Written By: DJ Escho
Judith Jarvis Thompson has concluded in a book titled “A Defense of Abortion” that abortion due to rape is not wrong because it was an incident that was not planned and the sense of a child growing in the womb due to rape was not invited so therefore the abortion would be permissible. On several occasions Judith Jarvis Thompson’s position was that we could accede permission to person A, having right over person B’s body and life even though person B did not permit it. She implied that it would be a kind and good thing to do. Her stance allows that if we were to do so it would be permissible to perform abortions due to rape cases. What Judith Jarvis Thompson has taken for granted here in the case of rape is that comparing scenarios such as acorns that soon are to become trees are not trees as oppose to a fetus not being a person until it is born and a society of music lovers kidnapping a person so that a violinist can live due to a blood transfusion from the kidnapped victim’s body even though the kidnapped victim didn’t permit it is incomparable because we are dealing with truth and fact, and not just emotion. First, we must understand that Judith Jarvis Thompson is defending an idea that rape has taken place. In fact, there is no defense because her arguments stems from her contention with those who oppose abortion. This proposes that Judith would rather write a book to cause public dissension between secularists and existentialists than anything based on fact. I know and understand that secularists opposing any topic against existentialists are not the matter here at hand. Fact remains that not once did Judith Jarvis Thompson defended any rape victims in the least bit or try to give an explanation as to why a rape victim would regret aborting a fetus in such a case, so why even state that abortion was permissible due to rape? Second, in the cases of 1: The violinist needing to live on a blood transfusion whether it be an hour, nine months or nine years off of the kidnapped victim, 2: The case of Smith and Jones will freeze to death but there is only one coat to keep them from freezing, leaving a third party to choose who will live, 3: Henry Fonda traveling from the west coast to use his cool hand to touch the over heated brow of a factor or presumably Judith Jarvis Thompson needing Henry Fonda’s touch to survive, and 4: The one older boy and his younger brother having to share a box of chocolates given to the older brother has no baring on the simple fact that aborting a fetus who being a person will be born, is a life that was granted to that women.
Judith Jarvis Thompson has concluded in a book titled “A Defense of Abortion” that abortion due to rape is not wrong because it was an incident that was not planned and the sense of a child growing in the womb due to rape was not invited so therefore the abortion would be permissible. On several occasions Judith Jarvis Thompson’s position was that we could accede permission to person A, having right over person B’s body and life even though person B did not permit it. She implied that it would be a kind and good thing to do. Her stance allows that if we were to do so it would be permissible to perform abortions due to rape cases. What Judith Jarvis Thompson has taken for granted here in the case of rape is that comparing scenarios such as acorns that soon are to become trees are not trees as oppose to a fetus not being a person until it is born and a society of music lovers kidnapping a person so that a violinist can live due to a blood transfusion from the kidnapped victim’s body even though the kidnapped victim didn’t permit it is incomparable because we are dealing with truth and fact, and not just emotion. First, we must understand that Judith Jarvis Thompson is defending an idea that rape has taken place. In fact, there is no defense because her arguments stems from her contention with those who oppose abortion. This proposes that Judith would rather write a book to cause public dissension between secularists and existentialists than anything based on fact. I know and understand that secularists opposing any topic against existentialists are not the matter here at hand. Fact remains that not once did Judith Jarvis Thompson defended any rape victims in the least bit or try to give an explanation as to why a rape victim would regret aborting a fetus in such a case, so why even state that abortion was permissible due to rape? Second, in the cases of 1: The violinist needing to live on a blood transfusion whether it be an hour, nine months or nine years off of the kidnapped victim, 2: The case of Smith and Jones will freeze to death but there is only one coat to keep them from freezing, leaving a third party to choose who will live, 3: Henry Fonda traveling from the west coast to use his cool hand to touch the over heated brow of a factor or presumably Judith Jarvis Thompson needing Henry Fonda’s touch to survive, and 4: The one older boy and his younger brother having to share a box of chocolates given to the older brother has no baring on the simple fact that aborting a fetus who being a person will be born, is a life that was granted to that women.
