In this 1971 article, Judith Jarvis Thomson suggests that we’ve spent way too much time and emphasis on the issue of whether a developing fetus is fully human. She doesn’t concede this point (she argues that acorns are not oak trees). Yet she prefers to bring the conversation to what to do assuming that the fetus is fully human.
I found Thompson’s discussion unusual in that most abortion arguments (pro and con) focus on the status of the fetus. Thompson assumes that the fetus is human, yet she argues for an approach that
allows for and supports our sense that, for example, a sick and desperately frightened fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, pregnant due to rape, may of course choose abortion, and that any law which rules this out is an insane law. And it also allows for and supports our sense that in other cases resort to abortion is even positively indecent. It would be indecent in the woman to request an abortion, and indecent in a doctor to perform it, if she is in her seventh month, and wants the abortion just to avoid the nuisance of postponing a trip abroad.
What is Thompson’s approach? It is a detailed approach filled with vivid examples that creatively and powerfully illustrate her points. Hers is also an approach entirely lacking in vitriol.
One of her examples especially caught my eye, in that it quite similar to a pro-choice argument presented at this site by Grumpypilgrim.
Here is one of the illustrations from Judith Thompson’s fetus is fully human pro-choice argument:
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, “Look, we’re sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you–we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it’s only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.” Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. “Tough luck. I agree. but now you’ve got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person’s right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him.”
If you found this example intriguing, there is a lot more for you here.
The "waking in the morning to find yourself umbilically attached to another person" argument is almost as old as Roe v. Wade (possibly older–does anyone know the source?) and more or less skirts the position I generally take when all other reasonable discourse fails. Quite simply, if yinsist on asserting that a collection of developing cells is "fully" human (I still don't know entirely what that means–was Stalin "fully" human? Hitler? Would a Hannibal Lecter qualify?) then I say fine–in that case, abortion comes under the heading of justifiable homicide. Your home is being invaded and occupied without your consent. Either the police come and take the intruder away or…
Now for those who might argue that if the woman didn't want the fetus in the first place, she should never have had sex, that argument falls apart quite easily: she invited a man in, she didn't give permission for him to leave any relatives behind indefinitely. Nor did she permit him to stay as long as he likes. We must get over, as a society, as a culture, this notion that sex MUST have as a consequence a baby in order for it to be anything other than–for lack of a better term–"sin."
There is a feminist quote (and it's early, so I can't remember everything off the top of my head, but I don't remember who said this) I like: If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
Nothing in Ms Thomson's argument runs counter to my sentiment. There ought to be a standard. I suggest a test of accommodation: if a woman carries a fetus to five or six months, clearly she's made the decision at some point to keep it. Intent is hard to prove, but a first, second, or even third month abortion seems to me a pretty clear statement of intent.
This also gets around the supposedly contradictory legal device of fetal homicide–if someone kills a fetus while commiting a crime against the mother, and it had been her intent to keep it, then there's no conflict–she had already designated her fetus as human.
BUT NOBODY ELSE CAN MAKE THAT CALL.
"she invited a man in, she didn’t give permission for him to leave any relatives behind indefinitely"
Best line I've heard all week!
I've read Thompson's arguement before, and I find it very fresh and unique, though it does sadden me that it never really "caught on" the way debating the humanity of the fetus has. Thompson even gives a cracker-jack arguement to the instance of an unintended pregnancy when a woman has used no contraceptive protection. She likens it to a burglar coming in through a window left open to catch the breeze. Even knowing full well "that burglars burgle" as Thompson puts it, the woman had no intent of a thief walking in, and she probably considered it so rare an instance so as not to worry about it happening. That doesn't mean she "deserves" to have everything in her home stolen. So it goes with the unplanned joining of sperm and egg.
Failure of a contraceptive, then, Thompson equates to window bars failing to protect a home, and becoming bent by a theif's crowbar.
