PHIL 356 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Extreme Measures, Fetus
Document Summary
Little: aborting a pregnancy involves withdrawing assistance not harmful interference. Thomson: we do not have a general obligation to share our bodies with other persons* who need them to stay alive (*a person is someone with the right to life) The right to life does not involve or entail the right to use (or continue to use) someone else"s body to stay alive. She did not encourage it to enter her body. But if she decided to have sex, then she did play a casual role in the fact that the fetus needs to use her body to stay alive. Thomson tries to convince us to refuse this proposal. You"re living in an area where there are burglars. In the middle of the summer, you open the windows and a burglar creeps in. You"re partly responsible for the burglar being in your apartment. You could have done things to prevent this from happening.
