A Defense of Abortion

Opening Remarks

The debate over the moral permissibility of abortion usually focuses on whether or not the fetus is a person.

Thomson will argue that this focus misses the most central issues of the moral problem of abortion.

Opening Remarks

Here is a bad argument for the conclusion that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception.

1. At some point in its development from conception to childhood the fetus becomes a person.

2. There is no point at which one can draw a non-arbitrary line when it switches from non-person to person.

3. Therefore, it was a person from conception.

Opening Remarks

This is known as a sorites argument. The argument is invalid as can be seen by considering the following parallel argument:

1. At some point in its development an acorn become an oak tree.

2. There is no non-arbitrary point at which one can draw the line.

3. Therefore a acorn is an oak tree.

Opening Remarks

Some concepts are vague but this does not mean there are not clear and non-vague applications of them.

Just because there is no non-arbitrary line to draw at which the fetus becomes a person it doesn’t entail that the fetus was always a person.

Opening Remarks

However, Thomson thinks it is very likely that the fetus is a person sometime before birth, even though she denies it was a person from fertilization.

Opening Remarks

Thomson is prepared to grant (for the sake of argument) that the fetus is a person from conception.

Her question is: what is the argument from the personhood of the fetus to the impermissibility of abortion?

First Pro-Life Argument

Argument #1

1. The fetus is a person.

2. Every person has a right to life.

3. Therefore the fetus has a right to life.

4. The mother has certain rights to control her body, but a right to life is always stronger than this.

5. Therefore, abortion is immoral.

The Violinist Case

“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 violinists circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own…

Violinist Case

…The director of the hospital now tells you “Look we’re sorry that 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 its only for nine months.” (61-62)

Are you morally obligated to stay plugged in to the violinist?

Violinist Case

Thomson thinks that you are not!

It would be very nice of you to stay plugged in, but you are not obligated to do so.

In other words, staying plugged in is supererogatory.

Comments on the Case

Important Features of the Case The violinist is obviously a person who has a right to

life. The violinist is totally innocent. He has done nothing

to plan or execute the procedure. The violinist does not lose his right to life in this

situation. Rather, your right to self-control seems to trump it!

Competing Rights

What the case serves to show is that the issue does not turn on personhood or whether the fetus has a right to life.

Rather, the main issues concerning abortion seem to be over when and how the rights of individuals can be in conflict.

Competing Rights

The violinist’s right to life does not trump your right to self-control in the case?

Why not?

Competing Rights

Plausibly it is because you did not agree in any way to this situation. You were kidnapped and forced into it.

In this way, the case is analogous to pregnancy as a result of rape.

If you share Thomson’s intuitions, then even if you oppose abortion in most cases, there is some pressure on you to make an exception in the case of rape.

Competing Rights to Life

What if the mother’s life is at risk if she carries the pregnancy to term?

In this case we have two rights to life competing against one another.

Killing vs. Letting Die

One might think that there is a moral distinction between killing someone and letting them die.

The mother may die, but in order to save her we must kill the fetus.

Killing a person is worse than letting a person die Therefore, we should not allow an abortion.

Self-Preservation

We generally think that we have a right to protect our own lives even when this may mean killing someone else. Self-defense cases are the clearest kind. But even when the other person is innocent, we think

we have a moral right to look out for our own life at the cost of theirs.

Self-Preservation

Revised Violinist If the violinist stays hooked up to you for the full nine

months, then there is a very good chance you will die. If you unplug the violinist dies.

Must you stay plugged in?

Self-Preservation

“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 own life.” (65)

Self-Preservation

The case supports the conclusion that a mother may take actions to protect her own life even if that means getting an abortion, and thereby killing a person.

But the issue is a bit more complex. Unlike the revised violinist case, a woman cannot safely

perform an abortion on herself. She must rely on a third party to carry out the procedure.

Can a Third Party Act?

Even if you can permissibly unplug to save your own life, can a third party intervene?

Suppose you couldn’t reach the plug. Could a doctor or a friend permissibly unplug you from the violinist thereby killing him?

Can a Third Party Act?

The situation of the third party: Their life is not in peril If they act, they must choose who dies and who lives. Can the third party permissibly decide that one life is

more valuable than the other? Must they remain neutral?

For Monday

Read Descartes’ Meditation 6 (starred paragraph) and the first Kim selection (143-151)

Can a Third Party Act?

Thomson argues that a third party can act in such cases if there are objective reasons favoring taking one side:

“If Jones has found and fastened on a certain coat, which he needs to keep him from freezing, but with Smith also needs to keep him from freezing, then it is not impartiality that says “I cannot choose between them when Smith owns the coat.” (66)

Can a Third Party Act?

A third party can intervene to give Smith his coat back.

Similarly, since it is the mother’s body that the fetus is using to survive at risk to the mother’s life, Thomson argues a third party can intervene in such a case as well.

