A Defense of Abortion
Image provided by @jasmineofmicronesia.
The topic of abortion, although heavy, is not unfamiliar. The pertinent assertion that I configured throughout Judith J. Thomson’s reading of A Defense of Abortion is, perhaps the question is not whether the fetus is a person, but to consider the question of whether our right to life is developed. We were all once fetus’s that developed our lives into who we are today with the morality we reside in; yet we can recognize killing another person in cold blood is wrong. Does a fetus recognize this? I would assume that they obviously do not, since they are not developed into their lives and their set moral values yet. In Thomson’s work, we grant the premise that the fetus is a person; yet Thomson still resides in the conclusion that there are defenses to abortion, it is not always morally impermissible.
One of the more material thought experiments that Thomson creates within her work is of people seeds. In short, people seed drift around freely in the air. To take it in a personal sense to serve an example, you take all preventative actions against people seeds, yet one still takes root within your home. Now although you could do something about the people seed to rid yourself of it, outside people are preventing that from happening or telling you that is not morally permissible if you did such a thing. Thomson draws another example with a burglar coming in through the window rather than a people seed. Opposers to abortion would have to stand in their view that they have a responsibility to the burglar and must let him be in your home in order to be morally permissible, in their view. In my opinion, this is completely illogical and too subjective to make a conclusion, such as any defense to abortion is morally impermissible. I believe that this analogy utilized by Thomson is one of the best ways to create the defense for abortion. It forces the opposition to abortion to open their view due to the illogical inconsistency that all abortion is unjust killing, while still accepting their premise that fetuses are a persons.
An example that Thomson utilizes within the sixth part of her work is the distinction between a Good Samaritan and a Minimally Decent Samaritan. Although both are doing their duty to serve mankind under whatever conditions, Jesus calls us to be Good Samaritans. To assume that others contain similar moral values, such as committing murder is wrong, is one thing; but to assume that everyone’s life purpose is to live how Jesus would have wanted them to be is a very bold and farfetched assumption from reality.
Although Jesus never heard Thomson’s distinction between a Good Samaritan and a Minimally Decent Samaritan, the same conclusion can be drawn in contemporary society - that we are not required to be Good Samaritans. Whether someone would like to be under whatever notions they’d like is awesome, but it is not forced. Thomson points out in her work that no law under any country in the world enacts that a third party must make intervention of risking their own life, or even breaking a nail for that matter, to save others. Under the view of those opposing abortions, they are doing just this: everyone must be a Good Samaritan.
Another story Thomson draws from to serve as an example is the killing of Kitty Genovese. In conclusion, Thomson constructs the thought pattern that if we accept banning abortions to be Good Samaritans, then it would only be a suitable response to establish all Good Samaritan laws. Reaching fearful measures of a theocracy, at least no fetuses would be killed, and we would all be Good Samaritans.
-Azlee
