Interesting read. On abortion, I'd say the only counterargument to Judith Thomson that convinced me is Bernard Williams' "Logic of Abortion" (in which he refuted pro- and anti-abortion arguments alike, and which later Don Marquis plagiarized quite a lot from).
"But even if one were persuaded that one had the right to kill the incubus, it is hard to see how that conclusion could merely carry over to the abortion case. One difference between the cases is that pregnancy is normal and not freakish. Another is that, in itself, it only lasts nine months. Another is that, because it is normal, and normally issues in a baby, it has sentiments and reactions attached to it which could not be attached to the freakish case of the incubus. These differences do not all cut the same way with regard to the abortion issue, but, in my view, they do discourage the idea that we are going to get much insight into the rights and wrongs of abortion by considering what we might say about rights in such imaginary situations—situations which may have some structural resemblance to the pregnancy situation, but are, at the same time, freakishly unlike it.
This brings out a question which has been gradually pressing itself on us all the time: whether pregnancy, the situation in which abortion is in question, is enough like anything else at all for us to reach answers about it by analogy from other situations. While the definitional approach was faced with the problem that the foetus is neither just like nor just unlike an independently existing human being, argument by moral analogy faces the problem that pregnancy is, at once, highly familiar and also very unlike any other situation.
... This is a point about the experience of women. In the end, this issue can only come back to the experience of women. This is not because their experiences are the only thing that count. It is because their experiences are the only realistic and honest guide we have to what the unique phenomenon of abortion genuinely is, as opposed to what moralists, philosophers and legislators say it is. It follows that their experience is the only realistic guide to what the deepest consequences will be of our social attitudes to abortion."
Interesting read. On abortion, I'd say the only counterargument to Judith Thomson that convinced me is Bernard Williams' "Logic of Abortion" (in which he refuted pro- and anti-abortion arguments alike, and which later Don Marquis plagiarized quite a lot from).
"But even if one were persuaded that one had the right to kill the incubus, it is hard to see how that conclusion could merely carry over to the abortion case. One difference between the cases is that pregnancy is normal and not freakish. Another is that, in itself, it only lasts nine months. Another is that, because it is normal, and normally issues in a baby, it has sentiments and reactions attached to it which could not be attached to the freakish case of the incubus. These differences do not all cut the same way with regard to the abortion issue, but, in my view, they do discourage the idea that we are going to get much insight into the rights and wrongs of abortion by considering what we might say about rights in such imaginary situations—situations which may have some structural resemblance to the pregnancy situation, but are, at the same time, freakishly unlike it.
This brings out a question which has been gradually pressing itself on us all the time: whether pregnancy, the situation in which abortion is in question, is enough like anything else at all for us to reach answers about it by analogy from other situations. While the definitional approach was faced with the problem that the foetus is neither just like nor just unlike an independently existing human being, argument by moral analogy faces the problem that pregnancy is, at once, highly familiar and also very unlike any other situation.
... This is a point about the experience of women. In the end, this issue can only come back to the experience of women. This is not because their experiences are the only thing that count. It is because their experiences are the only realistic and honest guide we have to what the unique phenomenon of abortion genuinely is, as opposed to what moralists, philosophers and legislators say it is. It follows that their experience is the only realistic guide to what the deepest consequences will be of our social attitudes to abortion."