Argumentative Essay On Abortion

Register to read the introduction… 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 …show more content…
This analogy is challenging the more extreme view held by those in opposition to abortion. This view finds abortion “impermissible even to save the mother’s life.” Imagine a woman has become pregnant and in the same day learns of a newly developed heart disease that will kill her if she carries her baby to term. The baby has a right to life, but so does the woman. Thomson brings up the argument most familiar. “Performing the abortion would be directly killing the child, whereas doing nothing would not be killing the mother, but letting her die.” The conclusion that is drawn from this scenario is that your own right to life gives you the moral right to “unplug” yourself if your life is threatened. Equally, if there is a risk of the mother dying, she has a right to end the pregnancy in order to save herself. It cannot be considered murder to kill someone in order to save yourself. This analogy shows the extreme view to be false. To further weaken the extreme view, Thomson addresses the argument against third parties. She believes that, just a like a woman having the right to choose to save her life, a third party should be able to choose if he/she want to …show more content…
She wishes to sway the ideas of those who are against abortion by challenging the arguments they give for thinking so. She is challenging the common argument those who are against abortion use by presenting situations similar yet different. She states “what I have been asking is whether or not the argument we began with, which proceeds only from the fetus’s being a person, really does establish its conclusion, I have argued that is does not.” In conclusion, I feel she brings appropriate points on the table to defend her argument. It is true that the basic argument is not an accurate argument or one that can be used for every case. She isn’t claiming that abortions are always permissible or that it is permissible to secure the death of an unborn child. I do not believe in abortion for reasons I will not address at this time and therefore am not claiming to feel the same Thomson does about all of her arguments, but I do agree that the “right to life” argument is not a solid one. With the analogies Thomson set out, it is clear that cases must be looked at individually because the details make all the difference. I feel she succeeds in her goal. She challenges the way I feel about abortion and requires that I justify my reasons for or against it for more than just the fetus’s “right to