In this 1971 article, [1] Judith Jarvis Thomson [2] 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 [3].
Here is one of the illustrations from Judith Thompson’s fetus is fully human pro-choice argument [1]:
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 [1].
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