Just as a
brick isn’t a house, so too the single-cell human embryo isn’t a human being,
so just as it’s no big deal to get rid of a brick, it’s no big deal to destroy
the human embryo; so said Canada’s leading abortionist Dr. Henry Morgentaler.
The flaw in this pro-choice argument is that the brick does not grow into a
whole house whereas the single-cell embryo grows into a fully functional human
being. If there was a brick that had the potential to grow into a whole house,
then no sane human will destroy that brick! This was the response by Dr. Hendrik
van der Breggen in his book Untangling
Popular Pro-Choice Arguments. 1
The moral of
this pro-choice argument is that it exposes the depravity of even the most
intelligent who propose devious and ludicrous arguments to promote their
malicious cause. But to be fair (to the detractors of Historic Christianity)
that’s not always the case.
The
Violinist Argument - a thought experiment - is a compelling argument for
abortion because it concedes the fact that the embryo is a fully human person.
Greg Koukl cites the violinist argument proposed by Judith Jarvis Thompson:2
I propose, then, that we grant that
the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. How does the argument go
from here? Something like this, I take it. Every person has a right to life. So
the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what
shall happen in and to her body; everyone would grant that. But surely a
person’s right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mother’s right
to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus
may not be killed; an abortion may not be performed.
It sounds plausible. But now let me
ask you to imagine this. 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. The director
of the hospital now tells you, “Look, we’re sorry the Society of Music Lovers
did this to you—we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still,
they did it, and the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug you would be
to kill him. But never mind, it’s only for nine months. By then he will have
recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.”
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? What if it were not nine
months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital
says, “Tough luck, I agree, but you’ve now got to stay in bed, with the
violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this.
All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have
a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person’s right to
life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you
cannot ever be unplugged from him.” I imagine you would regard this as
outrageous,2 which suggests that something really is wrong with that
plausible-sounding argument I mentioned a moment ago.
In a
nutshell, the Violinist argument permits the kidnapped person to unplug from
the violinist, even if the unplug would result in the death of the famous
violinist. This permission is then extended to the pregnant mother who can
choose to abort her unborn child. This, according to the violinist argument, is
morally permissible.
What are the
native fallacies in the violinist argument?
Greg Koukl
offers three important differences between pregnancy and kidnapping:3
(1) The violinist is artificially
attached to the kidnapped person, whereas the unborn baby is not surgically
connected to the mother. Pregnancy is a natural phenomenon in human beings.
(2) Unplugging from the violinist is
different from abortion. Unplugging involves the withdrawal of the treatment
whereas the instance of an abortion is a homicidal act against the unborn.
Abortion is not merely a withdrawal of treatment to the unborn; it is an act of
killing a human person.
(3) The relationship between the
mother and the child is significantly different from that of two strangers in
the violinist argument, one of which was kidnapped! Parents have special
obligations to their children. So the mother is obligated to care for and protect
her unborn.
To conclude,
the violinist argument, although seemingly compelling, is riddled with
fallacies. Hence the violinist argument cannot reasonably defend the pro-choice
position.
Endnotes:
1https://seanmcdowell.org/blog/untangling-pro-choice-arguments-author-interview
2https://www.str.org/w/unstringing-the-violinist
3Ibid.
Read the article entitled “Suffer the Violinist: Why the
Pro-abortion Argument from Bodily Autonomy Fails” if in case you desire to dig
deeper. (https://www.equip.org/article/suffer-the-violinist-why-the-pro-abortion-argument-from-bodily-autonomy-fails/)
Websites last accessed on 6th September 2021.
