PHIL 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Judith Jarvis Thomson, Mary Warren, Thought Experiment
Document Summary
Personhood involves having certain abilities such as: self reflection consciousness pain/pleasure rationality. Not all humans are persons and not all persons are humans (could be animals) Personhood is difficult to define -- many argue all humans are people, Fetuses are people, but women have the right to body autonomy. Mother"s right prevails over rights possessed by the fetus. You were kidnapped & an unconscious violinist"s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. Analogy: although a fetus has an equal right to life, a right to life doesn"t mean necessarily having to commit to taking care of someone else the rest of their life. This is unpleasant because it sounds like whether or not you have a right to life turns on whether someone was raped or not, which doesn"t seem appropriate.