Thompson also introduces the idea of acting as a "minimally decent semaritan", which means behaving well without the expectations of saintly goodness. To expect a woman to sacrifice many aspects of her life for 9 months (and perhaps, the condition of her body for the rest of her life) seems a little extreme, but to finish caring a fetus to term after already caring it for eight months does not.
The next time I hear someone declare that abortion should be illegal, here's what I'm going to do: ask to see her driver's license. I want to see if she has checked the organ donor box. If she believes a pregnant woman should donate her organs to keep a fetus alive, then she should also be willing to donate her organs to save another person's life. If it's not checked, then I will check the box for her, and point out that this is exactly what she wants to do to pregnant women: have someone else, against her will, decide how to use her organs.
If the box is checked, then I will point out that at least she had the right to choose what happens to her organs, even after she is dead and no longer needs them. I will ask her why a dead person should have more control over the organs in her dead body than a pregnant women should have over the organs in her living body. I will also point out the box where she can indicate she has changed her mind and no longer consents to donating her organs — again, a right she wants to deny to pregnant women.
I will then ask her if rapists, mentally handicapped people, or all Christians should be sterilized against their will, because, after all, if we are going to deny all pregnant women the right to determine what happens to their bodies, then what is to stop us from violating the bodies of other people? If she says that a pregnant woman "chose to have sex," I'll point out that Christians make a choice, too, so what is to stop us from attaching dire consequences to that choice?
I think there are some holes in her argumentation and her examples.
Thomson in her example is talking about a violinist who is a stranger that is not related to the unwilling donor. The fetus on the other hand is a part of the mother, her child. If you got kidnapped to save a child that you already have, would you still feel the same way about letting it plug into your kidney system?
"But it cannot seriously be thought to be murder if the mother performs an abortion on herself to save her life. It cannot seriously be said that she must refrain, that she must sit passively by and wait for her death. Let us look again at the case of you and the violinist There you are, in bed with the violinist, and the director of the hospital says to you, "It's all most distressing, and I deeply sympathize, but you see this is putting an additional strain on your kidneys, and you'll be dead within the month. But you have to stay where you are all the same. because unplugging you would be directly killing an innocent violinist, and that's murder, and that's impermissible." If anything in the world is true, it is that you do not commit murder, you do not do what is impermissible, if you reach around to your back and unplug yourself from that violinist to save your life."
Would people still feel the same about her story with the violinist if the violinist was not a grown man, but a child that got suddenly plugged into her kidney system? He is not able to win in this case, because his adult innocence can never compete with a child's innocence and he's considered an equal to the mother. He is someone with the complete rights and responsibilities of an adult, his rights are equal to yours, children on the other hand do not have the same rights and as one consequence not the same responsibilities, they can not be judged the same way. Beware, I'm all for abortion to save a mother's life, I just wouldn't use this example though to defend myself against the argumentation of these pro-life people, because it does not reflect the situation between mother and fetus appropiately.
I also don't understand her burglar story. A child is not a burglar, nor some kind of parasite that has invaded someone's house or body with deliberate intention and that you need to throw out now. Conception is an event that just happens.
projektleiterin,
You don't seem to understand that an unwanted pregnancy–one a woman does not intend, does not plan, does not desire–does concern a stranger. It's a growth in her body, not a person until she decides it's a person. Until then, it is functionally the equivalent of the violinist, the age of the attached biological system is irrelevent. You say "conception is an event that just happens"–well, yeah, but lots of event "just happen" and people work to prevent them or, failing that, alter their impact. Do we try any less on behalf of New Orleans because Katrina was an event that "just happened" and because it was natural, we should just blithely accept the consequences?
Surgeon General Joclyn Elders once made a statement which cuts right to the center of this issue: "American needs to get over its love affair with the fetus."
The mother decides if it's a person or an unwanted condition–not you, not the Supreme Court, not James Dobson or the Baptist/Catholict/etc church. Until she makes that assignation of personhood, it is her choice.
