Thomson's Arguments Against Abortion

Thomson then shifts the argument towards the definition of abortion, according to opposing parties, which is that it is directly killing the child and how it is connected to the woman’s rights and the analogy. This idea leads to the four logical trains of reasoning. The first is that directly killing a human being is always not permissible, then an abortion may not be carried out. The second is that killing a person who is innocent is murder, than abortion may not be performed, and the third is that one should refrain from killing a innocent human is more important than keeping another alive, an abortion should not be done. The fourth is “if one's only options are directly killing an innocent person or letting a person die, one must prefer

She discusses that she believes that people can be stricter with a child’s right of life over its mother’s. The author uses an analogy of two boys given a box of chocolates to share, but one brother refuses to give half of them to the other boy. She argues that it would be unfair of the boy, but in the example of the violinist, the woman did not give the use of her body to the violinist and would not be unjust to “unplug” herself from him. She emends the idea of right to life to that it is not the right to not be killed but the right to be unjustly

The analogy breaks down because the violinist is an adult. This is because the violinist has a say in what happens to him if he were to wake up. He could choose to disconnect himself from the woman out of pity or guilt, but he has a say. In the case of abortion, the final say is in general completely up to the mother. The child has no say because it can not speak. The author says that the violinist is unconscious, but it would be rare that after the surgery that only one person would wake up and not the other. They would almost want to unhook them because of how it would affect the violinist brain activity being in a coma for 9