Essay
Judith Jarvis Thomson is a metaphysician an American moral philosopher. She distinguished herself for her defense of moral objectivity, moral right and her own point of view in different moral situations. The most famous work, made by Thomson is an essay, dated 1971, “A Defense of Abortion” which is based on pregnant women rights to do whatever she wants with her own body and its function, more than attempt to deny the personhood of the fetus.
Her position about this subject is clear – she argues that abortion is at least sometimes morally permissible, and there are a lot of situations, when the abortion is permissible as well.
The main argument against the permission to abort comes with the claim that fetuses are people, who have an inalienable right to life. As nothing can acquit a murder (because to kill a person is never moral) killing fetus means killing a person, so abortion is never can be moral.
If people had an inherent right to life, then there wouldn’t be so many murders and wars, because it isn’t moral at all. But as a result we have the opposite – humans kill each other for money, authority, territories and even for fun, so we can’t even see an allusion to the “inherent right to life”. Just to mention my opinion here, I’d like to say that the only reason when someone can justified in killing the other person is the self-defense, because it is the question of survivability, not the “ghostly” morality.
The anti-abortion position changes when they remember about the capital punishment they change their arguments – from now people have the right to life, but it ISN’T inheritable. There must be some special circumstances, which gave the moral right to take one’s right to life. This moral right says, that if a person has deliberately and intentionally harmed another (or tried to do this) that it becomes morally permissible to kill that “harmful” person. As the fetuses can’t deliberately and intentionally harm others, it isn’t moral to kill the fetus; abortion is never permissible. But these arguments are only valid if fetuses are the people. Otherwise, if they aren’t people we can allow that people have a right to life without allowing that fetuses have a right to life.
Thomas grants that fetuses are people, but even if they are people abortion may still be permissible in some special circumstances. She thinks that fetuses are people only on late terms; her main ideas are that people are their bodies – it is enough to have a physical body to be a person, according to her. Also, her arguments rely on the observation that the right can conflict. For example: Liar’s company stakes, when the owner sells twenty people a 10% stakes in his company. Not all of these people can get company profits because it is impossible to dole out 200% of the profits. Only the half of co-owners has the right to get their 10%, when the other half will have to sacrifice their rights to the others. According to Thomson, women have a right to control their own bodies, and the pregnant ones are not exception. When fetuses have a right to remain in their mothers’ bodies, women have a right to abort and “unplug” these fetuses, and here comes the situation, in which two sides cannot both be respected.
The situation, in which two sides cannot both be respected, comes as an example of plugged violinist scenario. According to this scenario, I wake up in the morning and find myself in bed with a famous unconscious violinist, who has a fatal kidney ailment. Due to all the available medical records I am only the one person, whose blood type can help, so the Society of Music Lovers kidnaps me and plugs the violinist’s circulatory system into mine, to extract poisons from the violinist’s blood. The director of the hospital says that they could do nothing to prevent the Society of Music Lovers from plugging me to the violinist, and if I unplug myself it will kill the violinist. But well, this will end in nine months, so the violinist will have recovered from his ailment and can be safely unplugged from me. The questions of this scenario are: “Should I agree with this?”; “What if not nine months but nine years, or even more?” and the final question “Why should I?”. As a result, I have only two ways of to solve this problem: to stay and keep the violinist alive for nine months/years/the rest of my life or just to unplug myself but let him die. Also, there is a possibility that the director will say that I have to stay with the violinist for the rest of my life, because all persons have a right to life, and violinists are the persons. So, the right to life of the violinist outweighs my right to decide what to do with my own body, that’s why I can’t be even unplugged.
The decision is clear for me – no one has the right to kidnap me and do whatever he wants with my body. That’s why in these circumstances I will refuse the violinist’s right to life, because my right to own my body is more valuable for me than the life of another person, even a famous musician. He isn’t my spouse, beloved person or even a relative to me so I shouldn’t keep him alive. Also, the fact that I was kidnapped (so if I were kidnapped I didn’t volunteer for it) with no request to help makes me mad – as it was said earlier no one has the right to control or use my body without my permission.
The situation with the violinist can be clearly compared to the pregnancy due to rape, where the rapist is the Society of Music Lovers; “special type of blood” is the bad luck to be in the wrong place;the fetus is the violinist who will die without your body; and the director of the hospital is still the director of the hospital, who offers you to save non desired fetus, because it has the right to life, which, according to the anti-abortion society outweighs any other right. Only few people will agree to carry the rapist’s fetus or to keep violinist alive for nine months or even more, because both of them are really nothing and no one to the person, who was unlucky to be kidnapped or raped. That’s why I totally agree with Thomson’s point of view, that every woman has her right to do with her body whatever she wants. If she wants to make an abortion of a rapist’s fetus she has a moral right to do it, because the right to life of another person weights much less than the right of this woman to control her body.
As for me, abortion is totally permissible in case of rape and/or unwanted pregnancy – only the mother of fetus should make a decision about how to act with it. The reason is simple – neither rapist nor husband will spend for about nine months in bed and shorten their own lives by giving a birth to fetus. That’s why I agree with the Thomson’s point of view, but still her point of view isn’t perfect to fit every life situation connected to unwanted pregnancy and abortion at all.