What if the law said that everyone had to register with a national organ database and if healthy organs were needed, you, by law, could not refuse to give up your kidney, a lung, etc? That would be…intrusive, no? Well what the hell is the difference? Just because everyone around a woman has decided that what's going on in her womb is their business, that doesn't make in any less intrusive or, frankly, immoral to insist she be an incubator regardless of her wishes.
Projekt: In the burglar example, the malice of the burglar doesn't matter, as the argument focuses more on the accidental trespassing that takes place. If you'd like, simply replace "burglar" with a bird that flew in the window by mistake. The bird didn't mean to get in there, and has no ill will, but does the homeowner get the blame for its entrance? Does she have to feed it and take care of it now, or allow it to fly around her home indefinitely? No, she has the right to have it removed, without anyone reasonably criticizing that she "brought it upon herself" by having the window open.
Hold on, Jason, I thought Thompson was debating with the premise that the fetus is a person, hence the comparison with the violinist? What I understood is that in her example we have another person being plugged into your kidney system and the question was, does this person have a right to it? The way she presents it, most people will spontaneously say, "Of course not." I find she is eliciting this kind of reaction by manipulating. A woman who has conceived is not having some strange dude plugged into her life system. Why don't we take this violinist story and exchange the guy with a child. Will most people then still say, "Go on, unplug yourself"? Or let's say, it's a child that she had given away for adoption and has no emotional attachment to. She wakes up one day to find herself lying next to the bed of her sick child with his kidney system plugged into hers. A long time ago she made the decision to complete her pregnancy and give birth to this child, but does she have to give up her life for this child? How many people now would still rigidly insist that her right as a person to decide about her body and her life outweighs the right of the one depending on her kidney system?
When I say that conception is an event that just happens I mean that given that her premise is true and the fetus is indeed a person, it can not be compared to a burglary, which is a willful act committed by a person in full possession of his/her mental capacity. That's not what fetes do. If we exchanged the burglar with a person who by accident fell through the roof of the house and ended up lying hurt on the floor depending on the owner of the house for help, then I guess the owner would still be obliged by law to offer this person some kind of help and not kick said person simply to the curb. And even if law did not demand it, common ethics would probably expect it.
It remains a valid argument because, in the rhetoric of the prolife movement, All Life Is Sacred–so the violinist and the fetus are completely equal. If you wouldn't agree to sustain one, what is about the other that makes it objectively any different? Nothing.
In the case of the burglar, the issue is purely that of an unwelcome, uninvited person in your home. (Before leaping to the possible counterargument that one cannot shoot someone just for being in your home if one has invited that person in, that is precisely the determining factor–the invitation.) If you leave the door unlocked and a drunk stumbles in, by accident, in most states you have a technical right to oust that person up to and including lethal force. Intent is irrelevent, only the presence of the unwelcome and uninvited person.
Now I disagree with Thomson on the question of personhood. Personhood by definition contains and includes a demonstrable personality, which also covers the brain dead (vis a vis Terry Schiavo). But her arguments make for sound starting points.
Jason and Erika, what about the following cases?
"Why don’t we take this violinist story and exchange the guy with a child. Will most people then still say, “Go on, unplug yourself”? Or let’s say, it’s a child that she had given away for adoption and has no emotional attachment to. She wakes up one day to find herself lying next to the bed of her sick child with his kidney system plugged into hers. A long time ago she made the decision to complete her pregnancy and give birth to this child, but does she have to give up her life for this child? How many people now would still rigidly insist that her right as a person to decide about her body and her life outweighs the right of the one depending on her kidney system?"
"In the case of the burglar, the issue is purely that of an unwelcome, uninvited person in your home. (Before leaping to the possible counterargument that one cannot shoot someone just for being in your home if one has invited that person in, that is precisely the determining factor–the invitation.) If you leave the door unlocked and a drunk stumbles in, by accident, in most states you have a technical right to oust that person up to and including lethal force. Intent is irrelevent, only the presence of the unwelcome and uninvited person."
