Judith Thomson Abortion

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Judith Thomson's position on abortion is that any person has the natural right to their own body, which includes a right to expel trespassers from their body, including in ways which foreseeably cause the trespasser’s death. She does not focus her debate on consensual sex and abortion, or late-term, but her argument still stands: pregnant people have the right to terminate a pregnancy when they do not consent to their body being used for the purpose. Peter Singer does not directly argue against abortion, however his philosophy contradicts Thomson's. He argues that if a person has the power to prevent something bad from happening to another person, without sacrificing anything else comparably morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it (8). In this essay, I will argue that a logic like Singer’s cannot be used as an objection to …show more content…
Late-term abortions are rare and the fetus has mostly developed. Judith Thomson mostly ignores the specific situation of late-term abortion because she does not argue whether or not a fetus can be considered a person. Her paper focuses on the issue of bodily autonomy. Thomson argues for the right to abortion because she thinks the right to the pregnant person’s life should be considered before the rights of the fetus they carry. Thomson says, “Perhaps a pregnant woman is vaguely felt to have the status of house, to which we don't allow the right of self-defence. But if the woman houses the child, it should be remembered that she is a person who houses it” (4), which means that a pregnant person has the