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Commentary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

John K. Davis
Affiliation:
University of Washington, and New York University School of Law

Abstract

Judith Thomson argues that a fetus may have a right to life yet lack the right to use its mother's body to stay alive. According to Kenneth Einar Himma, Thomson's argument applies only to cases where the parties meet two conditions. First, they must “have a history of physical independence” and, second, they must be “autonomous moral agents, capable of incurring obligations.” Himma devises a case involving conjoined twins to show why the mother–fetus case does not meet these conditions.

Type
SPECIAL SECTION: THE MORALITY OF ABORTION
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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