Moral status of the fetus and the permissibility of abortion
A contractarian response to Thomson’s violinist thought experiment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21515128 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Matthew John Minehan (0000-0002-1756-2611, Charles Sturt University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 407-410 |
| Publication date | 2022-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Medical Ethics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0306-6800 • E-ISSN: 1473-4257 |
| Publisher | BMJ (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1136/medethics-2020-106810 |
| PMID | 33963066 |
| OpenAlex | W3158987836 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 15 |
Judith Jarvis Thomson famously argued that abortion is permissible even if we accept that a fetus qualifies as a person and possesses a right to life. The current paper presents two arguments that undermine Thomson’s position. First, the paper sketches a contractarian argument that explores Thomson’s violinist thought experiment from behind a veil of ignorance, which suggests that if we had an equal likelihood of being an unwanted fetus and a pregnant woman, it would be rational for us to oppose abortion. Second, the paper discusses the hypothetical self-aborting fetus, a thought experiment that reverses the dependence relationship between a woman and a fetus. It is argued that in this scenario, where fetuses have agency of their own, Thomson’s position would counterintuitively prohibit a woman from temporarily curtailing the freedom of her fetus even to save her own life
Abortion · Economics · Epistemology · Eugenics · Ignorance · Moral agency · Political science · Pregnancy · Thought experiment · Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare · Law · Medicine · Organ Donation and Transplantation · Philosophy · Psychology · Reproductive Health and Technologies
| Citations per year | 0.25 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |