A Defense of Abortion is a moral

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

 philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 paper by Judith Jarvis Thomson

Judith Jarvis Thomson

Judith Jarvis Thomson is an American moral philosopher and metaphysician, best known for her use of thought experiments to make philosophical points.- Career :...

 first published in 1971. Granting for the sake of argument that the fetus

Fetus

A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...

 has a right to life

Right to life

Right to life is a phrase that describes the belief that a human being has an essential right to live, particularly that a human being has the right not to be killed by another human being...

, Thomson uses thought experiment

Thought experiment

A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...

s to argue for the moral permissibility of induced abortion

Abortion

Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

. Her argument has many critics on both sides of the abortion debate, yet continues to receive defense. Thomson's imaginative examples and controversial conclusions have made A Defense of Abortion perhaps "the most widely reprinted essay in all of contemporary philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

".

The Violinist

In A Defense of Abortion, Thomson grants for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life

Right to life

Right to life is a phrase that describes the belief that a human being has an essential right to live, particularly that a human being has the right not to be killed by another human being...

, but defends the permissibility of abortion by appeal to a thought experiment

Thought experiment

A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...

:

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist. 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

Blood type

A blood type is a classification of blood based on the presence or absence of inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells . These antigens may be proteins, carbohydrates, glycoproteins, or glycolipids, depending on the blood group system...

 to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system

Circulatory system

The circulatory system is an organ system that passes nutrients , gases, hormones, blood cells, etc...

 was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.

Thomson takes it that you may now permissibly unplug yourself from the violinist even though this will cause his death: the right to life, Thomson says, does not entail the right to use another person's body, and so by unplugging the violinist you do not violate his right to life but merely deprive him of something—the use of your body—to which he has no right. "[I]f you do allow him to go on using your kidneys, this is a kindness

Kindness

Kindness is the act or the state of being kind, being marked by good and charitable behaviour, pleasant disposition, and concern for others. It is known as a virtue, and recognized as a value in many cultures and religions ....

 on your part, and not something he can claim from you as his due."

For the same reason, Thomson says, abortion does not violate the fetus's right to life but merely deprives the fetus of something—the use of the pregnant woman's body—to which it has no right. Thus, it is not that by terminating her pregnancy a woman violates her moral obligations, but rather that a woman who carries the fetus to term is a 'Good Samaritan' who goes beyond her obligations.

Third-party Participation - the “Expanding Child”

Thomson criticizes the common method of deducing a woman’s right to abort from the permissibility of a third party committing the abortion. In almost all instances, a woman’s right to abortion may hinge on the doctor’s willingness to perform it. If the doctor refuses, then the woman is denied her right. To base the woman’s right on the accordance or refusal of a doctor, she says, is to ignore the mother’s full personhood, and subsequently, her rights to her body. Thomson presents the hypothetical example of the ‘expanding child’:

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.

Thomson concedes that a third party indeed cannot make the choice to kill either the person being crushed or the child. However, this does not mean that the person being crushed cannot act in self defense and attack the child to save his or her own life. To liken this to pregnancy, the mother can be thought to be the house, the fetus the growing-child. In such a case, the mother’s life is being threatened, and the fetus is the one who threatens it. Because for no reason should the mother’s life be threatened, and also for no reason is the fetus threatening it, both are innocent, and thus no third party can intervene. But, Thomson says, the person threatened can intervene, by which justification a mother can rightfully abort.

Continuing, Thomson returns to the ‘expanding child’ example and points out:

For what we have to keep in mind is that the mother and the unborn child are not like two tenants in a small house, which has, by unfortunate mistake, been rented to both: the mother owns the house. The fact that she does adds to the offensiveness of deducing that the mother can do nothing from the supposition that third parties can do nothing. But it does more than this: it casts a bright light on the supposition that third parties can do nothing.

If we say that no one may help the mother obtain an abortion, we fail to acknowledge the mother’s right over her body (or property). Thomson says that we are not personally obligated to help the mother but this does not rule out the possibility that someone else may act. As Thomson reminds, the house belongs to the mother; similarly, the body which holds a fetus also belongs to the mother.

Pregnancy Resulting from Voluntary Intercourse – “People-Seeds”

To illustrate an example of pregnancy due to voluntary intercourse, Thomson presents the ‘people-seeds’ situation:

Again, 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, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective; and a seed drifts in and takes root.

Here, the people-seeds flying through the window represent conception, despite the mesh screen, which functions as contraception. The woman does not want a people-seed to root itself in her house, and so she even takes the measure to protect herself with the best mesh screens. However, in the event that one finds its way in, unwelcome as it may be, does the simple fact that the woman knowingly risked such an occurrence when opening her window deny her the ability to rid her house of the intruder? Thomson notes that some may argue the affirmative to this question, claiming that “…after all you could have lived out your life with bare floors and furniture, or with sealed windows and doors”. But by this logic, she says, any woman could avoid pregnancy due to rape by simply having a hysterectomy – an extreme procedure simply to safeguard against such a possibility. Thomson concludes that although there may be times when the fetus does have a right to the mother's body, certainly in most cases the fetus does not have a right to the mother's body. This analogy raises the issue of whether all abortions are unjust killing.

