Judith Jarvis Thomson’s ‘A Defense of Abortion’
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Critically examine Judith Jarvis Thomson’s ‘A Defense of Abortion’.
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Abortion: Judith Jarvis Thomson’s ‘A Defense of Abortion’
Judith Jarvis’ 1971 article A Defense of Abortion is without a doubt a very influential philosophical publication in the area of abortion. The framework that Judith Jarvis establishes has for the most part shaped the philosophical discourse since, given that it offered the then new observation that the child’s status as a person is basically immaterial to the question of whether a woman has the right to abort (Lu, 2013). This paper provides a critical examination of the aforementioned article by Judith Jarvis Thomson.
In the article, people seeds, the famous violinist, as well as the chocolate example are 3 of a sequence of thought experiments contained therein. As suggested by the title, Judith Jarvis Thomson’s article is aimed at defending the practice of abortion – although not in all cases. Her approach is moderately new (Booni-Vail, 2007). Instead of engaging in the typical debate with regard to the ethical status of the foetus – is it a kind of being which has rights? – Thomson clearly presumes, for the sake of the argument, that a foetus actually has a right to life but claims that this right to life does not essentially extend to a right to the body of the mother (Thomson, 1971). She argues that abortion is, in essence, not impermissible. Thomson specifically argues for the conclusion that procuring an abortion is at times permissible. The author claims that there are scenarios where it would in fact be immoral and unethical to procure an abortion. The way she constructs her arguments is something that is particularly novel (Daniel, 2013).
Thomson starts her article by stating that the debate over abortion appears to lots of people to be hinging on whether the foetus is really a person or not. Many people believe that if the answer to this enigma could be established, the implications for procuring of abortion would then be apparent; that is, if a foetus is a person, then abortions should be impermissible; and that if a foetus is not a person, then abortions should be permissible (Canfield, 2011). However, she thinks that this form of reasoning is incomplete or misguided. Thomson then starts by granting the subject of personhood to her opponents; for the purposes of argumentation, Thomson presumes that the foetus is actually a person from the time of conception (Thomson, 1971). The author tries to demonstrate that even if this concession is made, in many cases the procurement of abortion is ethically permissible.
She initially recreates the argument which opponents of abortion who rely on the foetus’ personhood should consider whenever they assert that abortion is always impermissible. An important premise in that argument holds that the right to life has to outweigh other rights with which it conflicts (Eileen, 2012; Thomson, 1971). She maintains that this premise is false and then sets up the first of quite a few thought experiments of which she uses in the whole essay in persuading readers to that end. It is notable that the experiment is aimed at demonstrating that there are scenarios in which it is permissible to take an action so as to justify and defend one’s own right – essentially, a right except the right to life – although doing so is in violation of the right to life of a foetus that is innocent.
She then progresses to a more exhaustive discussion pertaining to the right to life. Here, Thomson tries to define the concept and to mention that lots of other held beliefs regarding the implications as well as strength of such a right must be untrue. One may think that having the right to life implies that an individual has the right to whatever is essential so as to sustain his or her life. However, the author of this article believes that this must be mistaken, as scenarios such as the case of the violinist illustrate (Goenaga, 2011; Freiburger, 2014). On the other hand, it may be thought that having the right to life implies that an individual actually has a right not to be murdered. Once more, the author believes that the violinist case illustrates this to be untrue; without doubt, an individual could unplug himself or herself from the violinist although doing this will kill that violinist (Gordon, 2011). If anyone tries to change the definition by pointing out instead that having the right to life connotes that one has the right not to be murdered unjustly, then that person has really not done much in advancing the debate on the practice of abortion. In spite of everything, whether killing of the foetuses is unjust or just is exactly what is at issue (Koukl, 2010).
Moreover, she claims that even if a woman is in part causally responsible for the presence of the foetus inside her uterus since she engaged with her own free will in sexual intercourse knowing that the act may result in pregnancy, it does not thus follow that the woman bears a special moral responsibility towards that foetus. Here, Thomson uses the window thought experiments in showing that partial causal responsibility for an outcome does not bear on a person’s having moral obligations with regard to the outcome (Warren, 2010). It is important to remember that Thomson maintains that some abortions are immoral; not every reason justifies the ending of life of the foetus, and there is no reason that justifies the ending of the life of the foetus if the foetus could be separated from its mother devoid of killing it.
Thomson’s Violinist Analogy
Thomson allows the premise that the foetus is both a person and a human life, for argumentation sake, to argue on other basis that the practice of procuring an abortion is something that is ethically permissible. She then introduces the readers to the violinist analogy. This analogy is roughly summed up as an occurrence in which one awakes in the morning to find that a group of music lovers have appended a celebrated and illustrious violinist to his or her kidneys (Thomson, 1971). This famous violinist now depends on using one’s kidneys in processing poisons out of his body and if the individual chooses to detach himself or herself from this violinist, it will result in the death of the violinist. Nonetheless, it is pointed out that the individual is not under any obligation, but if he or she allows the violinist to continue using his or her kidneys will be a show of kindness; not something which the violinist could claim from the individual as his right (Thomson, 1971). Therefore, the individual did not give the well-known violinist any right to utilize his or her kidneys, and not anyone else could have given the violinist this right. She argues that even if this famous violinist is a person with a right to life, it does not follow that the violinist has a right to utilize the individual’s body, if it can be considered that an individual could choose what happens to and in her body. Although it would be nice of the individual to permit it, it is ethically acceptable for the individual to unplug herself (Thomson, 1971).
