A Defense of Abortion

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"Abortion Defense " is a moral philosophical paper by Judith Jarvis Thomson first published in 1971. Giving by argument that the fetus has the right to life, Thomson uses mind experiments to argue that the right of the fetus to live does not overwhelm the right of a pregnant woman to control her own body and the life support function, and that the induced abortion is not morally permitted. His argument has many critics on both sides of the abortion debate, but continues to accept the defense. Thomson's imaginative examples and controversial conclusions have made the "Abortion Defense" perhaps "the most reprinted essay in all contemporary philosophy".

Video A Defense of Abortion

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In "A Defense of Abortion", Thomson provides for the sake of the argument that the fetus has the right to life, but defends the ability of abortion by appealing to mind experiments:

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A well-known subconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney disease, and the Society of Music Lovers has researched all available medical records and found that you yourself have the right blood type to help. Therefore they kidnap you, and last night the circulatory system of violin players is plugged into you, so your kidneys can be used to extract toxins from their blood as well as your own blood. [If he is deprived of you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will recover from his illness, and can be safely removed from you.

Thomson says that you can now break away from violinists without permission even though this will lead to his death: this is because of the restriction on the right to life, which excludes the right to use the body of others, and by depriving your violinist does not violate his right to life but only remove it from something - your body use - which he has no right to. "[I] you allow him to continue using your kidneys, this is good on your part, and not something he can claim from you as his right."

For the same reason, Thomson says, abortion does not infringe on the right of the fetus to live, but it only removes the fetus from something - the use of the body and the life support function of non-consensual women - that is nonexistent. Thus, by choosing to terminate her pregnancy, Thomson concludes that a pregnant woman usually does not violate the right to live the fetus, but simply withdraws her own body use, which usually causes the fetus to die.

Third party participation - "child expansion "

Thomson criticized the general method of reducing the right of women to abrogate from the permissibility of third parties who have abortions. In almost all cases, a woman's abortion rights may depend on the doctor's willingness to do so. If the doctor refuses, then the woman is denied the right. To base a woman's right on a doctor's suitability or rejection, she says, is to ignore the fullness of the mother's personality, and then, her right to her body. Thomson presents a hypothetical example of 'expanding child':

Suppose you find yourself trapped in a small house with a growing child. I mean a very small house, and a child that grows fast - you are already in the wall of the house and within minutes you will be crushed to death. The child on the other hand will not be crushed to death; if nothing was done to stop him from growing he would be hurt, but in the end he would just open the house and get out of the free man.

Thomson admits that a third party can not make the choice to kill the destroyed person or the child. However, this does not mean that the destroyed person can not act defensively and attack the child to save his own life. To equate this with pregnancy, the mother can be considered a home, a growing child's fetus. In such a case, the mother's life is in danger, and the fetus is threatening her. For no reason should the life of the mother be threatened, and also for no reason the fetus threatens her, both are innocent, and thus no third party can intervene. But, Thomson says, threatened people can intervene, where the justification of a mother can be canceled.

Continuing, Thomson returns to the 'expand children' example and shows:

What we should remember is that unborn mothers and babies are not like two tenants in a small house, which, with unfavorable mistakes, has been leased for a second: the mother owns the house. The fact that he did add to the abominations in concluding that mothers can not do anything from the notion that a third party can not do anything. But it's more than this: it provides a bright light on the assumption that a third party can not do anything.

If we say that nobody can help the mother to have an abortion, we fail to recognize her right to her body (or property). Thomson says that we are not personally obliged to help mothers but this does not rule out the possibility that others can act. As Thomson reminded, the house belonged to the mother; Similarly, the body that holds the fetus also belongs to the mother.

Pregnancy resulting from voluntary relationships - "seeds of people"

To illustrate the example of pregnancy due to voluntary relationships, Thomson presents the 'seed-person' situation:

Again, just think of it like this: grains float in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, someone might float in and take root in the carpet or upholstery. You do not want kids, so you fix your windows with a nice mesh screen, the best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very rare occasions, one of the screens is broken; and the beans floating in and rooted.

Here, the human seed that flies through a window represents a conception, though a cautious screen of the net, which functions as a contraceptive. The woman does not want a human seed to take root in her home, so she even takes action to protect herself with the best mesh screen, and then voluntarily opens the window. However, if one seed of a person finds his way through his display window, not as expected, is it a simple fact that the woman consciously risked such an event when opening a window she denied her ability to rid her house of the troublemaker? Thomson notes that some may agree with this question, claiming that "... after all you can turn on with floors and empty furniture, or with windows and doors closed." But with this logic, he says, every woman can avoid pregnancy because of rape by simply undergoing a hysterectomy - an extreme procedure just to keep that kind of possibility. Thomson concludes that although there may be times when the fetus has a mother's right, of course in many cases the fetus has no right to the mother's body. This analogy raises the issue of whether all abortions are unfair killing.

