Summary Of Abortion By Judith Jarvis Thomson

Name: Mohammadamin Malek Pour Judith Jarvis Thomson on her article about the morality of abortion gives us some simple and understandable examples. First, she considers the fetus is a person, although she thinks this is a “slope slippery arguments”. In her article, she simply argues that the mother has the right to her body and abortion can be permissible. First, she gives an example of a violinist who is attached to you without your permission and you have to keep the violinist for nine months. In this example, she is trying to compare the attached violinist to pregnancy due to rape. She argues that according to “the extreme view” if the fetus, even in pregnancy due to rape, is a person; therefore, it has a right to life and we cannot abort it. Then she opposes against the arguments which say a third party cannot perform the abortion, even if mother’s life is in danger she is the only one who can perform the abortion and a third party cannot choose between them. Thomson gives an example of two persons, Smith and Jones. They both are freezing and there is only one coat and Smith owns it. In the meanwhile, someone walking by and Smith asks him to help him to get his coat back. Thomson asserts that it would be ridiculous if the person says that I cannot choose your life over Jones’ life; …show more content…
I think it was a clever move to consider the fetus as a person to find a common ground to make her argument more acceptable for ones with extreme views on abortion. However, in my point of view, some of her examples and arguments are too broad and sometimes too simple to be acceptable. Also, I, personally, do not consider the fetus as a person, and I think if the fetus is a person then it has the right to life and we cannot kill people because we do not like them or we do not want