Abortion as a Divisive Social/Political Issue
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The issue of abortion is the most divisive social and political issue in America today, with two opposing armies of dedicated true-believers, one opposing abortion under any circumstances because they view it as the murder of an unborn child, and the other upholding the idea of choice as an absolute allowing the woman to secure an abortion without hindrance at any point in her pregnancy. Judith Jarvis Thomson (1995) argues in defense of abortion and begins by noting the rationale offered by those on the other side of the debate. She says that most opposition to abortion centers on the idea that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. She finds that this is a form of "slippery slope" argument which does provide exactitude, but she is also forced to agree that the prospects for "drawing a line" in the development of the fetus are dim. She states: "I am inclined to think also that we shall probably have to agree that the fetus has already become a human person well before birth" (Thomson, 1995, 431). She notes the evidence that the fetus develops human-like characteristics early in the gestation period. She thus begins by allowing the premise. She finds that abortion opponents spend much time proving that a fetus is a human being and do not bother then carrying their argument into why abortion is impermissible, assuming that because the fetus is human, abortion has to be impermissible.In order to clarify the issues, Thomson postulates an extreme example
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the mother's body and so some cases where there is no justification for an abortion. This does not eliminate abortion altogether. Thomson argues for the right to an abortion in some cases but is not arguing for the right to secure the death of the unborn child.
It is always possible to challenge certain of the assumptions on which anti-abortion forces base their arguments, and one of the key issues has been their claim that the fetus is a human being by definition. The rest of their argument generally depends on that specific question--if we accept that it is wrong to kill a human being, and if we accept that a fetus is a human being, then it is wrong to kill a fetus. Thomson's argument raises a number of important issues and avoids the usual argument over whether or not a fetus is a person by simply accepting the idea for the sake of argument that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. She uses a variety of imperfect analogies to make her points regarding the issue of abortion, and one of the problems with her argument is that these analogies are imperfect, as she herself admits. The analogy of the dying violinist might be closest to a pregnancy resulting form a rape, but Thomson does not restrict her
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1909
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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