The Famous Violinist

What is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s ‘famous violinist’ analogy supposed to show? Does it?

In 1971 Judith Jarvis Thomson created a thought experiment which threw a new perspective on the abortion debate. Up till that time the debate had centred on the rights of the foetus and was virtually at a stalemate with the two sides, pro-choice and pro-life, in a virtually equal position. With Thomson’s ‘famous violinist’ thought experiment it helped to shift the focus from the foetus and place attention onto the rights of the mother.

The purpose of this analogy is to demonstrate that abortion could be morally legitimate even if the foetus is given the status of personhood, with personhood meaning the foetus potentially has some sense of self, consciousness, communication abilities, reasoning and self motivating ability. This is a bold claim and the main justification for this position was the placing of the woman’s rights at the centre of the debate, which had been previously overlooked. The main thrust of this position was that the right to life is not superior to the woman’s right as what happens in and to her own body and that by consenting to sexual intercourse does not automatically bring the moral obligation of gestating the pregnancy to full term. This view of the famous violinist analogy is nicely summarised by Jennifer Saul on the audio recording Philosophers on Abortion when she states “even if you settle the status of the foetus and even if you presuppose that the foetus was a person, abortion might still be morally permissible.”

To help express this opinion Thomson created a thought experiment that is known as the famous violinist analogy. With this analogy, you wake up one morning to find yourself in a hospital bed. You were placed there last night when you had been kidnapped by the society of music lovers and you find that you are

connected to an unconscious violinist by a series of tubes. These tubes are connected to your circulatory system because the violinist has a kidney ailment and needs to use your kidneys for nine months as his recovers. Also, the ailment is fatal unless treated and the only way to treat the kidneys is by using yours, so if you were to unplug yourself from the violinist then he would die. To make the matter more pressing, the violinist is also very famous and would be a great loss if he was to die prematurely because of his kidney ailment and that only your kidneys are the exact match. At the end of the thought experiment Thomson asks “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?” (Thomson in Western Philosophy Anthology p591-592)

By using this analogy Thomson hopes to challenge the following argument. A foetus has been given the status of a person and a person has a right to life. However the mother has a right to decide what shall happen to her body, but a person’s right to life takes precedent over mother’s right to decide what happens to her body. Consequently the pregnancy may not be aborted and so abortion would be an immoral action. Thomson challenges this argument using a different perspective which then leads to a different conclusion, an exact opposite to the conclusion in the above argument, that abortion is morally acceptable.

To begin with Thomson raises the point of being kidnapped and used against your will and this brings into focus two issues. The first and most obvious issue is the connection between being kidnapped and used against your will and the case of a rape victim that becomes pregnant because of the attack. However Thomson also raises the point that from the perspective of the woman with the unwanted pregnancy then it can also be seen as the body of the woman is being kidnapped because it is an unwanted event. This is actually quite important as Thomson argues from the perspective of the unwilling woman as opposed to a woman who wanted to be pregnant and would not have any misgivings about the intimacy felt with the foetus growing inside her.

The next point is that the foetus’s right to life does not take precedent over the mother’s right to decide what happens to her body. Thomson starts by claiming that if the woman’s life was threatened then she would be morally right to abort the pregnancy as “a woman surely can defend her life against the threat to it posed by the unborn child, even if doing so involves it’s death” (Thomson in Western Philosophy Anthology p593). Both the woman and the foetus have a right to life but Thomson raises the point that the woman does have a right to self defence and this can even include the killing of another innocent person. It is the combination of this right to self defence and also the woman’s right to life which tips the balance in favour of the woman and also to abortion.

Thomson also raises the issue that the foetus does not have the right to use the woman’s body and this is, again, because of the woman’s right to decide what happens to her body and the foetus’s right to life not taking precedence. Thomson uses the famous violinist analogy by saying “for continued life that violinist needs the continued use of your kidneys does not establish that he has a right to be given the continued use of your kidneys.” (Thomson in Western Philosophy Anthology p593). By using the same reasoning the foetus does not have the right to seek shelter, use your blood, oxygen and food even if it is for its own survival without the permission of the woman.

