A Defense of Abortion

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A Defense of Abortion is a moral philosophical paper by Judith Jarvis Thomson first published in 1971. Granting for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life, Thomson uses thought experiments to argue for the moral permissibility of induced abortion. Her argument has many critics on both sides of the abortion debate,[1] yet continues to receive defense.[2] Thomson's imaginative examples and controversial conclusions have made A Defense of Abortion perhaps "the most widely reprinted essay in all of contemporary philosophy".[3]

Overview of the essay

In A Defense of Abortion, Thomson grants for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life, but defends the permissibility of abortion by appeal to a thought experiment:

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. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.[4]

Thomson takes it that you may now permissibly unplug yourself from the violinist even though this will cause his death: the right to life, Thomson says, does not entail the right to use another person's body, and so by unplugging the violinist you do not violate his right to life but merely deprive him of something—the use of your body—to which he has no right. "[I]f you do allow him to go on using your kidneys, this is a kindness on your part, and not something he can claim from you as his due."[5]

For the same reason, Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's right to life but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body—to which it has no right. Thus, it is not that by terminating her pregnancy a woman violates her moral obligations, but rather that a woman who carries the fetus to term is a 'Good Samaritan' who goes beyond her obligations.[6]

Criticism

Critics of Thomson's argument (see the table below) generally grant the permissibility of unplugging the violinist, but say that the analogy is poor. They thus block the inference that abortion is permissible by identifying morally relevant disanalogies between the violinist scenario and typical cases of abortion.

The most common objection is that Thomson's argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape. In the violinist scenario, you were kidnapped: you did nothing to cause the violinist to be plugged in, just as a woman who is pregnant due to rape did nothing to cause her pregnancy. But in typical cases of abortion, the pregnant woman had intercourse voluntarily, and thus has either tacitly consented to allow the fetus to use her body (the tacit consent objection), or else has a duty to sustain the fetus because the woman herself caused the fetus to stand in need of her body (the responsibility objection). Other common objections turn on the claim that the fetus is the pregnant woman's child whereas the violinist is a stranger (the stranger versus offspring objection), or that abortion kills the fetus whereas unplugging the violinist merely lets him die (the killing versus letting die objection).

Defenders of Thomson's argument[7] reply that the alleged disanalogies between the violinist scenario and typical cases of abortion do not hold, either because the factors that critics appeal to are not genuinely morally relevant, or because those factors are morally relevant but do not apply to abortion in the way that critics have claimed. A summary of common objections and responses is below.

Less common objections to Thomson's argument include:

  • the natural-artificial objection[8]: pregnancy is a natural process that is biologically normal to the human species. The joined condition of the violinist and donor, in contrast, represents an extreme and unusual form of "life support" that can only proceed in the presence of surgical intervention. This difference is morally relevant and therefore the two situations should not be used to model each other;
  • the conjoined twins objection[9]: the relationship between conjoined twins represents a more complete analogy to pregnancy than the relationship between the violinist and the kidney donor. Because the fatal separation of conjoined twins is immoral, so is abortion;
  • the different burdens objection[10]: supporting the violinist is a much greater burden than normal pregnancy, and so unplugging the violinist is morally permissible whereas aborting the fetus is not;
  • the artificiality objection[11]: our intuitions on bizarre thought experiments of the sort used by Thomson are unreliable and provide no warrant for the conclusions they are intended to support; and
  • the duty to sustain the violinist objection[12]: despite the common intuition, one does have an obligation to support the violinist, and likewise the fetus.

Defenders of Thomson's argument have responses to these less common objections as well. For example, the analogy between typical pregnancy and conjoined twins has been challenged on the basis that the pregnant woman, having existed for many years before the fetus came into existence, has a prior claim to the use of her own body, whereas conjoined twins come into existence at the same time and thus do not have a prior claim to the use of their shared body parts.[13] Of course, critics have replies to these responses[14], and so the debate goes back and forth.

