A Winning Argument?
Abortion’s Most Popular Thought Experiment
Judith Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” (1971) has proven to be the most persuasive pro-choice thought experiment in academic circles, and there is not a close second. If you are going to take down one pro-choice argument, Thomson must be your intended target.
I never tire of studying or discussing her article, which is very clever and reveals many directions for further research. It is the most anthologized of bioethics papers. I have half-seriously quipped that Thomson is one of only two people who would have been (internally) justified in choosing to have an abortion at the time they were defending abortion in print. The other is Jeff McMahan, the author of what I take to be the best book-length treatment of abortion, The Ethics of Killing (2002). Fortunately for those of us invested in the pro-life cause, Thomson is no longer able to get pregnant and McMahan never could.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
David Hershenov is a professor of philosophy at the University at Buffalo and also the director of the university’s Romanell Center for Clinical Ethics and the Philosophy of Medicine.
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on abortion from the online archives
30.3—May/June 2017
on the Misuse of Property Rights to Justify Slavery & Abortion by Robert Hart
19.1—January/February 2006
on Death & Seven of the Last Words of Socrates by Graeme Hunter
27.2—March/April 2014
on C. S. Lewis & the New State Paganism by W. E. Knickerbocker
more from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
on the Wisdom of the Good Doctor Edmund Pellegrino by Allen H. Roberts II
22.5—June 2009
C. S. Lewis on Civilization & the Natural Order by Timothy L. Hall
30.2—March/April 2017
on Reading Don Quixote in Its Original Christian Context by Luis Cortest
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