In essence, Thomson makes use of this violinist analogy in order to argue that in this occurrence, an individual would actually be ethically permitted to unplug herself, and thus that the right to life is based on the right not to be killed unfairly or in an unjust manner, rather than in the right not to be killed (Wilheim, 2011). Using this analogy, Thomson tries to demonstrate the way that the act of unplugging in the violinist analogy corresponds to the act of procuring an abortion in real life. When Thomson argues that the actor and the act are justified in the scenario of the violinist analogy, she demonstrates that the actual actor and act wherein the violinist analogy depicts might as well be considered justified (Beckwith, 2013). According to Thomson (1971), killing the famous violinist and procuring an abortion are actions that are relevantly similar given that one’s body is being violated. In essence, if it is permissible from the moral standpoint to kill the violinist since he is violating one’s body, then it is also permissible from the moral viewpoint to abort a foetus given that the body of the woman is being violated (Wiland, 2010).
Questioning the violinist analogy
The violinist analogy presented by Thomson fails given that in typical cases of abortions, what happens is that by unplugging herself, a woman is not just failing to save the life of another person, but she is also actively taking away the life of another person (Bainnson, 2014). It is notable that the techniques that are used to procure an abortion undoubtedly involve the killing of the foetus: the foetus is killed by being poisoned or mangled during the process of being taken out of the woman’s uterus (Noonan, 2009). As such, aborting a foetus does not just entail a woman unplugging herself from another person and letting that person die; during abortion, a woman kills the foetus actively and with intent. The donor of the kidney does not just unplug herself and passively lets a dying well-known violinist die, but she unplugs herself by actively killing the violinist (McMahan, 2012).
Questioning body rights assumption used by Thomson
Thomson presumed that a person’s right to decide whatever takes place to or in her body extends to another person. Daniel (2013) pointed out that this is not necessarily true. The following counterexample is used: at week 8, Phyllis decided to sever the hands of her fetus. Granting that Phyllis has the right to decide whatever happens to and inside her body, the physician carried out the operation with the use of modern technology and chopped Phyllis’ foetus hands off. In weeks 12 Phyllis decided to remove the eyes of the foetus. The physician did what he reasoned to be personal right and choice of Phyllis. In the end, Phyllis gives birth to a baby with amputated hands and without eyes. Supposing that we are not blind from the moral or ethical standpoint, if our moral or ethical reaction to Phyllis is that of disapproval and of denouncing her for her cruelty and callousness, then it does not follow that her right to decide whatever happens to and insider her body is actually extended to her foetus (Daniel, 2013; Singer, 2011).
Questioning the use of “use” by Thomson
Philip Bennet raised an important inquiry when he asked the question: do foetuses utilize the bodies of women who have them in the same manner that the well-known violinist is using the unwilling kidney donor’s body? (Bennet, 2009). In essence, Thomson took for granted the relationship between a foetus use of the mother with that of a violinist’s use of the kidney donor (Bennet, 2009). According to Kant, it is usually wrong for one to use people as a means to their own ends (Griffin & McGlone, 2012). The Society of Music Lovers, or the violinist, is, in an ethical chastisement sense, making use of the kidney donor as a means to their end or his end, thus the violinist or the Society of Music Lovers are morally accountable. However, foetuses do not use the bodies of women in a similar way to the violinist given that foetuses use their mothers in a moral neutral sense (Pollitt, 2010; Steinbock, 2009). This distinction is correct. Indeed, foetuses do not use the bodies of pregnant women as the violinist makes use of the kidney donor’s body (Warren, 2010). By granting for the sake of argument that a foetus is a person, Thomson in her article was not successful in showing that it is morally or ethically permissible to actively kill a foetus.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Thomson in her article A Defense of Abortion is actually defending the practice of abortion ,though not in all cases, and the approach she employs is moderately novel. She argues that even if a foetus is to be considered as a person and therefore has a right to life like every other person, it does not follow that the foetus has the right to utilize the body of the pregnant woman. Aborting a foetus does not simply involve a woman unplugging herself from another person and letting that person to die; rather, the woman kills the foetus actively and deliberately. All in all, by granting for the sake of argument that a foetus is a person, Thomson did not succeed in illustrating that it is morally or ethically permissible for a woman to actively kill a foetus.
References
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Beckwith, F. J. (2013). Defending abortion philosophically. Sydney, Australia: Springer Publishers.
Bennett, P. W. (2009). A Defence of Abortion: A Question for Judith Jarvis Thomson. Philosophical Investigations. 5(2):142-145
Booni-Vail, D. (2007). A Defense of “A Defense of Abortion”: On the Responsibility Objection to Thomson’s Argument. Ethics, 107(2):286-313
Canfield, J. V. (2011). Philosophy of meaning, knowledge, and value in 20th century. London, England: Routledge.
Daniel, P. (2013). Assessing Thomson’s Defense of Abortion. Sydney, Australia: Kogan Pages.
Eileen, M. (2012). Breaking the abortion deadlock: From choice to consent. Brisbane: Oxford University Press.
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Gordon, D. (2011). Abortion and Thomson’s violinist: Unplugging a bad analogy. London, England: Penguin Books.
Griffin, A. C., & McGlone, J. P. (2012). Destringing Thomson’s violinist. The Harvard Crimson.
Koukl, G. (2010). Unstringing the violinist: Stand to reason. Signal Hill, CA: Penguin Publishers.
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McMahan, J. (2012). The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Wiland, E. (2010). Unconscious violinist and the use of analogies in moral argument. Journal of Medical Ethics, 26:466-468 https://philpapers.org/rec/EWIUVA
Wilheim, D. (2011). On Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A defence of abortion.” Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
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