more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
Thomson suggests that abortion can be justified without the need to deny that the foetus has the moral rights of a human person.
Gist of Idea
Maybe abortion can be justified despite the foetus having full human rights
Source
report of Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (A Defense of Abortion [1971]) by Philippa Foot - Killing and Letting Die p.86
Book Ref
Foot,Philippa: 'Moral Dilemmas' [OUP 2002], p.86
A Reaction
Thomson uses a dubious analogy between pregnancy and being hooked up to someone for life-support. Presumably killing an innocent person is occasionally justifiable, but the situation would normally be more abnormal than pregnancy.
| 4695 | Maybe abortion can be justified despite the foetus having full human rights [Thomson, by Foot] |
| 4696 | The foetus is safe in the womb, so abortion initiates its death, with the mother as the agent. [Foot on Thomson] |
| 4057 | A newly fertilized ovum is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree [Thomson] |
| 4058 | Is someone's right to life diminished if they were conceived by a rape? [Thomson] |
| 4059 | It can't be murder for a mother to perform an abortion on herself to save her own life [Thomson] |
| 4060 | The right to life does not bestow the right to use someone else's body to support that life [Thomson] |
| 4061 | The right to life is not a right not to be killed, but not to be killed unjustly [Thomson] |
| 4062 | No one is morally required to make huge sacrifices to keep someone else alive for nine months [Thomson] |