What about the case I mentioned before, if it's a hurt person who by accidents ends up in your house, lying hurt on the floor. Clearly, this person is not invited, does this mean I can throw this person out with no qualms? Would I be legally and ethically backed up?
I think this is why they call it Choice.
Absolutely, people have the free will to choose between right and wrong. I don't believe that in the case of the adopted sick child you would understand her choice not to help this child.
Right and Wrong are value judgments, usually declared with hindsight.
To an extremist, killing any potential human is clearly Wrong, and validates any means necessary to prevent such wrongs from happening. Draconian laws and clinic bombings are equally justified.
This discussion is more about where the line of Right and Wrong should be drawn. When is it Right to curtail or suspend the rights of an individual to prevent the Wrong of allowing another single individual to die. In the context of this post, a just-fertilized egg is as much an individual as the concert violinist or the burglar.
Is it Right to insist that an Abstinence-Only schooled 15 year old carry her Camp Counselor's child to term, endure the physical discomfort, the economic cost, the social stigma, and the loss of education in order to ideally provide a baby for someone else? Or worse, to raise another unwanted child to help keep our prisons full?
Or is it Wrong to let her privately abort the child, live out her own childhood, finish her education, marry, and raise a stable, desired, and planned family?
If she adopted the child, then she's already chosen to take care of it. If the state showed up at her door and said "We have a sick child here and it's your turn to take care of one" that is utterly different.
What if "her" was my mother? I am selfish, if I had to choose, I would want my mom to survive rather than my unborn sibling. I would be willing to sacrifice the fetus/person to save my mother.
"If she adopted the child, then she’s already chosen to take care of it. If the state showed up at her door and said “We have a sick child here and it’s your turn to take care of one” that is utterly different."
That's not what I said… I said, it's her own child that she had given away for adoption. Now it's sick and needs her help for a couple of months.
"Is it Right to insist that an Abstinence-Only schooled 15 year old carry her Camp Counselor’s child to term, endure the physical discomfort, the economic cost, the social stigma, and the loss of education in order to ideally provide a baby for someone else? Or worse, to raise another unwanted child to help keep our prisons full?"
That was not really the question here, Dan. I'd be the last one to let a wacko fundamentalist tell me what to do if I had gotten raped and were pregnant.
I'm just saying, if you argue with the premise that a fetus is a person and you follow Thompson's reasoning you will find cases where you will run into problems. If she can make up funny cases where violinists depend on your kidney, I can do the same…
"What if “her” was my mother? I am selfish, if I had to choose, I would want my mom to survive rather than my unborn sibling. I would be willing to sacrifice the fetus/person to save my mother."
I don't really think anybody here really considers a fetus a full person. Would Ben have said this if the baby was already born?
Erich wrote a post a while ago in which he highlighted the nonsense of asserting that a fetus is fully human. It involved a woman fleeing a burning building. In one hand, she held her 3-year-old child; in her other hand, a Petri dish containing a fertilized egg. Unable to negotiate an exit from the building with both hands full, she was forced to leave behind one of her two "children." Moral dilemma: should she save her 3-year-old child and leave the egg to incinerate in the fire, or save the egg and leave the toddler to burn? Decisions, decisions. The pro-life argument is that the toddler and the egg are both fully human and should have an equal right to life, but how many of them would burn the toddler to save the egg?
When you say "here" you must not be speaking of the "internet" or America/USA or Earth. Here on the internet, LOTS of people KNOW that children are created upon conception. Birth control is EVIL.
Good question, would I save my sibling or my mother… wow, I am not prepared to answer that, sorry.
Here's another angle. Suppose every human, as a normal trait, has a baby every month. No conception necessary, at the end of the month, at about the same time rent is due, everyone gives birth to a baby. Would this open the door to having to "thin the herd", similar to the way many other animals in the wild, cannot support all of their offspring? I don't think there would be any way around it.
