Reading : Western Philosophy VIII.9 Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion"

It seems to be an accepted fact that killing someone is wrong. It is not so easy though, to explain why this should be the case. Suggestions might include:

1. his plans and intentions are being frustrated
2. he is being deprived of future happiness
3. it is an infringement on his rights

Abortion may be defined as the extraction of a foetus from the womb, in the knowledge that this action will result in its death: since the intention is to remove the foetus, the Doctrine of Double Effect can be invoked to argue that the death is unintended, albeit forseen.

In response to the arguments against killing, it could be argued that:

1. the foetus has no plans and intentions to be frustrated
2. hard to argue against the fact that you're depriving it of future happiness
3. the foetus is not an autonomous rational being and so has no rights

In any event, if we grant that the foetus does have rights, the mother also has rights (e.g. "right to choose"), and so these have to be balanced against one another.

Thomson's passage allows from the start that the foetus does have rights, but nevertheless argues that this fact cannot override all other considerations. Specifically, the fact that the foetus is parasitically dependent on the mother's body does not mean that the mother has a duty to put aside considerations of her own rights in order that the foetus be allowed to live.

Thomson provides the analogy of a person who wakes up in a hospital bed and is told that he has been attached to a famous violinist who will die unless he can share the use of the person's liver for nine months. In this case, Thomson argues that although unplugging the tubes will kill the violinist, it's within the rights of the victim to do so: the violinist may have a right to life, but this doesn't mean he has a right to use your liver without your permission.

The violinist case most closely parallels a woman who finds herself pregnant after being raped: the rights of the foetus to life do not equal a duty on the woman to do give up her right to decide what happens to her body.

If the case against abortion is based on the rights of the foetus to life, then the way the foetus is conceived makes no difference: it has the same right to life whether the conception followed rape or consensual sex.

Perhaps the foetus' right to life outweighs the right of the mother's choice. But the right to life doesn't equate to a right to everything that is necessary to preserve one's life.

Thomson also uses the "people seeds" analogy to describe the case where a woman indulges in consensual sex with precautions but still becomes pregnant. She says that in this case it is still arguable that the foetus has no more right to the use of the mother's body than in the case of rape.

In all of this, Thomson is arguing against the legal system becoming involved to legislate against abortion. She says that someone may be "self-centered, callous, indecent, but not unjust", but it is not the job of the legal system to require that people act virtuously.

In most cases, abortion is not carried out by the mother herself, but with the help of others. What state are they in? Thomson argues using the violinist analogy that it is perfectly just for them to help you, even though it results in the violinist's death. see http://www.l4l.org/library/thomviol.html

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