Thompson's View on Abortion

For the most part, I agree with Judith Jarvis Thompson that abortion is not necessarily wrong and is sometimes morally permissible.  Thompson speaks a lot about the slippery slope arguments in which complete anti-abortionists portray about the life of a baby. I liked his analogy about the development of a baby to an acorn and a tree. I believe that a lot of the debate about whether abortion should be permissible or not is based upon the idea when the person considers the fetus a life. I agree that there is a point where abortion should not be permissible; however, I do not think that the moment a baby is conceived it should have as much weight as me.  Thompson also debates the scenarios in which the mother is raped, or would cause strain or even death to the mother.  Extreme anti-abortionists would argue that the fetus has a right to a life and outweighs the needs of the mother. However, I do not believe that is correct.

All of the scenarios in which Thompson debates I believe would be scenarios in which abortion would be permissible.  Thompson says that “If they have taken all reasonable precautions against having a child, they do not simply by virtue of their biological relationship to the child who comes into existence have a special responsibility for it. They may wish to assume responsibility for it, or they may not (276).” This goes off of the idea that even though Thompson and I believe that abortion is not impermissible, it is not always permissible. I do not believe that someone should be allowed to get an infinite amount of abortions, especially when they are being selfless and careless. It should be said that not all anti-abortionists are extreme to the case that the fetus’s life outweighs the mother, however I believe each case should be examined individually. I think it is very hard to pose an opinion when there is an infinite amount of cases that could be proposed dealing with abortion.