Fetus's Right To Life Analysis

Thomson argues that even under the premise that the fetus is a person, the fetus’s right to life does not automatically override the mother’s right to abortion. She argues this point by presenting an analogy of an unconscious violinist whose kidney is forcibly attached to the readers’ to maintain the violinist’s life. This condition will last for nine months, she tells the readers. She seeks (to invoke/conjure) a common reaction of aversion to have the readers rethink the idea the person’s right to life is omnipotent, She the proposes another analogy inviting the readers into her line of thinking. In this scenario, the author needs Henry Fonda to touch her forehead to continue living. She admits that she indeed has a right to life, at the …show more content…
He considers mainly three criticism often directed towards pro-life advocates. He begins by denouncing the criticism people make when faced with individuals who claim personhood for a person at a certain stage, asking for intrinsic qualities of the fetus at that particular stage that differentiates it from a fetus from a different point. He denies this linear approach of a single value is inconsistent because moral judgements one is dependent on combinations of values. Thus, he argues that moral decision making in determining personhood is not dependent on logic or observable data. Acknowledgement of a person is determined by acceptance or recognition of where the being came from and its potential. Noonan clarifies, however, that not everyone is entitles to this decision making process. Similar to how people were incapable of seeing blacks as equal persons, certain barriers exist that prevent some from perceiving the fetus as human. He also criticizes the weight-balancing approach people take in comparing the value/right of fetus’s life to different value, such as the mother’s autonomy. Such comparison is irrelevant because values are not weights, thus cannot be compared on a scale, rather balcning of values occurs much like how an organism maintains its equilibrium. In such cases, certain part of the body, such as the heart or the brain, takes predescence over …show more content…
Noonan forbids/protests the mother receiving a medical/surgical operation to save her life if it will kill the fetus. Based on the idea that every person has duty to not harm but no duty to help, he argues because performing operations, or indirect abortion as many puts it, to save the mother require both the mother and the physician to understand prior to the operation the fetus will be killed in the process. This makes the operation it an intentional act of killing - an intentional act of harm - which everyone is required to refrain from