. Judith Jarvis Thompson will apparently by no means even consider the thought that a fetus or baby being granted life first to a women would ever exist This proves that her argument holds no water. Judith Jarvis Thompson did state that her argument would not hold against those that oppose using the prior alleged cases but then why did she make mention of all of these cases in the first place? It is almost as if she purposely led or even coached people into falling prey to her false belief by using these cases in her book. This seems immature and unethical that a person writing a book to appease her interest would ever change the mind of a decent person. That even though rape has taken place, the women could see past the horror and give her baby a chance at life.
. Each case that Judith Jarvis Thompson went over had its points and clearly are justifiable from people needing to survive under obscure situations or needing the victim to further survive being permissible to end one’s life comparing to aborting under rape and yet does this at all compare to the knowledge of a women holding a baby in her arms ever giving thought to ending its progress of life growth with in her, give no excuse to end the life of a fetus.
Judith Jarvis Thompson has even stated using theses 4; made by Pope Pius XI, a Catholic, in which he said that abortion, would be excused if it meant that the mother would live. This holds no bearing as in studying church history; you learn that Rome created Catholicism for means of political and financial gain. This excludes the Popes statement in theses 4. This is not to say that there are not cases where a woman wouldn’t have to have an abortion due to her life being at risk but then again this is not an abortion, it is called a scraping. A scraping is not an abortion regardless of whether or not in today’s medical world there might exist some insurance companies allegedly playing a role in using the performance of scrapings to manipulate the doctors to mandating when it is not necessary. This concludes putting an end to using theses 4.
Judith Jarvis Thompson then had the audacity to quote scripture from the book of Luke chapter 10 verses 30-35, being about the story of “The Good Samaritan.” Comparing this to a story about a woman named Kitty Genovese having been murdered in front of 38 people and not one of them doing anything about it nor trying to notify the proper authorities and using a statement that Samaritans are not merely decent or good at all also can in no fashion be related to the choice of aborting a fetus on the grounds of rape. She gave no description as to why the people didn’t help Kitty Genovese. We as the readers are unsure as to the circumstances, there could have been another incident proceeding, perhaps preventing the people from helping Kitty, this also excludes Judith Jarvis Thompson from using Kitty Genovese’ murder case in comparison to any women who allowed the permissibility of aborting a fetus in the case of rape. In the beginning of this story Judith Jarvis Thompson states and I quote “A newly fertilized ovum, a newly implanted clump of cells is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree. But I shall not discuss any of this.” Who is Judith Jarvis Thompson to pass judgment on what is a person? Is this judgment made on the fact that one cannot see the life of an acorn or cell? Does it stand to reason that it cannot have a personality because it can’t communicate the way a human can or have visible attributes such as that of the human personality? I certainly cannot look at a plant and say that it doesn’t have personality just because I don’t know how to distinguish its attributes of personality or have the right to say a non-human cannot be personable. There are cases where human can and do detect the personality of a non human. A fetus is human, is it not?
I don’t judge Judith Jarvis Thompson to be a bad person but I just don’t believe that any of her arguments seem to weigh justice on aborting a child just because the mother was raped. I do understand that there are women who will abort due to mental struggles with knowing that if she gives the fetus a chance and her child is born that it may become an emotional burden to know that the child’s father is the man that did rape her yet none of us, any reader or person doing research on this topic could ever stand in that rape victim’s shoes. It is up to the woman legally the right to choose to abort or not to abort her fetus as an unborn child but it would not be morally right if the abortion were to take place. I know that if rape is the case then why is rape not addressed or any of rape victim cases shown as examples as to why it would be the right thing to do to abort the fetus and why is the thought of life in a person not seen in regards to a fetus to Judith Jarvis Thompson?
As I have read and understood Judith Jarvis Thompson’s argument about the permissibility of abortion due to rape, I find that Judith’s disposition towards abortion regardless of rape or not, tend to lean towards an indignant behavior for those that oppose this matter. Her defense is not so much for proving that cells, the fetus or acorns have no right to live a life but that she has displayed an intolerable sense of being contemptuous towards people who are likely to state that abortion is wrong. This cancels out her arguments.
Judith has used incomparable scenarios to attempt to sway the reader into seeing her viewpoint. Her blatant remarks about there not being anyone who has a good reason for why abortion is wrong in the first place tells you that she may live as a secularist or one who excludes existentialism and does not give any possibility that spiritualism could be without needing proof that it exists. Anyone who lives this way will automatically be one who will defend abortion and even go as far as making people believe that it is the right of a woman to abort a fetus in the case of rape.
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