Paper Summary:

This paper examines how, in "A Defense of Abortion," Judith Thomson argues that the assumption that a fetus has a right to life does not automatically imply that abortion is in all cases immoral. A person is not obligated to use her own body to sustain the life of another even if refusing would mean death for the other person, such as in the hypothetical case of a violinist that has been involuntarily attached to your kidneys in order to save his life. It also looks at how Thomson argues that the violinist is like a fetus that is the result of a rape, and the mother thus has no obligation to continue to sustain the life of the fetus, regardless of whether the fetus is a person and has a right to life.

From the Paper:

"Brody makes a distinction between not being obligated to save someone's life and being able to take their life. In the case of abortion, while it is true that the mother is not obligated to sustain the life of the fetus, it is not morally permissible for her to kill it either. However, since there is no way for a person to not save a fetus without also killing it, I fail to see the logic in making this distinction. In either case, the fetus, and the violinist, are dead; whether you look at it as not saving a life or actually taking a life is irrelevant. I agree that in many cases the two are distinct and should definitely be treated differently, but in the case of abortion the distinction is meaningless. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Judith Jarvis Thomson: A Defense of Abortion. From Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 1, no. 1 (Fall 1971).

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