Criticism

Critics of Thomson's argument (see the table below) generally grant the permissibility of unplugging the violinist, but seek to block the inference

Inference

Inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true. The conclusion drawn is also called an idiomatic. The laws of valid inference are studied in the field of logic.Human inference Inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions...

 that abortion is permissible by arguing that there are morally relevant differences between the violinist scenario and typical cases of abortion. One notable exception being that of Peter Singer

Peter Singer

Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...

 who claims that, despite our intuitions, a utilitarian calculus would imply that one is morally obliged to stay connected to the violinist.

The most common objection is that Thomson's argument can justify abortion only in cases of rape

Rape

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

. In the violinist scenario, you were kidnapped: you did nothing to cause the violinist to be plugged in, just as a woman who is pregnant due to rape did nothing to cause her pregnancy. But in typical cases of abortion, the pregnant woman had intercourse voluntarily, and thus has either tacitly consented to allow the fetus to use her body (the tacit consent objection), or else has a duty to sustain the fetus because the woman herself caused the fetus to stand in need of her body (the responsibility objection). Other common objections turn on the claim that the fetus is the pregnant woman's child

Child

Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...

 whereas the violinist is a stranger (the stranger versus offspring objection), or that abortion kill

KILL

KILL is the sixth album by Detroit rock band Electric Six.In initial press releases, the band described the album as being a return to a sound more akin to their debut album, but this was later revealed by front-man Dick Valentine to be more gimmick than truth.An explicit video was released for...

s the fetus whereas unplugging the violinist merely lets him die (the killing versus letting die objection).

Defenders of Thomson's argument reply that the alleged disanalogies between the violinist scenario and typical cases of abortion do not hold, either because the factors that critics appeal to are not genuinely morally relevant, or because those factors are morally relevant but do not apply to abortion in the way that critics have claimed. A summary of common objections and responses is given below.

Less common objections to Thomson's argument include:

• the natural-artificial objection: pregnancy is a natural process that is biologically normal to the human species. The joined condition of the violinist and donor, in contrast, represents an extreme and unusual form of "life support
  Life support
  Life support, in medicine is a broad term that applies to any therapy used to sustain a patient's life while they are critically ill or injured. There are many therapies and techniques that may be used by clinicians to achieve the goal of sustaining life...
  
  " that can only proceed in the presence of surgical intervention. This difference is morally relevant and therefore the two situations should not be used to model each other;
• the conjoined twins
  Conjoined twins
  Conjoined twins are identical twins whose bodies are joined in utero. A rare phenomenon, the occurrence is estimated to range from 1 in 50,000 births to 1 in 100,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence in Southwest Asia and Africa. Approximately half are stillborn, and a smaller fraction of...
  
  objection: the relationship between conjoined twins represents a more complete analogy to pregnancy than the relationship between the violinist and the kidney donor. Because the fatal separation of conjoined twins is immoral, so is abortion;
• the different burdens objection: supporting the violinist is a much greater burden than normal pregnancy, and so unplugging the violinist is morally permissible whereas aborting the fetus is not;
• the artificiality objection: our intuition
  Intuition (knowledge)
  Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. "The word 'intuition' comes from the Latin word 'intueri', which is often roughly translated as meaning 'to look inside'’ or 'to contemplate'." Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify...
  
  s on bizarre thought experiments of the sort used by Thomson are unreliable and provide no warrant for the conclusions they are intended to support; and
• the duty to sustain the violinist objection: despite the common intuition, one does have an obligation to support the violinist, and likewise the fetus.

Defenders of Thomson's argument have responses to these less common objections as well. For example, the analogy between typical pregnancy and conjoined twins has been challenged on the basis that the pregnant woman, having existed for many years before the fetus came into existence, has a prior claim to the use of her own body, whereas conjoined twins come into existence at the same time and thus do not have a prior claim to the use of their shared body parts. Of course, critics have replies to these responses, and so the debate goes back and forth.

