Thomson on Rape
Let’s imagine you wake up one morning and have been kidnapped by the Society of Music Lovers and they have attached you to a famous unconscious violinist, who has a fatal kidney sickness. Since you are the only one with a similar blood type, the Society of Music Lovers has plugged the violinist’s circulatory system into your own; your kidneys are cleaning the deadly poison from the famous violinist’s blood. It will take him nine months to recover from this illness, but you must remained plugged into him. However, if you desire, you may safely detach yourself from him, but he will die from his illness. Is it morally permissible to unplug yourself from the violinist?
Judith Thomson argues, it is morally permissible to unplug yourself from a violinist. You are permitted to do so because you did not consent to attach the violinist to your body and he has no right to use your body. The question becomes: how could a violinist (even a famous one) explain the permissibility of aborting a fetus, particularly in cases of rape? There is a
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He was unconscious when the Society for Music Lovers attached him to you, they are morally responsible, not the violinist. He did not willfully plug his circulatory system into yours--he is merely the victim of circumstance. As a result, the same seems to be true for the fetus conceived through rape. The fetus has not acted wrongly, as it is incapable of willfully participating in the violation of your rights and therefore cannot violate your rights, similar to the falling Mr. Taft (an IT). Neither the Fetus or Mr. Taft are capable of violating your rights, as both are not acting of their own volition. If it is impermissible to kill an IT, then it should be impermissible to kill the fetus. Under Otsuka’s view, aborting in the case of rape appears
Thomson provides the example of being hooked up for nine months to provide dialysis to an ailing violinist to expose how a fetus’s right to life does not supersede a mother’s right to make medical decisions about her body (48-49). I find that this thought experiment especially helpful in understanding how even though a fetus does have a right to life, because the continuation of their life hinges on the consent of their mother to use her body, it falls to the mother to choose whether or not to allow the fetus to develop to term.
Fundamentally, in either case, both the violinist and child die. All life is equally valuable, and such distinctions offer no tangible contradictions to trump Thomson’s example. Additionally, an actual pregnancy has vastly different effects on a woman’s physical and psychological condition than simply being attached to a well-known artist. This further justifies having an abortion, a position Thomson firmly stands by, especially during the case of nonconsensual sex. Moreover, a mother does not necessarily have more responsibility towards their offspring than an artificially connected violinist.
In this essay, I will hold that the strongest argument in defence of abortion was provided by Judith Jarvis Thompson. She argued that abortion is still morally permissible, regardless if one accepts the premise that the foetus is a person from the moment of conception. In what follows, I agree that abortion is permissible in the ‘extreme case’ whereby the woman’s life is threatened by the foetus. Furthermore, I agree that abortion is permissible to prevent future pain and suffering to the child. However, I do not agree that the ‘violinist’ analogy is reliable when attempting to defend abortion involving involuntary conception cases such as rape, whereby the foetus does not threaten the woman’s health. To achieve this, I will highlight the distinction
In this experiment, an innocent celebrity is dying of kidney failure and you are the only one with the correct blood type to save them. Therefore, you are kidnapped and your circulatory system is connected to theirs in order to save them. The question Thomson poses is whether you are morally obligated to remain connected to them or not. My intuition is that of course you’re not required to stay connected, regardless of the amount of time required of you. Thomson argues for the same position, with the obvious stipulation that the less that is required of you the more morally degraded you are for refusing to remain connected (184). This thought experiment is meant to prove that abortion in the case of rape is morally permissible. However, this begs the question on whether abortion in the case of conception resulting from consensual intercourse continues to be morally permissible based on the concept that the right to bodily autonomy trumps the right to
Judith Jarvis Thomson, a 20th century philosopher, offers her argument defending abortion in her paper, “A Defense of Abortion”. She states initially that the fetus has a right to life, although contrary to her argument, she uses it as a premise to develop her thoughts. In short, Thomson says that the fetus’s right to life does not outweigh the woman’s right to control her body. She forces readers to participate in a thought experiment as she gives an odd example about a violinist suffering from kidney failure. The violist is facing death and in order to prevent it, he needs your help. Because you are the only one with his blood type, you are the only hope for him. You have been kidnapped by the Society of Music lovers and, without your consent, hooked up to him and you are filtering his blood and keeping him alive. In order to save his life, you must remain connected to him and support him for nine whole months. Thomson then asks if it is morally wrong to disagree to remain connected to the violinist. It is quite noble to agree to save the man’s life but should his right to life automatically force you to sacrifice nine months of yours?