Where We Stand

If everything Thomson has said so far is correct, then there are cases in which abortion is permissible: If the mother was impregnated by rape If the mother’s life is at risk from the pregnancy.

These are the least controversial cases. Abortions for these reasons are relatively rare.

Where We Stand

Are abortions in other circumstances permissible on the assumption that the fetus is a person?

Right to Life

What does it mean to have a right to life?

Thomson’s Definition: If one has a right to life, then one has the right not to be killed unjustly.

This does not entail that you must be given what you need in order to survive.

Right to Life

Suppose you are dying of some mysterious illness: The doctor’s tell you that you will die unless Matthew

McConaughey lays his cool hand on your fevered brow. Is McConaughey obligated to fly out to the hospital?

Thomson thinks not! Do you agree? What if he is in the same building already? The same room?

Right to Life

Thomson seems to think that having a right to life just means others can’t kill you.

But one might think that it also entails that at least in some cases (where one’s potential losses are very slim) someone else is obligated to intervene to save your life.

Consensual Sex

In the case of rape, abortion seemed permissible because the mother did not consent in any way to having her body used by the fetus.

Can the same be said of cases of consensual sex?

Things get much more complicated…

Consensual Sex

If the pregnancy is accidental, the mother did not explicitly give permission or allow her body to be used by another person.

However, she did act in a way that she knew had the possible outcome of a person being dependent on her body to survive.

Consensual Sex

It could be that acting in a way that you know stands a chance of having a person depend on you to survive amounts to a kind of consent.

People Seeds

“Suppose it were like this: people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You don’t want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however…one of the screens is defective and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the person-plant that develops have a right to the use of your house?” (72)

People Seeds

Thomson argues that the person-plant does not have a right to your house.

Of course you could live without carpet or upholstery, but “by the same token anyone can avoid pregnancy due to rape by having a hysterectomy, or anyway by never leaving home without a (reliable!) army.” (72)

People Seeds

This case is definitely harder to have strong intuitions about. Thomson seems to indicate that she takes it to be a

radical imposition in such a world to live without upholstery.

Would people have upholstered furniture and carpet in a world where a person may result from such practices?

Would you?

People Seeds

A further problem with the case is that it builds in a sort of contraceptive into the case (the screens on the window).

It may be that in taking actions that deliberately try to prevent having a child dependent on you to survive, you limit your responsibility.

Concert Case #1

Concert Case #1 The violinist is sick just as before. However, anyone can be used to filter his blood. The Society of Music Lovers holds a benefit concert for him for 100

people They inform all the attendees that at the end of the concert they

will drug everyone, and will randomly select one person who will be hooked up to the violinist for nine months (all expenses paid).

You attend the concert knowing this, and wake up attached to the violinist.

Concert Case #1

Can you permissibly disconnect from the violinist?

If you think that you can’t then at least sometimes your knowledge that you are acting in a way that could result with someone dependent on your body to survive affects what you have a right to do with your body.

Concert Case #1

The chances in the concert case are significantly lower than the chance that a woman gets pregnant from engaging in unprotected sex.

Are there morally relevant differences between the concert case and the case of pregnancy resulting from consensual sex?

Concert Case #2

But in the concert case, you don’t take any active measures to prevent being attached to the violinist.

Maybe if we add in a “contraceptive” things would look different.

For Next Time

Please read the Descartes and the first Kim selection as well as the correspondence between Princess Elizabeth and Descartes. (145, 147-155)

Concert Case #2

Concert Case #2 Just like the original concert case. This time, you really want to avoid being plugged in. You go around distributing tickets, and convincing

people to go to the concert. You are very successful and the crowd is 10,000

strong. You wake up attached to the violinist.

Concert Case #2

You have taken active measures to lower the odds that you would be plugged in.

But you knew that there was still a small chance that you would end up with the violinist dependent on you.

Can you permissibly disconnect?

Concert Case #2

If not, then even in cases of consensual sex where a contraceptive is used, there is some pressure to think that an abortion is impermissible.

Are there morally relevant differences between the cases?

Limits to the Argument

Thomson acknowledges that her arguments don’t establish that any abortion is permissible:

“It would be indecent of the woman to request an abortion, and indecent for 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.” (79)

Limits to the Argument

Thomson views this as a good result rather than an objection to her view.

She thinks that it is highly unlikely that all abortions are morally on par.

Limits to the Argument

But because of this, for all she has said it could turn out that many abortions that are actually performed are immoral.

More work needs to be done.

Limits to the Argument

Finally, recall that the whole discussion assumed that the fetus was a person from the moment of conception.

Limits to the Argument

“It should be remembered that we have only been pretending throughout that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. A very early abortion is surely not the killing of a person, and so is not dealt with by anything I have said here.” (79)