Saturday, February 18, 2012

Q&A 3, First Answer

The basic form of my question is: Does the fact that people surrender some control over their bodies when they agree to abide by society's rules undermine Thompson's argument that, because women own their own bodies, they can have an abortion whenever they so choose?

To a point, I think it does.  Thompson's example regarding the violinist, which she seemed to think constituted a great analogy which no one could dispute, is in fact a good analogy, but I drew a rather different conclusion from her presentation of the scenario than she appears to.  I think that one does, in fact, have a moral obligation to remain plugged to the violinist unless it causes one some serious harm (which most pregnancies do not).  People do have control over their own bodies, but not to the point where that control involves their harming others without provocation.  At that point, morality intervenes.

This is not to say that many abortions are not perfectly morally acceptable - abortions in the early stages of pregnancy, abortions when there is a serious risk to the mother's health or other sort of well-being, abortions when the child has some sort of disorder or other reason to have very bad prospects...  The reasoning is simply different.

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