After raising the above points Thomson now moves onto the conclusion. Thomson has argued that the foetus’s right to life does not take precedent over the woman’s right to life as the woman also has the right to self defence. Thomson has also raised the point that the foetus does not have the right to use the woman’s body and demand that you give it shelter which leads to the conclusion that the woman is not morally required to gestate the foetus until she gives birth. “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, even nine months in order to keep another person alive” (Thomson in Western Philosophy Anthology p595)

So the conclusion that Thomson guides us towards is in direct contrast to the conclusion mentioned in paragraph four, that abortion is an immoral action. However, when making an argument by analogy the success of the argument relies on the two situations matching each other quite closely and making the same judgements as those in the analogy. Unfortunately, with the violinist analogy, the argument is weakened by significantly disanalogous circumstances which in turn impact on the judgements made.

To begin with I need to state that there will always be differences between an analogy and reality, but if those differences are actually relevant is the real issue. As Alex Barber highlights “A common mistake is to treat all differences, even irrelevant ones, as enough to undermine an analogical argument.” (A. Barber, OU Course book 3, p158) But one important difference is the fact that the violinist is outside the woman’s body where as a pregnancy, obviously, is inside the body. Because of this there will be a lack of intimacy between the woman and the violinist.

This emphasis on the lack of physical intimacy raises further issues which then divide the analogy and reality further. Firstly, there is no physical intimacy, the woman would not feel the violinist growing inside her, where as the foetus would be felt. Also, the violinist would be a total stranger to the woman, where as the foetus would be the woman’s own child, part of her own family which also produce a deeper sense of intimacy. Again, Alex Barber summarises this situation nicely by stating “There is a level of intimacy here that seems to go well beyond her being a human dialysis machine.” (A. Barber, OU Book 3, p159). But highlighting this lack of intimacy can also be used to support the argument for abortion in certain cases as well opposing it. In the circumstances of a rape victim becoming pregnant because of the attack the woman would have the intimacy of pregnancy forced upon her and this intimacy could be a constant reminder of the attack. Again, Alex Barber points out “that it fails to capture the full awfulness of being denied the moral or legal option of aborting.”

Another division that the famous violinist analogy contains in relation to reality is one of consent. In the analogy you were kidnapped and so you did not consent to being placed in a hospital bed connected to the violinist. In the case of most pregnancies consent for sexual intercourse was given, so the analogy is closer to cases of rape and sexual abuse and is more distant to cases of accidental pregnancies. It could be argued that because of consenting to sexual intercourse it does not follow that you are consenting to the consequences and Jennifer Saul makes the same point on the audio recording Philosophers on Abortion. Saul points out that “if you engage in a behaviour that has some risk it doesn’t necessarily commit you to any particular action should that risk be realised.” (Philosophers on Abortion 9.41-9.48) But to counteract this position then it could be argued that contraception is so widely available that it is not unreasonable to argue that if you are engaging in an activity that has an element of risk then precautions can easily be taken.

So because of these two disanalogies Thomson’s argument for abortion has been weakened. Using the analogy to argue for abortion in the cases of rape and sexual abuse does hold quite strongly, as there will be a lack of intimacy and also there was no consent. Also, in the cases where there is a medical reason and the life of the mother is seriously threatened the argument holds as the woman has a right to self defence. However when it comes to the issue of a pregnancy caused by consensual sex and the health of the woman is not threatened, then the argument for abortion does falter. This is because the foetus has a stronger claim to the right for life as its conception was with consensual sex and awareness of the risks involved. Another issue that is raised by consent is that the woman is giving permission for the foetus to use her body instead of having her body hijacked as in the case of a rape victim and so this undermines Thomson’s claim that the foetus would be hijacking the woman’s body.

So in conclusion Thomson’s famous violinist analogy does give some clarity in the abortion debate but the disanalogies undermine Thomson’s conclusion and consequently this weakness leads to a weak conclusion. This is because of the lack of intimacy in an unwanted pregnancy and also the issues of consent do not transfer strongly. As mentioned above the analogy is strongest in the cases of rape, sexual abuse and if the woman’s life is threatened but if the case is a normal pregnancy with normal circumstances, where consensual sex led to conception then, in my opinion, the foetus’s right to life takes precedent and an abortion would be an immoral act.

Bibliography:

Barber, A. (2011) ‘The Morality of Abortion’ in ‘Ethics’ OU course book 3, A22 Exploring Philosophy, Open University, Milton Keynes

Saul, J. (2011) ‘Philosophers on Abortion’ in ‘Ethics’ OU Website A222 Exploring Philosophy, http://learn2.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=200697

Thomson. J.J (1971) ‘A Defense of Abortion’ in ‘Western Philosophy an Anthology’ Cottingham J.(2008)Blackwell Publishing, Oxford