Reading Notes by Christopher Lay

Los Angeles Pierce College

Department of History, Philosophy, and Sociology

Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion"

Thomson	"A Defense of Abortion"
Thomson on Slippery Slopes	Thomason argues that humanity does not begin at the moment of conception. She likes that to calling an acorn an oak tree. (If we have time, we'll come back to this.)
Thomson on Arguing	We've seen this move before: Thomson, for the sake of the argument, allows that humanity begins with conception. Now, you'd think that the abortion debate would end there. If fetuses are humans, then aborting them (given our current technology) amounts to killing them, so abortion is wrong.
The Standard Argument	"Every person has a right to life. So the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body; everyone would grant that. But surely a person's right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mother's right to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus may not be killed; an abortion may not be performed."
The Violinist	Thomson argues that this attempt at weighing the rights of the mother against the rights of the fetus is problematic. 1) You awake to find yourself chained to a world famous violinist, and you and the violinist share a blood stream. 2) This is against your will. 3) Your blood alone is needed to save the violinist. 4) To immediately free yourself from the violinist would kill the violinist. 5) The violinist needs to share a bloodstream with you for nine months. 6) You are told: "All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him," until he can survive on his own.
Outrage	A moment ago the standard argument sounded fine, but when applied in this way, it seems outrageous–Thomson argues. This is a way to determine how strongly you feel about the standard argument.
Rape and Rights	Notice what happens if you argue that the analogy is not about the standard argument, but is instead about being raped. Since you were tied up to the violinist against your will, just as in the case of rape. And just as in the case of rape, where abortion is permissible, you can unplug yourself from the violinist. But this amounts to saying that the products of rape are not fully human, since they don't have the same, absolute right to life. This doesn't sound right, and this is why some argue that rape (and incest) cannot be used to permit abortions since fetuses, no matter how they were conceived, are humans, and thus deserve the right to life. For this reason, we don't want to make an exception to the standard argument even if the mother must be in bed for nine months. But this line of reasoning ends up endorsing the idea that even if a pregnancy threatens to shorten the life of the mother, she still cannot have an abortion, since the rights of the fetus cannot be infringed upon. This is where Thomson begins, at what she calls the "extreme view."
Killing vs. Letting Die	"Suppose a woman becomes pregnant, and now learns that she has a cardiac condition such that she will die if she carries the baby to term." The standard argument says that they have equal rights to life. What is to be done? Whose rights weigh more, so to speak? Does the mother have an extra right, to choose what happens in and to her body, which allows us to say she has more rights than the fetus?
Pro-Life Reply	We must distinguish between directly killing someone, as in the case of abortion, from letting someone die, as in the case where we do nothing and the mother with the cardiac condition dies upon the birth of the fetus. Four possibilities follow from the fact that an innocent person has a right to life: 1) "directly killing an innocent person [and fetuses are innocent persons] is always and absolutely impermissible, [so] an abortion may not be performed," 2) "directly killing an innocent person is murder, and murder is always and absolutely always impermissible, [so] an abortion may not be performed," 3) "one's duty to refrain from directly killing an innocent person is more stringent than one's duty to keep a person from dying, an abortion may not be performed," and 4) "if one's only options are directly killing an innocent person or letting a person die, one must prefer letting the person die, and thus an abortion may not be performed."
Thomson and the Right of Self-Defense	Thomson claims that "it cannot seriously be thought to be murder if the mother performs an abortion on herself to save her life. It cannot seriously be said that she must refrain, that she must sit passively by and wait for her death."
Violinist to the Rescue	"'It's all most distressing, and I deeply sympathize, but you see this is putting an additional strain on your kidneys, and you'll be dead within a month. But you have to stay where you are all the same. Because unplugging you would be directly killing an innocent violinist, and that's murder, and that's impermissible.'" Thomson claims that "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 the violinist to save your life."
Big Kid, Little House	Here's another version: "Suppose you find yourself trapped in a tiny house with a growing child. I mean a very tiny house, and a rapidly growing child–you are already up against the wall of the house and in a few minutes you'll be crushed to death. The child on the other hand won't be crushed to death; if nothing is done to stop him from growing he'll be hurt, but in the end he'll simply burst open the house and walk out a free man." You will die. While you may not be able to convince someone else to morally intervene, since it is an issue between two innocents, "it cannot be concluded," she argues "that you too can do nothing, that you cannot attack it to save your life. However innocent the child may be, you do not have to wait passively while it crushes you to death." Such is the heart of the claim of self-defense.
Self-Defense is not Absolute	But there are limits to self-defense. There are some circumstances, Thomson argues, that nullify your right to self-defense. If your self-defense necessitated your torturing someone else, then you are not permitted to morally defend yourself. Does abortion torture a fetus? Need it, metaphysically speaking?
Without the Mother's Life @ Stake	Suppose that the mother's life is not at stake, is there anything that the mother could claim that would be "weightier" than the fetus's right to life? So, we're asking what it means to have a right to life. It is supposed that having a "right to life includes having a right to be given at least the bare minimum one needs for continued life." A right to life then means a right to food, water, and shelter.
The Bare Minimum and Rights	"But suppose that what in fact is the bare minimum a man needs for continued life is something he has no right at all to be given?" Suppose someone has the capacity to give you that bare minimum that you lack, and that you would die without it, but you have no right to that bare minimum. In the case of the violinist, Thomson asserts, the fact that he needs to be a part of your bloodstream does not thereby signal his right to be a part of your bloodstream. Needs and rights are two different things, Thomson seems to say. Here's one of Thomson's major points: "nobody has any right to use your kidneys unless you give him such a right." The right to use the property of this university has been given to use, on conditions. And similarly, if I give the violinist the right to be a part of my bloodstream, then the violinist can protest if I attempt to unplug him from my bloodstream.
