Question

Explain JJ Thomson’s account of the right to life. What is the right to life? How does this account of the right to life undermine pro-life theories of the ethics of abortion, according to Thomson?

Answer 1

Judith Jarvis Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion” (1971)

Thomson assumes, just for the sake of argument, that a fetus is a person from conception.  She then tries to show that, even given that the fetus has a right to life, it does not follow that abortion is morally impermissible.

The anti-abortion argument:

(1) All fetuses are persons.

(2) Every person has a right to life.

(3) Therefore, every fetus has a right to life.

(4) Therefore, abortion is wrong.

For the sake of argument, Thomson assumes that (1) and (2) are true.  She then argues that (4) does not follow from (3).  From the fact that something has “a right to life,” it does not follow that it is wrong to kill it.  This much is easy to see since most of us agree that it is not wrong to kill in self-defense.

This suggests that (4) needs to be qualified “except to save the life of the mother”.

But Thomson argues that the gap between (3) and (4) is much wider than this.  Along these lines, one suggestion is that a mother has a right to decide what happens in and to her body, and that this might outweigh the fetuses right to life.  (Notice that this does not assume that the fetus is literally part of the mother’s body).

But the anti-abortionist can simply respond that the right to life is the strongest and most fundamental right there is, and so outweighs the mother’s right to decide what happens to her body.

But Thomson does not argue that the mother’s right over her own body outweighs the fetuses right to life.  Instead, she argues that the right to life has been misunderstood.  Once it is understood correctly, it will be seen that (4) does not follow from (3).

Thomson proposes a thought experiment:

"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 violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, 'Look, we're sorry 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, it’s only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.' Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. 'Tough luck. I agree. but now you've got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. 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.' I imagine you would regard this as outrageous."

Thomson concludes that (i) it is not true that the violinist has a right to your body, and so, by analogy (ii) it is not true that a fetus that is a product of rape has a right to your body, but (iii) there is no easy way for the anti-abortion argument to be amended to account for this.  Saying that those who are products of rape have no right to life or have less of one “has a rather unpleasant sound”

The solution, according to Thomson, is not that certain fetuses have less of a right to life or none at all; the solution is that having a right to life simply does not entail having the right to someone else’s body.  This means that the argument is invalid; the conclusion (4) does not follow from the premises.

So what does the right to life consist in?  One suggestion:

(a) the right to be given at least the bare minimum one needs for continued life

Objection:  Sometimes the bare minimum is something you have no right to. (Violinist example).

(b) the right not to be killed

Objection:  Sometimes you can be killed by being deprived of something you have no right to.  (Also, there is self-defense)

She concludes, “the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly.”  True, but not very informative.

Thomson’s Thesis:  In cases where the right to use the mother’s body has not been extended to the fetus, abortion does not violate the fetuses right to life.

In what cases does the fetus have the right to use the mother’s body?

Rape?  Clearly Not.

Sex using birth control?  No...

" ... 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. Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house? Surely not--despite the fact that you voluntarily opened your windows, you knowingly kept carpets and upholstered furniture, and you knew that screens were sometimes defective."

Implicit Argument:

1)  The fetus has the right to use my body only if it is reasonable to hold me responsible for my pregnancy.

2)  If I tried to prevent pregnancy through the use of contraception, then it is not reasonable to hold me responsible for my pregnancy.

3)  Therefore, if I tried to prevent pregnancy through the use of contraception, then the fetus does not have the right to use my body.

Ordinary consensual sex without contraception?

If the room is stuffy, and I, therefore, open a window to air it, and the burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say, 'Ah, now he can stay, she's given him the right to the use of her house, for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars burgle.

Objection:  A fetus is innocent, not a burglar trying to do you harm.  But, Thomson would say, this makes no difference:  I have the right to eject an innocent person from my home, if that person falls through my window.  At this point it may be objected:  getting pregnant due to voluntary, unprotected sex is not like having a person stumble into your home or fall through your window.  It is more like having someone over because you invited them into your home…

Thomson recognizes that not all moral obligations stem from rights.  For example, if a child finds a chocolate bar, then his sister has no right to it, but decency requires that he share it with her anyway.  Likewise, in some cases, it would be wrong to abort because it would be “indecent”.

When is it indecent?  Thomson doesn’t say, just gives an obvious example:  A woman wants to abort at seven months so that she can go to Europe.

But, argues Thomson, making decency a legal requirement in effect requires us to be “Good Samaritans”.  Thomson notes that “no one in any country in the world is legally required” to be a Good Samaritan, except in the case of pregnancy.  In fact, no one is even required to be a Minimally Decent Samaritan.

Thomson:  Abortion is permissible in many cases, but this does not mean we have the right to secure the death of the fetus.  "The desire for the child’s death is not one which anybody may gratify, should it turn out to be possible to detach the child alive."  In Thomson’s view, the death of the fetus is a necessary side-effect of abortion, but is not a legitimate goal of abortion.  Were it possible to remove a fetus without killing it, then it must not be killed.

*Pro-choice lobbies are concerned about laws and policies that may implicitly recognize the fetus as a person (e.g. criminalizing the harming of a fetus by an attacker, or extending federal funds to poor women for prenatal care on the grounds that the funding is for “low-income children”.)

What has this got to do with abortion?

In a typical case of unwanted pregnancy, the pregnant woman

(A) Engaged in an activity (sexual intercourse) that is known to cause pregnancy, and in fact is the usual way in which people get pregnant.

(B) The now pregnant woman knew this at the time.

(C)  Either (i) she was not using birth control, and she knew this, or (ii) She was using birth control, but she knew that birth control sometimes fails.

(D) The woman voluntarily chose to have sex.