in support of abortion
...ely against. This is the case in which even many pro-choice people have second thoughts about. It is also the most debatable issue when discussing abortion. Thomson presents a woman who voluntarily engages in sexual intercourse, knowing she might get regnant. She may have used contraception and it failed, or she might have just had sex without protection, but this is not alarge factor in this argument. The woman does not want this child so she decides she wants an abortion. Thomson then gives an example to explain why an abortion must be permissible in this case. She explains that although this woman has partial responsibility because she voluntarily engaged in intercourse that she knew the consequences of, that does not necessarily mean that the fetus has the right to remain in her womb. Many pro-life people believe that the fetus does have the right to remain, but Thomson does not just state her opinion of this, she backs it up by a wonderful example that makes the pro-life argument look ridiculous. If the child was not invited into the woman's body, does it have the right to stay? According to Thomson, definitely not. A woman opens a window to her house knowing quite well that there are burglars out there that might come in through the window and rob her. If a burglar comes into her house and begins to rob her, does he have the right to remain? He was not invited but it was the partially the woman's fault that he got in. It would be absurd to say that he had the right to stay. But, according to the pro-life view, he must havethe right because the uninvited fetus has the right to stay in the body of the woman that does not want it there. The unborn child entered the womb without being invited so that child has no right to stay. That child has the same right to stay in the womb as the burglar has to stay in the house. I completely agree with Thomson although I agree that an abortion is and should always be permissible at all times for any reason. The woman should not have to have a medical reason for an abortion. She should be able to do whatever she chooses to her body. I do not think that it should be used as birth control because people should take responsibility and use contraception if they are going to have sexual intercourse. But if a woman gets pregnant and she does not want to carry that pregnancy to term, she should not be forced to. There are many reasons that I agree with Thomson and her example is one of them. I know that if I were in that situation, I would not want to carry the child to term. I want to go through school and go to medical school and become a doctor, all before I even get married. So a child would kill those plans and so would carrying a child because of all of the problems it would cause with school. If somebody tells me to do something with my body, it is an interference from somebody and it is none of their business what I do with my self. While that unborn child is still inside of me, it is part of me so I have the right to terminate its existence. Another reason I feel that abortion is permissible is that no matter what the law is, people will always get them. People will perform them in back alleys with hangars and many women will die or become sterile from the dirty procedure. It will increase the chance of death to the woman and the unborn fetus. In his essay "An Almost Absolute Value in History," there is an argument that John T. Noonan Jr. gives as a reason viability is not the time when a fetus is a person that I find very prevalent as to why abortion is permissible. Noonan explains that viability is the time when a fetus can survive outside the mother. Yet, the fetus or the infant can not survive independently. Having a child is not only a nine month commitment; it is a lifetime commitment. Many people who have children do not take care of those children appropriately. Some end up dead, some receive a lot of pain, while others are just deprived of the things in life they deserve. If parents can not take care of a child and that child will be treated unjustly if it is born, those parents should abort it and save all of the pain it will experience. The same is for babies that will be born to mothers who have drank a lot of alcohol or have taken drugs. Crack babies are addicted to crack-cocaine. There are a lot of health problems caused by this. Those babies never asked to be born with all of those problems that the drugs have caused or will cause later in life. These mothers can save all of that pain by aborting the fetus. There are some points in Thomson's essay that I would like to comment on. I want to address her use of examples to get her point across. She utilized them very well to make the reader understand her point. First, she has and example about a violinist attached to your kidneys for nine months or nine years. This is a far fetched example and would never happen. But, she uses it in many cases to make her point stronger. A place where she uses this example well is when she is explaining that the right to life includes the right to the bare minimum one needs for continued life, but maybe someone does not have the right to the bare minimum needed for existence. ...