomson's essay, she states that Abortion is not necessarily morally impermissible which means that there are times when it is permissible and there are times when it is not. She begins the essay by pointing out that people debate on whether or not a fetus is a person. Many people feel that If we had an answer to that then that would make things a whole lot simpler and we would know that if a fetus was a person then it would be morally impermissible to go forth with an abortion and if the fetus wasn't a person that it would be morally permissible to have an abortion. For the sake of argument, she goes on to say that a fetus is a person and even though that may be the case there are still many scenarios in which abortion is morally permissible.…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Personally, I think that any form of abortion is tantamount to murder, and should never be permitted. This article only brings to my attention that women who wish to have abortions are only concerned for themselves, as the argument is based upon the health of the woman. Although the author’s argument may be valid concerning some facets of the issue, I believe the focus of the subject should shift from the mother to the living creature inside and its right to…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays