{"id":1451,"date":"2011-08-05T15:11:18","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/returntorome\/?p=1451"},"modified":"2015-03-13T13:28:57","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T17:28:57","slug":"thomsons-a-defense-of-abortion-at-forty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2011\/08\/thomsons-a-defense-of-abortion-at-forty\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomson&#8217;s &#8220;A Defense of Abortion&#8221; at Forty"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>That\u2019s the title of my latest entry over at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecatholicthing.org\/columns\/2011\/thomsons-defense-of-abortion-at-forty.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Catholic Thing<\/a>. It is adapted from portions of my August 3, 2011 presentation at the University of Colorado symposium<a href=\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/sites\/50\/2011\/08\/3600722260_23afa9fd32.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1452\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/sites\/50\/2011\/08\/3600722260_23afa9fd32.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"189\"><\/a> commemorating\u00a0<em><span style=\"color: #0000ff\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stripe.colorado.edu\/~boonind\/JJTsymposium.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\">the 40th\u00a0anniversary of Thomson\u2019s article<\/a>. <\/span><\/em>Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What Thomson is granting, then, is a view of personhood consistent with the pro-life position\u00a0<em>only insofar<\/em> as it is aligned with a minimalist understanding of autonomy and choice. That view isolates the individual from other persons \u2013 generationally, contemporaneously, and institutionally \u2013 except as those relationships arise from the individual\u2019s explicit choice. But that is\u00a0<em>not <\/em>the pro-life view of personhood.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can read the whole Catholic Thing entry\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecatholicthing.org\/columns\/2011\/thomsons-defense-of-abortion-at-forty.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For those who are interested, the August 3 symposium went very well. Chaired by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.colorado.edu\/philosophy\/fac_boonin.shtml\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">David Boonin<\/a>, the other participants (besides me) were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.philosophy.ku.edu\/people\/marquis.shtml\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Don Marquis<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.philosophy.ucr.edu\/people\/faculty\/fischer\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">John Martin Fischer<\/a>. As I noted in my opening comments that evening, if this panel were the Beatles, I would be Ringo. It was truly an honor for someone with my modest accomplishments to be included with such giants in the discipline.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That\u2019s the title of my latest entry over at The Catholic Thing. It is adapted from portions of my August 3, 2011 presentation at the University of Colorado symposium commemorating\u00a0the 40th\u00a0anniversary of Thomson\u2019s article. Here\u2019s an excerpt: What Thomson is granting, then, is a view of personhood consistent with the pro-life position\u00a0only insofar as it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,42,105,133,146],"tags":[22240,22270],"class_list":["post-1451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-culture-of-life","category-philosophy","category-sanctity-of-life","category-the-catholic-thing","tag-philosophy","tag-the-catholic-thing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Thomson&#039;s &quot;A Defense of Abortion&quot; at Forty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That&#039;s the title of my latest entry over at The Catholic Thing. It is adapted from portions of my August 3, 2011 presentation at the University of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2011\/08\/thomsons-a-defense-of-abortion-at-forty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thomson&#039;s &quot;A Defense of Abortion&quot; at Forty\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That&#039;s the title of my latest entry over at The Catholic Thing. It is adapted from portions of my August 3, 2011 presentation at the University of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2011\/08\/thomsons-a-defense-of-abortion-at-forty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Return to Rome\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-05T19:11:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-13T17:28:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/returntorome\/files\/2011\/08\/3600722260_23afa9fd32.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Francis J. Beckwith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Francis J. 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