Judith Jarvis Thompson Summary

To begin with, Thomson uses a thought experiment about a hypothetical famous violinist, to further her argument that abortion is morally permissible. In this thought experiment, you are kidnapped and unconsciously plugged to a famous violinist so that your kidney can remove toxins from the violinist’s kidney and ultimately save his life. Thomson argues that you are not required to stay plugged to the famous violinist even if unplugging yourself from the violinist would result in his death. Thomson argues that while everyone has the right to life, no one has the right to dictate what happens to another person 's body.

The goal of Judith Jarvis Thomson in her defense of abortion is to sway the ideas of those who are against abortion by challenging the arguments they give for thinking so. She begins by stating a premise. “For the sake of the argument” a human embryo is a person. This premise is one of the arguments most opponents of abortion use, but as she points out, isn’t much of an argument at all. These people spend a lot of their time dwelling on the fact that the fetus is a person and hardly any time explaining how the fetus being a person has anything to with abortion being impermissible. In the same breath, she states that those who agree with abortion spend a lot of their time

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.

During the pre-revolutionary period, more and more men worked outside the home in workshops, factories or offices. Many women stayed at home and performed domestic labor. The emerging values of nineteenth-century America, which involves the eighteenth-century, increasingly placed great emphasis upon a man's ability to earn enough wages or salary to make his wife's labor unnecessary, but this devaluation of women's labor left women searching for a new understanding of themselves. Judith Sargent Murray, who was among America's earliest writers of female equality, education, and economic independence, strongly advocated equal opportunities for women. She wrote many essays in order to empower young women in the new republic to stand up against

In Judith A. Thomson’s article, ‘A defense of abortion’ Thomson defends her view that in some cases abortion is morally permissible. She takes this stance even with the premise that fetuses upon the moment of conception are in fact regarded as persons. However one criticism of her argument would be that there is a biological relationship between mother and fetus however there is no biological relationship between you and the violinist. Having this biological relationship therefore entails special responsibility upon the mother however there is no responsibility in the case of the violinist. Thomson argues against those who are opposed to abortion with her violinist thought experiment.

In her opening statement she first starts of stating a fetus is consider to be a human being or a person from the moment of conception. They have the right to life just like any other person does. In lines 1-10 “Most opposition to abortion relies on the premise that the fetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception.”(“Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “A Defense of Abortion.” Judith Jarvis Thomson: A Defense of Abortion, Oct. 1991,spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm.”) Thomson is drawing a line between what we consider to be a person meaning a human being or an adult, to what makes us a human being or an adult. In her first example she talks about an acorn falling from an oak tree automatically being consider to be an oak tree or to be still labeled as an acorn. In lines 10 -14“Similar things might be said about the development of an acorn into an oak trees, and it does not follow that acorns are oak trees, or that we had better say they are.”(“Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “A Defense of Abortion.” Judith Jarvis Thomson: A Defense of

In cases where a mother’s life is in jeopardy, and caused by her pregnancy, Thomson argues that it would not be called murder for the mother to kill the fetus in order for the mother to save her own life (267). Thomson uses the analogous situation of the violinist in order to portray her argument. If it would not be wrong for you

With Thomson’s violinist analogy she shows that although disconnecting him would result in death, it would not be morally incorrect. This argument can be applied to a woman’s pregnancy, suggesting that if you accept the prior statement and can find no reasonable difference between the violinist and the fetus occupying the woman’s body, then you should accept that abortion can be acceptable. Thomson

In Thomson’s defence of abortion she argues that abortion is permissible when a mother’s life is not at risk. Working on her interpretation of the secular conservative argument, she first assumes that the premise of a foetus being a person is true, then moves onto the second premise, that a person has the right to life. Analysing what the right to life means, she first looks at the idea that the right to life is the right to have the bare minimum a person needs in order to survive. She quickly rebuts this by providing the Henry Fonda analogy and the violinist analogy. Both of these show that just because a person needs something to survive, like Henry Fonda’s cool hand or another person’s kidneys, a person doesn’t have the right to take it. With this in mind she modifies the argument so that the right to life is the right not to be killed. This she rebuffs with the violin analogy, noting that by pulling the plugs you would in effect be killing the violinist. While the violinist didn’t have the right to your kidneys, it could be argued that he does have the right for you not to intervene. However these are your kidneys, and you should not be forced to allow him continued use. Having ascertained that the right to life is not the right to the bare minimum needed to survive, nor the right not to be killed, she concludes that the right to life is the right not to be killed unjustly, or the

In the “Violinist Analogy,” Thomson argues that in cases of rape and other ways in which a woman might become pregnant without making the decision to have sex, it is not immoral to have an abortion. She makes this argument through the analogy that you are hooked up to a “famous unconscious violinist” and if you unplug yourself you are causing the death of that violinist. This point works very well in the argument that it seems as though abortion is allowable in cases of rape.

Now on a different note, Thomson's main argument is set out to undermine the anti-abortionist argument. The anti-abortionist argument states: Every person has a right to life, the fetus is a person and hence has a right to life. The mother has the right to control her own body, but the fetuses' right to life is stronger than her right to control her body. Therefore, abortion is wrong. How Thomson goes about this is through analogies, and her main argument is through her violinist argument. Thomson asks you imagine that you find yourself hooked up to a famous unconscious violinist. If he can't use your kidneys for nine months, he'll die.

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

In this argument it has been established then, that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception. Thompson now introduces her “violinist analogy.” This is a key term in her argument. In this analogy she asks the reader to imagine you wake one morning and find yourself in bed with an unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and you alone have the right blood type to save him. You have been kidnapped in the middle of the night, and the violinist’s circulatory system is now plugged into yours. The director of the Hospital is now telling you “Sorry, the Society of Music Lovers did this to you – we would never have permitted it if we had known.” To get unplugged from the violinist will kill him, but in nine months he will be totally recovered from his ailment and you can be safely unplugged from one another. Thompson then asks, “Is it a moral responsibility for the kidnapped person to agree to this situation?” This situation she has concocted is comparable to that of a woman being raped. Pro – lifers say every person has a right to life and that right to life is stronger than the mothers right to decide what happens in her body. Thompson then goes on to say that instead of being plugged to the violinist’s body for nine months – its changed to your whole life. According to the pro –life

In “A Defense of Abortion,” Thomson utilizes several examples and variations thereof to support her claim. Her example of the violinist portrays a scenario where you wake up and find the Society of Music Lovers has kidnapped you and connected you to a transfusion machine, which they connected also to a famous violinist’s circulatory system to keep him alive, all without your consent. Furthermore, Thompson states, the violinist suffers from “a fatal kidney ailment” (Thomson, 353), and “you alone have the right blood type” (Thomson, 353) to support him live and save his life. He only needs your assistance for nine months to filter the poisons from his kidneys and safe his life. After nine months, his recovery will be complete and you can resume your normal life. According to Thomson’s analogy, you have the choice to either remain connected to him for the whole nine months or disconnect yourself from the machine and let the violinist die (Thomson, 351).

She presents the situation that you wake up in the in the hospital and you don’t know how you arrived there. You have tubing in your sides that connect you to a famous unconscious famous violin player. This violin player is suffering from fatal kidney alignment. When you woke up a doctor tells you that the Society of Music Lovers kidnapped you because you and this violinist has the same blood type. They canvased the area and realized that you were the only person who could potentially save the violinist. The doctors tell you that they realize how wrong the situation is and if they would have known what they were planning, they would have tried to prevent it. They tell you that you have a choice, you can disconnect from him and he will die or you can stay connected for nine months, he will live and you can walk away. Thomson`s relates this scenario rape and