Or what about in China, once you have already had 1 child, the pressure to have an abortion is immense.
http://www.state.gov/g/prm/rls/39823.htm
I like the petri dish story.
"When you say “here” you must not be speaking of the “internet” or America/USA or Earth. Here on the internet, LOTS of people KNOW that children are created upon conception. Birth control is EVIL."
"Here" for me means on this blog.
"Here’s another angle. Suppose every human, as a normal trait, has a baby every month. No conception necessary, at the end of the month, at about the same time rent is due, everyone gives birth to a baby. Would this open the door to having to “thin the herd”, similar to the way many other animals in the wild, cannot support all of their offspring? I don’t think there would be any way around it."
Nature wouldn't do this. Women can also conceive every month, theoretically, but I think the probability to get pregnant is still not as high as you would assume (if I remember right).
"nature wouldn't do this"
It was a hypothetical situation.
Slightly modified: What if at the end of EVERY month, EVERY adult on earth gives "birth" to a 3 year-old child? There would have to be some kind of rules put into place which would allow for "euthanizing" most of the newborn 3-year olds, wouldn't there? Or else the planet would be OVERRUN by starving 3 year olds in a matter of months.
"Nature wouldn't do this."
Nature *does* do this. More than a few species of animals allow some members of their litter to die so that the others will have better odds of survival. Even human mothers (in starvation-wracked areas) have been known to commit infanticide when they have too many mouths to feed and they are forced to choose between letting one die or being forced to watch them all do so.
Regarding projekt's two scenarios:
Hooked up to a child:
First, understand that Thompson's arguement recognizes a level of subjectivity and nuance. It seems minimally decent, for instance, to stay hooked up to a person's kidney for nine minutes, or an hour. Maybe even a day. But it doesn't seem reasonable to stay attached for nine years. So where you draw the line between a reasonable and unreasonable time to stay connected to someone lies in the realm of "choice". Some saintly folk might stay attached for nine years. Many would for nine months. But many would also not. And that seems reasonable. So it goes for a child. If a relationship to the child makes a woman stay longer than she would for an adult violinist, let her. She has that choice.
Injured person in the house:
Tough one. It seems minimally decent to take an injured person out of your home and into the hospital. So that differs a bit from a womb- the injured man doesn't want or need to stay in your home for nine months, he wants and needs to get to a hospital. This compares more to having carried a child for eight months already, and then deciding to abort it when it could survive outside of the womb. It seems minimally decent to last that one remaining month rather than leave a soon-person to die out of convenience. The injured man in the home scenario would only fit a pregnancy, then, if you had to care for him, nurse him back to health and rehabilitate him yourself, in your home, for nine months. In the act of trespassing itself, neither you nor him get the blame, just like a bird that flies in your window.
A quick answer for Ben and grumpy (sorry, Erika, your answer requires more thinking on my part and I'm about to hop to bed now).
"Slightly modified: What if at the end of EVERY month, EVERY adult on earth gives “birth” to a 3 year-old child? There would have to be some kind of rules put into place which would allow for “euthanizing” most of the newborn 3-year olds, wouldn’t there? Or else the planet would be OVERRUN by starving 3 year olds in a matter of months."
I'm not sure why you're asking, but I assume, people would first kill these kids. Then they would develop some ethical inhibitions and look for other solutions to preven the killing of innocent, such as killing the guilty adults who produce these kids. Ok, just kidding, I mean, reducing the the number of born kids through scientific inventions (like birht control), giving rocket science a boost and look for new places to live among the stars…
"Nature *does* do this."
No, nature does not. :p If the offsprings require a lot of caring and time to develop to a full adult, the number of babies is small (as with human beings). If they develop fast, there is usually a great number of them. I think theoretically that's how it is. Sure, we all have heard of human parents who have lots and lots of kids and are not able to care for them.