A Short Argument Against Abortion Rights

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 3-6-2013

Publication Source

Think: Philosophy for Everyone

Volume Number

12

Issue Number

34

First Page

57

Last Page

68

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

ISSN

1755-1196

Abstract

"In this paper I will put forward a brief argument against abortion rights. The argument concerns itself with the two main ways in which defenders of abortion rights develop their position. The first strategy through which they tend to do this is by arguing against the personhood of the fetus. The second strategy, made famous by Judith Jarvis Thomson, is to argue that, even if the fetus were a person, its right to life would not entail the right to draw upon the resources of the woman in pregnancy, and so the pregnancy can be terminated (even if the fetus loses its life in the process). My argument will provide reasons to suspect that attacks on fetal personhood are based on a questionable notion of personhood, and that the most common attempts to show that the fetus does not have the right to draw on the resources of the woman in pregnancy also have considerable problems. This will buttress the case for the view that the fetus is a person and that it has the right to draw on the resources of the woman in pregnancy." -- from publisher's website

Keywords

Abortion rights, Philosophy, Pregnancy

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