Table of criticisms and responses

ObjectionSummaryResponses

Tacit consent objection[15]

The pregnant woman voluntarily engaged in sexual intercourse foreseeing that a fetus may result, and so has tacitly consented to the fetus using her body; no such consent occurs with the violinist (or pregnancy due to rape).

  • Tacit consent cannot be inferred where contraception was used.[16]
  • Engaging in a voluntary action while foreseeing a certain result does not entail that one has tacitly consented to that result.[17]
  • Even if the woman has tacitly consented to the fetus making demands on her body, it does not follow that she has consented to sustain it for the entire nine months of pregnancy.[18]

Responsibility objection[19]

The pregnant woman voluntarily engaged in sexual intercourse with the result that the fetus stands in need of the use of her body. The woman is thus responsible for the fetus's need to use her body and so the fetus has a right to use her body. No such responsibility occurs with the violinist (or pregnancy due to rape).

  • The woman is responsible for the fetus existing, but as she could not have caused the fetus to exist without being dependent on her, she is in a relevant sense not responsible for the fetus's need to use her body.[20]
  • Thomson raises this objection herself and concludes it is not convincing. First, she offers an argument that lends support to the view that abortion is justified at least in the case of rape. Second, she points out that one cannot drive a wedge between rape and other cases simply by appealing to the fact that in other cases the woman is responsible for there being a fetus that needs assistance, since the woman is also to some extent responsible in cases of rape (e.g., she could get a hysterectomy or "never leav[e] home without a (reliable!) army"). Therefore she concludes that abortion is morally permissible in at least some cases where intercourse is voluntary. [21]

Stranger versus offspring objection[22]

Parents have special obligations towards their offspring (as shown, for example, by laws requiring child support payments and by the fact that child abandonment is morally wrong). The fetus is the pregnant woman's offspring, and so she has a special obligation to sustain it; the violinist is a stranger and so you have no such obligation.

  • Special obligations do not arise from mere biological relatedness; they can only be assumed, either explicitly or implicitly.[23] For example, by taking the baby home from the hospital one implicitly agrees to care for it.
  • Even special parental obligations do not require parents to undergo organ donation or other direct use of their body (such as pregnancy) for the sake of their offspring.[24]
  • From the fact that it is morally permissible for a society to enact child support laws, it does not follow that there is any obligation (to the child) to pay child support independently of such laws.[25]
  • The wrongness of child abandonment may suggest we have some positive duties towards others; but it would not follow that those duties are strong enough to require sustaining the fetus.[26]

Killing versus letting die objection[27]

There is a morally relevant difference between killing and letting die. Abortion typically kills the fetus and thus is impermissible, but unplugging the violinist merely lets him die and so is permissible.

  • The objection would not apply to 'merely extractive' methods of abortion (such as hysterotomy) where the fetus is extracted intact and then allowed to die rather than killed.[28]
  • Pro-lifers do not hold that merely extractive abortions are less objectionable than other methods of abortion; so they cannot consistently raise the killing versus letting die objection.[29]
  • Killing is not in and of itself worse than letting die, or is not sufficiently worse to undermine the violinist analogy.[30]
  • Even if killing is substantially worse than letting die, it is justified in the case of abortion because letting die would require a merely extractive abortion, which under current technology involves substantial risk to the pregnant woman.[31]

Intending versus foreseeing objection[32]

There is a morally relevant difference between intending harm and causing harm as a foreseen but unintended side-effect. In most cases, abortion intentionally causes the fetus's death and so is impermissible; whereas unplugging the violinist causes death as an unintended side-effect and so is permissible.

