ETHICS TERM PAPER
Aleramz16
Thomson.pptxJudith Jarvis Thomson
A Defense of Abortion
The Extreme View
Argument
1. It is wrong to kill an innocent person.
2. A fetus is an innocent person.
3. It is wrong to kill an innocent person.
Thomson
She does not deny that the fetus is a person.
She does not deny that the fetus is innocent.
She denies that the first premise is true.
Killing Innocent People
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own.
May you disconnect?
Expanding Baby
Suppose you filed yourself trapped in a tiny house with a growing child. I mean a very tiny house, and a rapidly growing child--you are already up against the wall of the house and in a few minutes you'll be crushed to death. The child on the other hand won't be crushed to death; if nothing is done to stop him from growing he'll be hurt, but in the end he'll simply burst open the house and walk out a free man.
People Seeds
people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You don't want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective, and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house?
What is the Right to Life?
If I am sick unto death, and the only thing that will save my life is the touch of Henry Fonda's cool hand on my fevered brow. then all the same, I have no right to be given the touch of Henry Fonda's cool hand on my fevered brow.
the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly.
Equality and Claims
If Jones has found and fastened on a certain coat, which he needs to keep him from freezing, but which Smith also needs to keep him from freezing, then it is not impartiality that says "I cannot choose between you" when Smith owns the coat.
My own view is that if a human being has any just, prior claim to anything at all, he has a just, prior claim to his own body.
Third parties can choose between 2 people who need something equally.
Samaritans: endure a cost to help others
Good Samaritan: willingly endure significant costs to help others
Minimally Decent Samaritan: endure very minor costs to help others
Opposition to all abortion requires making women Good Samaritans, but morality does not require similar sacrifices from other people.
Examples from law
Cosmetic Abortion
I am inclined to think it a merit of my account precisely that it does not give a general yes or a general no. It allows for and supports our sense that, for example, a sick and desperately frightened fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, pregnant due to rape, may of course choose abortion, and that any law which rules this out is an insane law. And it also allows for and supports our sense that in other cases resort to abortion is even positively indecent. It would be indecent in the woman to request an abortion, and indecent in a doctor to perform it, if she is in her seventh month, and wants the abortion just to avoid the nuisance of postponing a trip abroad.
