Thomson
Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion"
Spontaneous abortion: A natural miscarriage.
Induced abortion: An abortion deliberately brought about. This is what Thomson's argument concerns.
Therapeutic abortion: Performed to protect the mother's life or health.
Non-therapeutic abortion: Performed for other reasons (for example, pregnancy from rape, or not wanting a child).
Thomson The Standard View: Because the fetus has a right to life that outweighs the mother's control over her body, abortion is impermissible (except perhaps to save the mother's life).
The Violinist: You're kidnapped and plugged into a famous violinist who needs your kidneys for nine months. It shows that a right to life doesn't include a right to use another person's body.
Thomson The Extreme View: Abortion is impermissible even to save the mother's life, because directly killing an innocent person is never allowed.
The Deadly Violinist: A variant where staying plugged in will kill you. It shows the Extreme View is untenable, since no one must sacrifice their life to keep another alive.
Thomson The Weaker View: A more moderate position on which the fetus has a right to life but it doesn't automatically override everything else. Rights have to be interpreted, not treated as absolute trumps.
Right to life: Not a right to whatever you need to stay alive, but roughly a right not to be killed unjustly.
The burglar case: You leave a window unlocked and a burglar climbs in. Being partly responsible for his presence doesn't give him a right to stay. It targets the argument that voluntary sex hands the fetus a right to the woman's body.
Thomson Moral wrongness vs. what we ought to do: Some acts aren't wrong (not unjust, no rights violated) even though a better or more generous person would do otherwise.
Thomson Good Samaritan: Someone who makes major sacrifices to help others.
Thomson Minimally Decent Samaritan: Someone who does only the low-cost minimum that morality plausibly requires. Thomson argues that's all morality demands.