Not the Right to, but the Right from	Perhaps, instead, the right to life is merely the right to not be killed by anyone [on the condition that I am innocent]. Nope. In this case the violinist "certainly has no right against you that you shall allow him to continue to use your kidneys. If you do allow him to use them, it is a kindness on your part, not something you owe him."
A Problem for Rights Theorizing	For Thomson, "having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person's body–even if one needs it for life itself."
Rights and Justice	To deny someone what they have a right to, is to treat them unjustly. Thomson uses an example about a box of chocolates to show the relationship between rights and justice. "Suppose a boy and his small brother are jointly given a box of chocolates for Christmas. If the older boy takes the box and refuses to give his brother any of the chocolates, he is unjust to him, for the brother has been given a right to half of them." In the case of the violinist, if the right to life is the right not to be killed, if you kill the violinist, you go against his right not to have you kill him, "but you do not act unjustly to him in doing it." You are "not being unjust to him, for you gave him no right to use your kidneys."
Rights to Life and Justice	As such, Thomson restates the right to life: "the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly." This new definition allows us to account for the permissible the killing of the violinist: "if you do not kill [the violinist] unjustly, you do not violate his right to life, and so it is no wonder you do him no injustice."
Just and Unjust Demands for Life	So when does a fetus have a right not to be aborted? When it results from voluntary intercourse? Sure.
Protection and Risk	You might think that any time you engage in voluntary intercourse you give rights to any fetus. But what happens when you use protection? Suppose you voluntarily engage in intercourse, and use protection so as to not get pregnant, but that protection fails to prevent conception (no protection is risk free). The failure of that protection does not thereby endow the fetus with rights, Thomson argues. (This is what Thomson derives from all the talk about bars on windows and human-seeds floating in the air.)
My Diversion on Thomson on Risk	Thomson discusses risk with regards to abortion in the case of honest, diligent uses of protection. Consider this claim: if any risk calls for full responsibility, then how could we raise children in Southern California responsibly? There is an omnipresent risk of an earthquake here in California. If any risk entails full responsibility, then when a child dies in an earthquake, we'd have to prosecute the parents for negligence–even if they built what they thought was an earthquake proof house–because they knew the risk however small or large it was. Isn't that a natural conclusion to the argument about risk, that if you risk pregnancy in any way, you must be fully responsible for that becoming pregnant?
Analogy	If a woman who sterilizes herself still becomes pregnant and must keep it because she knew the risk, then the parent who walks their child on the sidewalk because they didn't want to expose them to the risks of driving a car (where the risk of harm is greater while driving in the street than walking on the sidewalk) is responsible when that child is killed by a car coming up on the sidewalk, because the parent knew the risk.
Avoiding Risks	Risks to death can be avoided: We can build hurricane, earthquake, typhoon, riot, fire, and brimstone proof homes, and we can keep a child in it until it becomes and adult. That would reduce the risks that a parent would be exposing a child to. If such a sheltered child died from a falling meteorite, we would not think that the parent had exposed their child to the risk, and we would not hold the parent responsible. Likewise, if I use five condoms, have a vasectomy, and my sex partner has had a tubal ligation, and is using spermicidal contraceptives in addition to using the pill ... we can't be thought of as having consented to a fetus that might result from our engaging in censual sex.
No Risks, No Kids, No Sex	There is only one way to not expose a child to risk at all: don't have one. If we think that any exposure to risk means full responsibility for possible results, then abstinence seems like the only option.
Moral Decency	There are so far some cases in which abortion is unjust, as in the case of unprotected, voluntary intercourse (amongst adults). But there is another relevant point about moral decency: "there may be cases in which it would be morally indecent to detach a person from your body at the cost of his life." 1) You awake to find yourself chained to a world famous violinist, and you and the violinist share a blood stream. 2) This is against your will. 3) Your blood alone is needed to save the violinist. 4) To immediately free yourself from the violinist would kill the violinist. 5) The violinist needs to share a bloodstream with you for nine minutes (not months). 6) You are told: "All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him," until he can survive on his own. Thomson argues that to kill the violinist in this case would be indecent. And the same goes for fetuses. If a fetus only demands from a mother an hour of her time and does not threaten her life, then it would be indecent for her to abort it.
Rights and Decency	Recall the box of chocolates: it was given to two, and they each had a right to it, which allows us to say that the older brother who withholds the box is acting unjustly. But now suppose that the box is only given to the older, but younger still seeks some. Thomson argues that even though the older brother ought to give the younger brother some of the chocolate (to avoid being mean), this does not thereby entitle the younger brother to some right to have the chocolate. For the violinist's example, "even though you ought to let the violinist use your kidneys for the one hour he needs, we should not conclude that he has a right to do so–we should say that if you refuse, you are, like the boy who owns all the chocolates and will give none away, self-centered and callous, indecent in fact, but not unjust."
Bold Claim	Thomson sums up: "Except in such cases as the unborn person has a right to demand it–and we were leaving open the possibility that there may be such cases–nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interests and concerns, of all other duties and commitments, for nine years, or even for nine months, in order to keep another person alive"
Damage Control	Getting an abortion "just to avoid the nuisance of postponing a trip abroad" would not be permissible under Thomson, as it would fail to uphold what she calls a "Minimally Decent Samaritanism."