Is Judith Thomson’s abortion analogy valid?

Reply to Captain Homicide Yes, it's just a variation on the bodily autonomy argument. It seems a bit of a strange and abstracted formulation to me but I am only looking at the paragraph.

I am in agreement that women should have control over what happens to their bodies and that a foetus should not trump a woman's rights in this respect. We don't allow (without consent) people's bodies to be used for all sorts of things which might save another life (organ or bone marrow donation, etc).

Quoting Captain Homicide

If we disregard abortion and interpret the absurd scenario literally would Henry Fonda (or any other person) be morally obligated to touch someone if touching them was the only way to save their life?

Henry Fonda, the reluctant Jesus... Most of us could probably go out and save a life now but don't.


What is the nature of the obligation in moral obligation? How does that implicit ought work?

Henry Fonda is not responsible for the pregnancy, while the mother is, which is why the analogy doesn't hold water.

Reply to Captain Homicide Her image of "the touch of Henry Fonda’s cool hand on my fevered brow" is novel, but also quite odd. There are more straight-forward, more effective ways of expressing the ideas here.

Reply to Tzeentch Exactly.

Well let us suppose instead, that whenever a woman conceives, the man responsible must attach himself to the woman via some umbilical type chord for the next 9 months in order to prevent a spontaneous abortion. Everyone stepping up to that plate ? And of course, if you refuse, it's murder.

Quoting Captain Homicide

My question is is this a valid analogy for the moral permissibility of abortion?

Not really. OTOH, the same society that requires that a woman carry a foetus to term - even if it was got by rape, coercion or deceit, even if it's defective - can and does deny that same woman and infant the necessities of a reasonable life. So the obligation is not on Henry Fonda - from whom it would be futile to demand it in any case - but the state government, to save both lives if possible, but if not, at least the mother's.

Oddly enough, France, where abortion is an elective procedure up to 14 weeks of gestation, also has a strong social support structure for single mothers. It seems regimes that do least for their citizens also impose the strictest limitations.

Quoting Vera Mont

It seems regimes that do least for their citizens also impose the strictest limitations.

:up:

Is Judith Thomson’s abortion analogy valid?

No, it isn't. It is a false analogy. In a false analogy, the two ideas share one common aspect, nothing else.

Hard to analogize completely unique things like a fetus (lump of flesh that can become a person), or a pregnancy (now put the lump of flesh that becomes this person inside the body of another person to grow the lump of flesh). These things are difficult to understand and utterly unique. Even before clearly defining these things, it seems to me there is nothing else in experience like these things to ground a good analogy. Pregnancy itself as it relates to the personhood of the pregnant woman and the personhood of the fetus, and the act of being pregnant for months, and the act of growing inside another body until one might become a person, and the act of giving birth, and a newborn "baby" that is not a finished product and needs as much care as ever, or the act of killing this fetus before birth to terminate the pregnancy - utterly unique situations and things.

There is just too much lack of clarity with these terms, like "obligations" and "rights" as applied to "a fetus growing towards personhood in a pregnant woman", to then build an analogy and expect that it will lend clarity to the terms that could not be plainly put in the first place.

Henry Fonda imparting his healing powers by walking uphill in the snow for nine months and then chopping off his hand. Or maybe the sick person, after having their face touched and healed, has to move in with Henry and scream at him when they are hungry or need new pants fort the next 18 years.

The pregnant woman knows that if she gives birth, if she touches the face, there will be a new thing screaming with more needs. Nothing is finished at birth, unlike after Henry touches the face. That has to be part of the question regarding obligation. We need the fact that a baby, after birth, still must oblige others for it to survive to contextualize a question about what rights that same creature might have before birth. This creates the tension that makes us question killing a fetus in the first place. This analogy does not have that context at all.

I've never seen a good analogy involving pregnancy that doesn't create more distractions than it does elucidations of anything.

Reply to Fire Ologist

Yes and no. You're correct that the Fonda example does nothing to capture the details and nuances of pregnancy. However, the abortion "argument" revolves around the concept of competing interests. In that sense (alone) it does, in an admittedly awkward and clumsy manner, capture that concept.

From the same paper:

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. [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.

A bit more pungent.

Quoting Captain Homicide

My question is is this a valid analogy for the moral permissibility of abortion?

I'm not sure it's specifically meant as an analogy, but as a reductio ad absurdum against the premise that one person is obligated to save the life of another.

Of course, @Tzeentch raises the point that (at least when sex is consensual), the mother bares some responsibility for the situation in which abortion is considered, and so perhaps a better example would be to ask if Henry Fonda would be obligated to touch her brow if her illness was caused by Henry Fonda himself (even if unintentionally). But then we have to ask; what if he must do more than just touch her brow? What if he must donate a kidney to save her life? Is that too much? Does his obligation to help her only extend so far?

Although as for abortion, the very premise that the foetus has a right to life can also be questioned, and so even if Henry Fonda is obligated to touch her brow to save her life, it wouldn't then follow that abortion is morally impermissible, especially as bearing a child for 9 months and giving birth to it is a much greater burden than just touching someone's brow.

Quoting Tom Storm

It seems a bit of a strange and abstracted formulation to me but I am only looking at the paragraph.

With my post above in mind, consider a slightly more realistic scenario: I knowingly have COVID, but nonetheless attend a party. Someone else catches COVID from me. I fully recover but they are soon to die. They can be saved with a partial lung transplant but none will be available in time. Am I morally obligated to donate a part of my lung to save their life?

Quoting jgill

A bit more pungent.

Maybe so, but it still has a lot of holes. The fetus isn't famous or valued by anyone in the world - except perhaps as a poster child or slogan. Most of the people campaigning to ban abortion are unwilling to adopt and raise the unwanted babies they intend to "save". Nor will the dependent become a self-sufficient high earner after nine month: it will continue to be a burden of somebody for a considerable period.

Quoting Michael

(at least when sex is consensual), the mother bares some responsibility for the situation in which abortion is considered,

Certainly she does - only if the sex is consensual - but to whom? Who is to be healed by another's sacrifice? At the point when abortion is considered, there is no illness: it's a quite normal, healthy pregnancy. (If it's not, the whole question alters)
So - zoom out. The woman is not alone responsible for her condition. She had sex with a consenting male partner, who gets off with nothing worse than a notch on his bedpost. They both live in a society that provides a certain environment and culture and education and social service. How many ways should this responsibility be divided?

Quoting Michael

Although as for abortion, the very premise that the foetus has a right to life can also be questioned

Nobody has a right to life: we are all mortal. Nobody can be guaranteed any particular length of life; anyone can die for any reason at any time between age 0 and 125 (atm).
A society that considers it morally acceptable to kill its foreign enemies, along with any of their family that happens to be in the vicinity, and its own criminal elements, that considers it morally acceptable to let people and other species suffer for its own comfort and convenience, surely can't cavil at terminating its proto-human parasites.
OTOH, if the society truly looks upon the unborn as its children, it should be exerting all necessary effort to prevent unwanted pregnancies, protect girls and women from being impregnated against their will, supporting those who do become pregnant and taking care of the resultant infants, whether the mother is able and willing to or not.

Quoting Michael

I knowingly have COVID, but nonetheless attend a party. Someone else catches COVID from me. I fully recover but they are soon to die. They can be saved with a partial lung transplant but none will be available in time. Am I morally obligated to donate a part of my lung to save their life?

Yes. But nobody's all het up to write that into law and punish you for any attempt to evade your responsibility. Political zealots are far more interested in moral issues that involve sex, especially the regulation of female fertility.