Table of criticisms and responses

Objection	Summary	Responses
Tacit consent objection	The pregnant woman voluntarily engaged in sexual intercourse foreseeing that a fetus may result, and so has tacitly consented to the fetus using her body; no such consent occurs with the violinist (or pregnancy due to rape).	Tacit consent cannot be inferred where contraception was used. Engaging in a voluntary action while foreseeing a certain result does not entail that one has tacitly consented to that result. Even if the woman has tacitly consented to the fetus making demands on her body, it does not follow that she has consented to sustain it for the entire nine months of pregnancy. In the US there is the legal concept of an inalienable right. A person can not legally surrender one of these rights. For example, Surrogacy contracts that prohibit the surrogate mother from aborting are illegal. No court would enforce that clause of the contract and you would have no legal remedy if she then chose to do so because she is not permitted by law to surrender her bodily autonomy to anyone. Just as she cannot surrender her autonomy to you, she cannot surrender it to the fetus due to inalienability.
Responsibility objection	The pregnant woman voluntarily engaged in sexual intercourse with the result that the fetus stands in need of the use of her body. The woman is thus responsible for the fetus's need to use her body and so the fetus has a right to use her body. No such responsibility occurs with the violinist (or pregnancy due to rape).	The woman is responsible for the fetus existing, but as she could not have caused the fetus to exist without being dependent on her, she is in a relevant sense not responsible for the fetus's need to use her body. Thomson raises this objection herself and concludes it is not convincing. First, she offers an argument that lends support to the view that abortion is justified at least in the case of rape. Second, she points out that one cannot drive a wedge between rape and other cases simply by appealing to the fact that in other cases the woman is responsible for there being a fetus that needs assistance, since the woman is also to some extent responsible in cases of rape (e.g., she could get a hysterectomy or "never leav[e] home without a (reliable!) army"). Therefore she concludes that abortion is morally permissible in at least some cases where intercourse is voluntary. If a thug stole both kidneys from a man and sold them the thug would have caused the man to be in need of a kidney. He would be responsible for that need in a very simple and clear cut manner. There is no need to imply or infer his intentions. If we caught the perpetrator and convicted him we would imprison him but we would not take a kidney from him against his will to sustain the victim's life. Even violent criminals retain their inalienable rights and bodily autonomy is one of these rights.
Stranger versus offspring objection	Parents have special obligations towards their offspring (as shown, for example, by laws requiring child support payments and by the fact that child abandonment is morally wrong). The fetus is the pregnant woman's offspring, and so she has a special obligation to sustain it; the violinist is a stranger and so you have no such obligation.	Special obligations do not arise from mere biological relatedness; they can only be assumed, either explicitly or implicitly. For example, by taking the baby home from the hospital one implicitly agrees to care for it. Even special parental obligations do not require parents to undergo organ donation or other direct use of their body (such as pregnancy) for the sake of their offspring. From the fact that it is morally permissible for a society to enact child support laws, it does not follow that there is any obligation (to the child) to pay child support independently of such laws. The wrongness of child abandonment may suggest we have some positive duties towards others; but it would not follow that those duties are strong enough to require sustaining the fetus. In order to argue that one obligation can be inferred from another obligation the inferred obligation must be equal or lesser to the accepted obligation. Thus you could infer a financial obligation from a bodily obligation because a financial obligation is trivial in comparison to the violation of bodily autonomy but you can't go the other way as that would be trading up.
Killing versus letting die objection	There is a morally relevant difference between killing and letting die. Abortion typically kills the fetus and thus is impermissible, but unplugging the violinist merely lets him die and so is permissible.	The objection would not apply to 'merely extractive' methods of abortion (such as hysterotomy) where the fetus is extracted intact and then allowed to die rather than killed. Those who oppose abortion do not hold that merely extractive abortions are less objectionable than other methods of abortion; so they cannot consistently raise the killing versus letting die objection. Killing is not in and of itself worse than letting die, or is not sufficiently worse to undermine the violinist analogy. Even if killing is substantially worse than letting die, it is justified in the case of abortion because letting die would require a merely extractive abortion, which under current technology involves substantial risk to the pregnant woman. The objection does not invalidate the violinist argument because the violinist argument is not "letting die". Pulling the plug on someone is killing them because you are an active participant, not a passive observer to the actions of someone else. The killing in both cases, however, is justifiable as defense of your own bodily autonomy. Even if we accept that killing the fetus is wrong we are still left with the stand-off between the fetus' right not to be killed and the mothers right to her body. The mother should come first in the same way the person hooked up to the violinist can leave.
Intending versus foreseeing objection	There is a morally relevant difference between intending harm and causing harm as a foreseen but unintended side effect. In most cases, abortion intentionally causes the fetus's death and so is impermissible; whereas unplugging the violinist causes death as an unintended side effect and so is permissible.	Intentionally causing death is not in itself worse than causing death as an unintended side effect, or is not sufficiently worse to undermine the violinist analogy. If the intending versus foreseeing distinction is morally relevant, this is presumably because intending harm usually involves a failure of respect towards the victim that foreseeing harm usually does not. But intentionally causing the fetus's death through abortion (in order to avoid the dangers to the woman of a merely extractive abortion) seems no worse from the point of view of respect than causing the fetus's death as an unintended side effect; so the distinction does not undermine the analogy between the violinist scenario and abortion. There is no reason to believe that the underlying motives are different in the two cases ... the desires to protect ones bodily integrity and escape the foreign invader. There is no evidence on record to indicate that women would object to a safe extraction method that did not kill the fetus were one to become available and thus no justification for the assumption of maternal malice that is the foundation of the objection. Assume that the kidnap victim in the violinist argument is the second best violinist in the world and wishes the violinist were dead so that she could ascend to the top of her profession. Her primary intent in unplugging the violinist is now to kill him. If this objection held water the change of heart would deprive her of the right to separate herself from the violinist. But it does not. Her right to pull the plug derives from her ownership of her own body, not from the purity of her intentions.

External links

• A Defense of Abortion, full text
• Francis Beckwith's Published Articles, contains PDFs
  Portable Document Format
  Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
  
  of a number of his critiques
• Whose Body Is It Anyway?, an interactive treatment of Thomson's arguments