Slippery Slope of Abortion

Abortion is a very touchy topic. Both Marquis and Thomson acknowledge this and try to prevent the occurrence of slippery slope fallacy within their arguments. Marquis begins by stating he would not be arguing exceptional cases and that is his way of avoiding the fallacy by not having to draw the line, however he still mentions it within the following, “Accordingly, morally permissible abortions will be rare indeed unless, perhaps, they occur so early in pregnancy that a fetus is not yet definitely an individual” (Marquis, 263). His mention of these cases is endearing but I feel that it diminishes his argument about future value. I also think he could support his argument further in the section on suicidal people. He discusses the moral wrongness of killing a suicidal person, but not the morality of them killing themselves which I think is a vital point to the future value argument.

Oppositely, Thomson bases her whole argument off of scenarios, and drawing the line especially in exceptional cases like the one about a scared, sick, teenager pregnant from rape as she says, “I am inclined to think it a merit of my account precisely that it does not give a general yes or a general no…any law which rules this [pregnancy due to rape] out is an insane law” (Thomson, 276). The relativist would love her answer to abortion because it is entirely situational, but I believe her attempt at drawing the line failed and her examples of the teenager or the woman hooked up to the violinist are helpful but provide little overall situational guidelines, invalidating her main point to provide insight into the permissibility of abortion.

While I feel they both make engaging arguments they can both be strengthened. I feel as if Marquis did a better job avoiding the line rather than Thomson not being able to make a firm line in regards to the slippery slope fallacy. I just have to decide if avoiding the line is more admirable or smarter than attempting to place a line.