Boonin, D. Beyond Roe_Why Abortion Should be Legal

Preface
In 1971, the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson published an
article called “A Defense of Abortion.” It has become one of the
most widely discussed articles in contemporary philosophy. Two
years later, in the case of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court
produced its own defense of abortion, striking down a variety of
legal restrictions on the practice by a vote of 7–​2. The majority
opinion, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, has become one of
the most widely discussed opinions in contemporary law.
Thomson’s article and Blackmun’s opinion point in the
same direction. They both support a woman’s right to have an
abortion. But in one important respect, Thomson’s argument
goes beyond Blackmun’s. The argument in Blackmun’s opinion
depends on the claim that “the word ‘person,’ as used in the
Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.” Invoking
a right to privacy on the part of the pregnant woman, the majority
opinion in Roe v. Wade makes the case that abortion should
be legal, at least in the first two trimesters, if the fetus is not
a person. But the court’s decision provides no reason to think
abortion should be legal if the fetus is a person. Thomson’s article,
while focusing on the moral question rather than the legal
question, argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the
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