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Thompson: Permissible Abortion

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Thomson: Permissible Abortion
In this essay, I will argue that Thomson successfully defends the view that abortion is permissible in the case that the parents had protected sex (and this is not a minimally decent Samaritanism case). I will achieve this in four steps. Firstly, I will explain Thomson’s background ideals that a fetus is a person, and explain what a minimally decent Samaritanism is. Secondly, I will present Thomson’s argument. Thirdly, I will present one original objection to this argument. Lastly, I will argue that this objection isn’t strong enough to make Thomson’s argument unsuccessful. For her argument, Thomson assumes that the fetus is a person. She only assumes this because of the dimness of the prospects for ‘drawing a line’ in the development of the fetus. A human develops continuously from conception through birth into childhood, but picking a point to which something isn’t a person before this point and is a person after this point would be arbitrary. However, Thomson does think that a fetus has become a human being well before birth because of how early it acquires human characteristics. So, although it isn’t sure exactly where a fetus becomes a person, Thomson agrees that the fetus is a person before birth. Therefore, she grants that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception for her argument. (p. 146) Thomson also uses the phrase ‘minimally decent Samaritan’ in her argument. By this, she means one who doesn’t go out of his way to help one in need. However, they don’t ignore when their help is needed, either. A minimally decent Samaritan does just what is considered to be minimally decent of them; they help when needed, but only with basal acts. In this paragraph, I will present Thomson’s argument, which is as follows:
1) In a case of protected sex where a fetus is conceived, the mother has not assumed the

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