that there may be no special responsibility on the part of a woman toward the fetus that happens to be in her body--she says there is no such responsibility unless the woman has assumed that responsibility, explicitly or implicitly. Opponents of abortion generally argue that the act of abortion is directly killing a child, while doing nothing would not be killing the mother but only letting her die if the pregnancy is threatening her life. Thomson states,
If directly killing an innocent person is murder, and thus is impermissible, then the mother's directly killing the innocent person inside her is murder, and thus is impermissible. But it cannot seriously be thought to be murder if the mother performs an abortion on herself to save her life (Thomson 433).
Writings on abortion generally focus on what a third party may or may not do in answer to a request from a woman for an abortion, and this is because in truth there is little the woman can do about the matter herself. Thomson says asking the question in this way, however, denies the mother the s
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