Judith Jarvis Thomson's Analysis

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Judith Jarvis Thomson argues for the defense of abortion claiming that it is morally permissible in most cases even if she concedes that the fetus is a person. Thomson believes that a woman is not morally obligated to carry a child. Her argument centers around the position that a person cannot use another person’s resources in order to preserve their own life. However, R.M. Hare’s Golden Rule debunks Thomson’s argument. Thomson claims that in most cases, abortion is morally permissible. Thomson believes that the right of bodily autonomy trumps the right to life. Thomson also defines the right to life as a right to not be killed unjustly and she finds that in most cases, abortion is a just killing. An example Thomson gives to illustrate this view is one of a famous violinist (p.350). Thomson asks her readers to imagine that they have been kidnapped and hooked up to a…show more content…
Hare proposes his own theory called the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule says that in order to make a moral decision, one must imagine one is in another person’s situation and think what one would like somebody to do to him or her. An example Hare gives to show how to apply his rule is about a kitten embryo and a wonder drug (p.210). Hare says that if he found out that he had been a result of a kitten embryo given a wonder drug that will turn the embryo into a human being with a human mind, and he is happy that he was not aborted then it must be said that he should not abort any kitten embryo that has been treated with the wonder drug because that being could have a life like him. By applying this rule to Thomson’s argument, it invalidates her case. Thomson’s argument is based around the idea of rights and does not take into account how it will affect other people. If one were to use the Golden Rule on regular human abortion, it would come to the same conclusion as the kitten embryo example. If one does this it would be found that in most cases, abortion is
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