Abortion: A Question of Rights and Personhood

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Abortions occur for all types of reasons, whether it is because the pregnancy was unplanned, rape-induced, or that it holds a life threatening capacity for the woman herself. Pro-lifers believe once one is conceived, he or she are entitled to a right to live. It does not matter whether or not the pro-lifers are able to prove that a fetus consists of personhood. The life of a potential person should not be able to override the right to one’s body. Judith Thomson presents a though experiment where personhood is granted to a fetus, but how that mere fact still fails to override the woman’s right to her body. In Judith Thomson’s thought experiment, you are to imagine that you had been kidnapped by the Society for Music Lovers and attached to the kidney of a famous violinist. You need to be attached for nine months or else he will die. After the nine months, his kidney will be able to function without your help. Since …show more content…

As mentioned before, you might be overwhelmed by guilt, but the violinist was a stranger and you also were not acquainted with the fans who actually kidnapped you. You would probably feel relieved that you are safe and sound and away from those who went against your consent to use you for their own selfish reasons. On the other hand, a fetus does not come into existence, selfishly as a robber of your resources. It comes to be because it comes to be and for the mere reason that it is in our DNA for us humans to reproduce. In this case, this specific fetus is someone that has half of your genetic information and would not exist without you. Women do feel a sense of relief, but sadness takes over soon after and it becomes a cycle of thoughts like “what made me so relieved also made me sadder than I’ve ever been and what made me sadder than I’ve ever been actually gave me

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