Warning

Thomson does not endorse unlimited abortion rights. He gave the example of a hypothetical woman who sought a final abortion "just to avoid the disruption of delaying a trip abroad" and declared this to be "indecent in a positive manner".

Thomson also explicitly rejects claims that pregnant women have the right to kill their children. He argues for the right of the mother to stop pregnant, even if this results in the death of the children, but not for the right to ensure that her offspring die. If, for example, late abortions inadvertently result in the birth of a living baby, then Thomson will conclude that the mother has no right to kill her baby.

Maps A Defense of Abortion

Criticism

Critics of Thomson's argument generally permit removal of violinists, but attempt to block the conclusion that abortion is permitted by stating that there are relevant moral differences between the violinist scenario and typical cases of abortion. One notable exception to this general agreement is Peter Singer, who says that, regardless of our intuition, the utilitarian calculus implies that a person is morally obliged to remain connected with the violinist.

The most common objection is that the argument of the Thomson violinist can justify abortion only in cases of rape. In the violinist scenario, the woman is kidnapped: she does not agree to install a violinist and she does nothing to cause the violinist to be plugged in, like a woman who is pregnant because rape has nothing to do for her pregnancy. But in typical abortion cases, pregnant women voluntarily have sex, and thus have secretly agreed to allow the fetus to use her body (consent of secretly consent), or else have the obligation to retain the fetus because the woman itself causes the fetus to stand in need of her body (which is objection). Another common objection reveals the claim that the fetus is a pregnant girl, whereas violinist is a stranger (aliens versus offspring) objection, or that abortion is direct and intentionally kills the fetus while removing the violinist lets him die for natural causes (rejection > murder versus letting go dead ).

The defender of Thomson's argument answered that the alleged dianalogies between violinist scenarios and typical cases of abortion are not a problem either because the factors raised by the critics are not really morally relevant, or because they are morally relevant but not applicable for abortion in the way that critics claim. Thomson's defenders also point to the argument of his 'seed-person' as a powerful analogy for typical cases of abortion.

Thomson's article, by proposing moral justification for abortion even if one gives the life rights of a fetus, opens up new avenues in the philosophical debate on the ethics of abortion. Criticism of his views has formulated many objections to his argument, and human rights defenders have responded in the back and forth way that continues in philosophical journals even today.

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See also

• The philosophical aspect of the abortion debate - for more details on how this debate has progressed beyond Thomson's article
• The abortion debate
• Abortion

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Note

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References

• Beckwith, F. 1993. Politically Correct Death . Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, chapter 7.
• Boonin, D. 2003. Abortion Defense . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ch 4.
• Finnis, J.. "Abortion Rights and Errors". Philosophy and Public Affairs 2: 2 (Winter 1973): 117-145. JSTORÃ, 2265137
• Hershenov, D. "Abortion and Distortion". Theory and Social Practice 27: 1 (January 2001): 129-148.
• Kamm, F. 1992. Creation and Abortion . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Lee, P. 1996. Abortion and Human Life Not Born . Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, chapter 4.
• Lee, P, and R George. "Wrong Abortion". In A Cohen and C Wellman, eds. 2005. Contemporary Debate in Applied Ethics . Oxford: Blackwell: 13-26, 20-21.
• McMahan, J. 2002. Killing Ethics . New York: Oxford University Press.
• Parent, W. 1986. "Introduction to Editor". In J Thomson. Rights, Restitution, and Risk . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: vii-x.
• Parks, B. D. "Artificial Natural Differences and Siamese Twins: Responses to Judith Thomson's Arguments for Abortion Rights". National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 6: 4 (Winter 2006): 671-680
• Schwarz, S. 1990. Moral Abortion Questions . Chicago: Loyola University Press, ch 8.
• Singer, P. 2011. Practical Ethics . New York, Cambridge University Press, ch 6.
• Smith, B. and Brogaard, B. 2001. "Living High and Letting Die". Philosophy 76 (3): 435-442 (2001) doi: 10.1017/S0031819101000377, JSTORÃ, 3751780
• Steinbock, B. 1992. Life Before Birth: Moral Status and Embryonic and Fetal Law . Oxford: Oxford University Press, at 78.
• Thomson, J. "Abortion Defense". Philosophy and Public Affairs 1: 1 (Autumn 1971): 47-66. JSTORÃ, 2265091
• Thomson, J. "Rights and Death". Philosophy and Public Affairs 2: 2 (Winter 1973): 146-159. JSTORÃ, 2265138
• Tooley, M. "Abortion and infanticide". Philosophy and Public Affairs 2: 1 (Autumn 1972): 37-65, at 52-53. JSTORÃ, 2264919
• Warren, M. "About Moral and Legal Status of Abortion". Monist 57: 1 (1973): 43-61. JSTORÃ, 27902294
• Wiland, E. "Unconscious violinist and use of analogy in moral argument". Journal of Medical Ethics 26 (2000): 466-468. doi: 10.1136/jme.26.6.466

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External links

• Abortion Defense, full text

Source of the article : Wikipedia