Judith Jarvis Thomson; Killing, Letting Die, and The Trolley Problem, The Monist, Volume 59, Issue 2, 1 April 1976, Pages 204–217, https://doi.org/10.5840/monis.

More than twenty years after its original publication, The Case for Animal Rights is an acknowledged classic of moral philosophy, and its author is recognized as the intellectual leader of the animal rights movement. In a new and fully considered preface, Regan responds to his critics and defends the book's revolutionary position.

Regarding the sinking lifeboat scenario involving several human beings and a dog, nearly everyone agrees that it is right to sacrifice the dog. I suggest that the best explanation for this considered judgment, an explanation that appears to time-relative interests, contains a key insight about prudential value. This insight, I argue, also provides perhaps the most promising reply to the future-like-ours argument, which is widely regarded as the strongest moral argument against abortion. Providing a solution to a longstanding puzzle in (...) value theory across species while illuminating the morality of abortion, the time-relative interest account proves worthy of sustained theoretical attention. (shrink)