Defenses

Question 1

Thomson’s Argument for Permissibility of at least some case(s) of abortion

Answer 1

1) intuition
2) Thompson thinks that the cases are similar because they both involve having a person depending on your body to be alive for a period of time.
3) valid
4) Thomson assumes a deontology. The violinist case is a conflict of rights, the right of the woman’s choice to what happens in/to her body is stronger than the fetuses right to life. The right that is stronger is the one which should be upheld, in this case Thompson argues, the right of the woman.
5) valid

Question 2

Argument for Permissibility of Abortion Under Normal Circumstances

Answer 2

1) True from Permissibility of some cases of abortion
2) Thomson thinks that the violinist case is relevantly similar to the definition of abortion under normal circumstances that we provided - it must be noted that relevantly similar does not mean to say that it is identical.
3) valid

Question 3

Thomson’s Response: Argument Against (only) Allowing Abortion in Cases of Rape

Answer 3

1) Thomson supports this by the principle that all persons have an equal right to life.
2) The only way you could say the situation is morally different is to say that there is some difference in the fetus’s right to life.
3)

Question 4

Argument for Moral Permissibility of Abortion

Answer 4

1) Thomson assumes that only persons are included the moral community.
2) The specific number necessary would be determined by one’s theory of personhood. (define personhood)
3) Provided any reasonable theory of personhood, a fetus isn’t going to be a person.
4)

Question 5

Objection: Infanticide

Answer 5

1) Intuition
2) Warren’s account says that abortion is morally permissible because a fetus does not have enough morally significant characteristics and infants do not have many more morally-relevant characteristics than a fetus.
3)

Question 6

Argument for FLO

Answer 6

1) We take intuition as a guide to forming out moral theories - in order for a theory to be successful, it must be able to support our intuitions.
2) example “Persons who are severely incurably ill, who face a future of pain and despair, and who wish to die will not have suffered a loss if they were killed.”
3)

Question 7

Argument for Impermissibility of Abortion

Answer 7

1) true by definition
2) Under normal circumstances, the fetus could have grown and experienced a future of value like ours.
3) true from previous argument (argument for FLO)
4)

Question 8

Objection: Contraception and Abstinence

Answer 8

1) definition
2) If people wouldn’t have been abstinent or practiced safe sex, there would have been an entity with a future of value.
3) valid
4) intuition
5)