In her commentary, Virginia Abernethy states about if Ann is competent or not. She explains that Ann having schizophrenia is “not conclusive evidence of incompetence to refuse medical procedure.” Virginia explains that because of Ann was psychiatrically ill and living in a mental hospital, she will not be the main person responsible for her own child’s care. Nevertheless, she states that with her competence, if Ann can refuse the abortion it is the “end of case.” I totally agree with Virginia’s comments about Ann’s decisions because at the end of the day it is her choice on having the baby or not.…
The question between whether abortion is morally right or wrong has been talked about for years and no common ground has been made. Judith Thomson, a believer in Pro-choice, argues that abortion is not wrong because the mother should have a choice of what happens to her body. In response to this, Donald Marquis who is against abortion believes every fetus is a human with a right to have a future like ours. Each Ethicist gives examples and theories as to why abortion is wrong or right. In this essay, I will attempt to show that abortion is okay in some cases, and Donald Marquis’s views and arguments are broad and incorrect.…
The debate about abortion focuses on two issues; 1.) Whether the human fetus has the right to life, and, if so, 2.) Whether the rights of the mother override the rights of the fetus. The two ethicists who present strong arguments for their position, and who I am further going to discuss are that of Don Marquis and Judith Thomson. Marquis' "Future Like Ours" (FLO) theory represents his main argument, whereas, Thomson uses analogies to influence the reader of her point of view. Each argument contains strengths and weaknesses, and the point of this paper is to show you that Marquis presents a more sound argument against abortion than Thomson presents for it. An in depth overview of both arguments will be presented in the paper, as well as a critique of both the pros and cons that stem out from the question-begging arguments.…
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.…
In Judith Thomson’s article “A Defense of Abortion”, Thomson proposed an interesting thought experiment. She asked the readers to imagine finding themselves waking up into a situation, where they were kidnapped and have a famous unconscious violinist, who suffered from a fatal kidney, plugged into their body. Later, they found out that they alone have the right blood type to help the violinist and to unplug themselves from him would have killed him. All they need to do is to have the violinist circulatory system plugged into their body for nine months. All for nine months, that’s it.…
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.…
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…
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.…
The topic of abortion is a highly controversial issue in today's society, and various views are held concerning the morality of the procedure. Some people feel that abortion is simply cold-blooded murder, because it is their opinion that a 'foetus' is a human being from the moment of conception. However, others would argue that a foetus is merely insubstantial matter, dependant entirely on its mother's body for survival, with no real life of its own. It is for this reason that pro-abortionists support the woman's choice to undergo abortion. After all, why should something so small and insignificant, which is not yet human, be entitled to the same rights and privileges a real human has"…
Abortion has always been a controversial topic in America. People have been separated into “pro life” and “pro choice” groups who support completely opposite topics. In “When Abortion Suddenly Stopped Making Sense”, Frederica Mathewes-Green successfully persuades readers why she is against abortion by utilizing personal anecdotes when switching from pro choice to pro life, alarming statistics and exposing a baby’s humanity using sympathetic language.…
7.Poupard. J. Richard, (2007) in 'suffer the violinist: why the pro-abortion argument from bodily autonomy fails ' Christian research journal, http://www.equipresources.org/atf/cf/%7B9C4EE03A-F988-4091-84BD-F8E70A3B0215%7D/JAA025.pdf accessed 30/01/2013…
Does a fetus have the right to the mother’s body? If a woman allows herself to engage in sexual relations, fully aware of the possibility of pregnancy, then the mother should indeed be responsible for the living fetus and should allow the fetus a right to her body. This argument is not valid in a case where sexual relations are forced upon a woman. However, this argument still holds the mother responsible for the fetus’s life even though the mother’s life may be at risk. Thomson’s response to this is that even though we could of potentially done something to avoid pregnancy, most people won’t want to accept responsibility.…
Jonathan Glover, in his article Matters of Life and Death casts dispersions on both pro-abortion and anti-abortion debates citing them as too knee-jerk emotional reactions diminishing the inherent complexity of the other side (1. Glover, CC2006, p. 0110). Glover comprehensively addresses the key points of both sides of the abortion debate and evaluates their inherent virtues, especially for those who hold these opinions, then methodically points out its flaws. Ultimately, Glover comes to the conclusion that though a fetus is a human at the moment of conception, the right to abort lies with the mother and her own self-determination.…
"When a bystander can see a fetus flinching at the moment of intentional killing, there is no to close to infanticide about it, it is infanticide."(Williams 2002). Abortion has been a controversial issue, ever since it was first legalized. This paper will explore the different viewpoints of abortion, how abortion is performed, what makes it wrong, and the options a woman has other than abortion.…
Richard Stith presents an analogy in his article “Why Pro-Life Arguments Sound Absurd.” He asks “at what point in the automobile assembly line process can a "car” be said to exist? Most of us would point to some measure of minimum functionality, like having wheels or a motor, but some might insist on the need for windshield wipers or might say it's not fully a car until it rolls out onto the street (Stith 1). Stitch makes a compelling argument towards the unknown factor of when a human is able to function. In “Unstringing the Violinist”, Greg discusses one most debated arguments supporting abortion, which was developed by Judith Jarvis Thompson in 1971. “The Violinist” explains how you wake up one morning in a hospital with tubes attached to a famous violinist; the doctor tells you that you have to be connected for nine months and that you will grow weaker-maybe even die- until he is disconnected from you. If you choose to break the plug, then the violinist will die. Most people would choose to disconnect the plug to save themselves; what most people do not know is that this is a metaphor for an unexpected pregnancy. This analogy has left many speechless and unable to fight the argument with sufficient information and…