Abortion Rights And Wrongs

How Strong a Right?

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How strong is her right (or anyone's) to control her or his body? Philosopher Judith Thomson has argued that a woman's right to control her body is strong enough to justify abortion in some cases even if the embryo is a person. Consider her analogy:

You awake one morning to find a violinist with bad kidneys hooked up to your body. He will die unless he uses your kidneys for nine months, but you did not agree to the hookup. Would you be within your rights to detach him or insist that he be detached? If so, could you also withdraw the use of your body from an embryo? Thomson's point is not that all abortion is permissible, but that we cannot infer that it is always wrong from the fact (if it is a fact) that the embry/fetus is a person and has a person's right to life.

Reference: Thomson's article, "A Defense of Abortion," is included in the three anthologies edited by Baird, Cohen, and Feinberg. There are many criticisms of her article. See the works by Brody, Davis, Devine, Finnis, Foot, Sumner, and Tooley. (Articles by Davis and Foot are in the Garfield anthology. Finnis' article is included in the anthology edited by Cohen. Thomson's reply to Finnis is also in Cohen.)

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