  • Intentionally causing death is not in itself worse than causing death as an unintended side-effect, or is not sufficiently worse to undermine the violinist analogy.[33]
  • If the intending versus foreseeing distinction is morally relevant, this is presumably because intending harm usually involves a failure of respect towards the victim that foreseeing harm usually does not. But intentionally causing the fetus's death through abortion (in order to avoid the dangers to the woman of a merely extractive abortion) seems no worse from the point of view of respect than causing the fetus's death as an unintended side-effect; so the distinction does not undermine the analogy between the violinist scenario and abortion.[34]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ eg, Schwarz 1990, Beckwith 1993 and Lee 1996 on the pro-life side; Tooley 1972, Warren 1973, Steinbock 1992 and McMahan 2002 on the pro-choice side
  2. ^ Kamm 1992; Boonin 2003: ch 4
  3. ^ Parent 1986: vii
  4. ^ Thomson 1971: 48-49.
  5. ^ Thomson 1971: 55
  6. ^ Thomson 1971: 63; Boonin 2003: 133-134
  7. ^ Boonin 2003: 133-281
  8. ^ Parks 2006
  9. ^ Himma 1999, Parks 2006
  10. ^ Schwarz 1990
  11. ^ Wiland 2000: 467. "The story of the unconscious violinist, some argue, is a complete fiction. There is no Society of Music Lovers, there are no famous violinists in need of kidney transplants, and there are no kidnappers forcing others to donate their bodies for the good of another."
  12. ^ Hershenov 2001
  13. ^ Boonin 2003: 245-246
  14. ^ Parks 2006
  15. ^ eg Warren 1973; Steinbock 1992
  16. ^ Thomson 1971: 57-59
  17. ^ Boonin 2003: 154-164
  18. ^ Boonin 2003: 164-167
  19. ^ eg Beckwith 1993; McMahan 2002
  20. ^ Boonin 2003: 167-188
  21. ^ Thomson 1971: 55-59
  22. ^ eg Schwarz 1990; Beckwith 1993; McMahan 2002
  23. ^ Thomson 1971: 64-65; Boonin 2003: 228-234
  24. ^ Boonin 2003: 249-254
  25. ^ Boonin 2003: 247-249
  26. ^ Boonin 2003: 233 n 60
  27. ^ eg Schwarz 1990; Beckwith 1993; McMahan 2002
  28. ^ McMahan 2002: 383-4; Boonin 2003: 193
  29. ^ Boonin 2003: 189 n 41, noting however that this is an ad hominem reply
  30. ^ Thomson 1971: 156-159
  31. ^ Boonin 2003: 199-211
  32. ^ eg Finnis 1973; Schwarz 1990; Lee 1996; Lee and George 2005
  33. ^ Thomson 1971: 156-159
  34. ^ Boonin 2003: 222-227

References

  • Beckwith, F. 1993. Politically Correct Death. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, ch 7.
  • Boonin, D. 2003. A Defense of Abortion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ch 4.
  • Finnis, J.. "The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion". Philosophy and Public Affairs 2:2 (Winter 1973): 117-145.
  • Hershenov, D. "Abortions and Distortions". Social Theory and Practice 27:1 (January 2001): 129-148.
  • Kamm, F. 1992. Creation and Abortion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Lee, P. 1996. Abortion and Unborn Human Life. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, ch 4.
  • Lee, P and R George. "The Wrong of Abortion". In A Cohen and C Wellman, eds. 2005. Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell: 13-26, at 20-21.
  • McMahan, J. 2002. The Ethics of Killing. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Parent, W. 1986. "Editor's introduction". In J Thomson. Rights, Restitution, and Risk. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: vii-x.
  • Parks, B. D. "The Natural-Artificial Distinction and Conjoined Twins: A Response To Judith Thomson's Argument for Abortion Rights". National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 6:4 (Winter 2006): 671-680.
  • Schwarz, S. 1990. The Moral Question of Abortion. Chicago: Loyola University Press, ch 8.
  • Steinbock, B. 1992. Life Before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, at 78.
  • Thomson, J. "A Defense of Abortion". Philosophy and Public Affairs 1:1 (Autumn 1971): 47-66.
  • Thomson, J. "Rights and Deaths". Philosophy and Public Affairs 2:2 (Winter 1973): 146-159.
  • Tooley, M. "Abortion and Infanticide". Philosophy and Public Affairs 2:1 (Autumn 1972): 37-65, at 52-53.
  • Warren, M. "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion". Monist 57:1 (1973): 43-61.
  • Wiland, E. "Unconscious violinists and the use of analogies in moral argument". Journal of Medical Ethics 26 (2000): 466–468.
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