Abortion is a medical procedure resulting in the termination and removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus. This term refers to a procedure induced at any point during human pregnancy. There is a significant amount of debate over the morality of this procedure, primarily revolving around the fetus' right to life. There are a plethora of authors, scientists, philosophers, activists and politicians that are debating the moral ramifications of this procedure.
Judith Jarvis Thomson is a philosophy professor at Michigan Institute of Technology and an advocate for the pro-choice movement. Thomson separates herself from the pro-life movement by defining the right to life differently than it has been in the past. Thomson suggests that the right to life should be defined as the right not to be killed unjustly. From this, Thomson eventually concludes abortion to be mostly morally permissible on the grounds that abortion is not necessarily violating the right to life. Thomson contends that when abortion is called immoral it is implying that the procedure is unjustly killing the fetus. It is clear that Thomson disagrees that abortion is unjustly terminating the life of the fetus. This is a fairly complicated idea regarding the morality of abortion; it requires a slight reworking of the definition of the right to life.
Thomson uses the analogy of the violinist that is using the life of another individual from the society to continue living. In this analogy, Thomson equates the unconscious violinist to the unborn baby, and the random member of the community to the mother. The person from the community has been hooked up to the violinist against his will for a given amount of time in order to revive the violinist. Now Thomson agrees that the violinist has the right to live, but does not agree that the individual from the community has the obligation to support the violinist. In this case, just as in the case of a pregnancy, the “host” does not necessarily have the obligation to sustain the life of the recipient. For Thomson the right to life does not entail the right to impede the life of another individual in any way. It would be generous of the mother to allow the fetus to continue to maturation, however it is not obligatory. This is a very unique perspective on the morality of abortion. Once someone thinks of the right to life in this light, it only makes sense that they would agree that abortion is not always morally impermissible. This criticism of the immorality of abortion stems from this unique definition of the right to life.
Don Marquis, on the other hand, has a very different perspective on the case of abortion. Marquis concludes that abortion is seriously wrong in almost all circumstances. From this point of view, the only instance where the procedure of aborting the fetus is morally allowable is when the continued life of the fetus presents mortal danger to the mother. Marquis contends that the fetus has a right to life, and that right is defined as a right to a future like ours. Marquis would identify with the pro-life movement and makes it clear that abortion in nearly all circumstances is morally unjustified.
Marquis presents several different arguments in support of the future like ours idea. One primary argument revolves around the thought that killing someone is the worst crime of all due to the fact that killing someone robs them of their future along with their life. This is a definite case for the immorality of murder, but nearly all pro-choice activists would not agree that abortion is the same as the killing of a person as much as it is the termination of something that will become a person -- Marquis provides a rebuttal to this criticism. A big part of the future like ours argument is very basically the future. As long as it is reasonable to believe that a fetus will at some point survive to maturation, it ought to be guaranteed the right to life. And for Marquis, the right to life means the right to a future like ours. For the future like ours argument, the right of the fetus to a future like ours overrides almost any inconvenience of the mother.
These two articles have very different perspective on the subject of the morality of abortion, but it is convenient that both arguments attack the same point of the issue. This is not an argument over the biology or science of a fetus -- The only contention here is in regard to the rights of the fetus. Thomson argues that our right to life does not include the right to interfere with the life of any other individual in any way. Marquis' argument is the polar opposite, he presents that the rights of the fetus provide the distinct liberty to hinder the mother for nine months. It is common for debates such as this one to focus on what is the right thing to do, but in this case the only reasonable conclusion is going to be finding out what is not the wrong thing to do.