No doubt the mother has a right to decide what happens in and to her body. But surely a person’s right to life is stronger than the mother’s right to decide what shall happen to her body, and so outweighs it. So the foetus may not be killed and an abortion may not be performed (Thomson, 1971) In response to this argument, Thomson uses her Violinist analogy. You have been kidnapped by the Society of Music Lovers, and upon waking have found that your circulatory system has been plugged into a famous violinist who is suffering from kidney failure.
The right to life of the fetus is not the same as the pregnant person having to die, so as not to infringe on the right of the fetus. In the case of the violinist, their necessity for your body for life is not the same as their right to the use of your body. Thomson argues that having the right to life is not equal to having the right to use the body of another person. They argue that this is also the case, even if the the pregnant person knowingly participated in the intercourse and knew of the possibility of pregnancy. In this case it would seem that abortion would not be permissible since the pregnancy was not by force.
From a very young age children have been taught by their parents that girls do one thing while guys do another. The reason for this is because our parents have been taught by their parents who were taught by their parents and so on and so fourth. When talking to most people about gender roles, they will start to see a pattern in the way they responses they receive, which will leave them with a good idea about how our society has formed the ideas and roles of sexes. Rape culture in modern day society is real and the biggest factors that contribute to it are we have been taught that boys need to grow up tough, girls need to be careful of some men, and that women need to be able to take care of a man and his needs. This way is poisonous to the
At the 2016 Academy Awards, Lady Gaga took the stage for her performance of “Til It Happens to You” from The Hunting Ground – a documentary highlighting the nature of rape and sexual assault on college campuses in the United States. This powerful performance featured dozens of sexual assault survivors joined hand-in-hand, and was introduced by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who brought light to his previously launched campaign against sexual assault called It’s On Us. The aforementioned celebrity engagements are only a piece of the larger conversation about rape and sexual assault on college campuses that has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. Whereas this discussion has brought significant attention to the issue of these crimes
What is rape culture? Rape culture is something created by society that sexualizes rude and violent behavior as sexy or sexual, inforced mostly be men. Rape is a big problem all around the world, and in some countries, it is accepted by law. It has been stated that 105,000 rapes happen every year in the United States. Most rape happens to female between the ages of 14 and 30. Rape culture is not something that can be ignored, it is a very serious issue that must be addressed. Women are not the only people getting raped however, ⅙ of all men are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. But due to masculinity and the patriarchy, men are afraid to come out and say they were raped. Only 6% of men have committed 5-6 rapes each (Rape Culture).
In the Judith Jarvis Thomson’s paper, “A Defense of Abortion”, the author argues that even though the fetus has a right to life, there are morally permissible reasons to have an abortion. Of course there are impermissible reasons to have an abortion, but she points out her reasoning why an abortion would be morally permissible. She believes that a woman should have control of her body and what is inside of her body. A person and a fetus’ right to life have a strong role in whether an abortion would be okay. Thomson continuously uses the story of a violinist to get the reader to understand her point of view.
In the article 'A Defense of Abortion' Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous 'violinist' argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one person's right to life outweighs another person's right to autonomy. Then appropriate responses to these objections. Concluding the paper I will argue that Thomson's 'violinist' argument supporting the idea of a mother's right to autonomy outweighing a fetus' right to life does not make abortion permissible.
Another basic argument she claims is that the mother also has a right to decide what happens in and to her body but the fetus 's right to live outweighs the mother’s right to decide what happens in and to her body. Therefore, Thomson opposes abortion and claims that a fetus may not be killed unjustly and an abortion may not be performed. Whether the unborn person uses of its mother’s body, because the un-born person has a right to live and use its mother’s body, abortion is unjust killing per Thomson.
Abortion may appear ethical or unethical depending on various viewpoints and circumstances. The fetus is considered a person and bringing it to term may be unethical as the act is considered as murder. In some situations, the mother may require to terminate a pregnancy for her bodily autonomy (Johnston, 2003). In such positions, the resolution to terminate a pregnancy may be argued as the most ethical choice. The mother is also considered to having a reasonable level of ethical responsibility to the fetus, because she did not take enough precaution to ensure avoiding conception (Cline, 2014). The mother’s ethical responsibility to the fetus may not be enough to deprive her choice of abortion; it...
Those boys aren’t the only ones who rape girls at college. There are many factors as to why boys in fraternities rape girls. One reason is the use of alcohol is used as a weapon against women to take advantage of them. Also, the fraternities’ members are told to stick together regardless of right or wrong, which is a cause of why gang rape happens. The boys in fraternities commonly have an obsession with competing against other fraternities and among each other. For example, having sex with women rather is being rape or not is a rivalry to see who can have sex with the most or hottest girls on campus. After they rape a girl, they show off to their friends and brag about the situation. Also, there is no external monitoring of the parties to