The Pro-life Response To The Violinist Argument (To Abort Or Not)

             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 6^th September 2021.