By Sarah-Marie Hoduski Chillicothe, Ohio
You wake up in a room you don’t know. As your vision clears you find yourself connected to an IV. You turn over and find that the IV routes into a slender, unconscious form beside you. A nurse approaches. Nodding toward the small figure, the nurse remarks, “they are a violin genius. Your blood is necessary.”
This scenario is a painting drawn from a highly influential pro-abortion argument given by Judith Jarvis Thomson. Thomson asserted that being pregnant is similar to this scenario.
Thomson viewed pregnant women as hostages of their unborn children. She asked if one is morally obligated to physically save others, even if one’s neglect means their certain death?
Essentially, this argument is fallacious because it makes a victim out of the strong. They are victimized by the dependence of the weak. The implication of Thomson’s argument is that one is more than victimized by the weakness of others: the dependence of the weak entitles one to choose whether or not to end the dependent person’s life.
Except in defense of the abortion wars when would anyone argue someone in a position of strength has been victimized by another’s dependence? Is an armed policeman a victim of his power over others? Does their weakness entitle him to take their lives?
Morally sound logic says the strong are not victimized by other’s dependence on them. Weakness, dependence is not a crime.
Furthermore, Thomson’s argument is deceptive. For her scenario to be an accurate parallel to abortion the nurse needs to tell you that in order to disconnect from the IV you must allow her to take a pair of scissors and stab the violinist to death.
Abortion is not merely a passive abjure. It is the pro-active, violent pursuit of the death of an entirely helpless creature.
Additionally, Thomson’s argument is deceptive in its use of an adult stranger. Her scenario does not accurately parallel the position of one’s own child’s dependence. We advocate that children, especially our own are entitled to our aid. There is a reason that society abhors child neglect, let alone the active, meditated pursuit of their death.
No one is a victim of a child’s helpless state. Children that we did not choose to have are no less entitled to their lives. Discovering one is the unknowing guardian of an orphan does not make one a victim of that child or entitle one to end that orphan’s life.
Do not treat the weak as kidnappers of their mothers. Do not treat weakness as a crime. Let the violinist live.