In the given analogy for the defense of Abortion, the reader is asked to imagine waking up in bed unknowingly to an unconscious violinist with a life-threatening kidney ailment, who is connected to you. The theorist equates the unconscious violinist to unwanted pregnancy and the reader to reflect on the situation and deliberate on the moral permissibility of Abortion should the reader decide to unplug herself from the famous violinist, which would be equivalent to unplugging herself from the child. The questions ask if the woman is morally or ethically bound to allow this to happen, not just out of kindness but out of moral duty.
The answer to this analogy cannot be a simple yes or no because the question is fundamentally flawed because the analogy is defective in itself. The principal issue is the consideration of personhood. If the fetus is considered to be a person, then both the child and the mother have rights that should be respected. The analogy is irrelevant to reality because the fetus is not merely unplugged, but instead killed and subsequently removed from the womb. Therefore letting someone die or killing through a lethal force is different, as allowing someone to die still leaves a potential chance to survive.
One of the fundamental flaws in the analogy is it could only be relevant in the case of a pregnancy that occurred out of rape, and does not involve the possibility of consent. Unwanted children, born out of the process of natural heterosexual consensual sexual intercourse for which the consequence of possible conception is already known, are equated to trespassers and aggressors. Moreover, the child inhabiting the mother’s body is unlike the case where the violinist’s illness was not caused by the stranger.
According to the deontologist moral theory, which gives the idea of treating people not means to an end, but as ends in themselves, and that we are ethically bound to fulfill our natural duties (Ştefan, 2014), fetuses are individuals and persons. Therefore they qualify for our responsibility towards them. We are duty bound not kill a person unnecessarily, especially a dependent who belongs to us. Abortion (in this case) is an unnecessary act of murder. Therefore it must not be done, and since the child belongs to the pregnant women, whereas the connected violinist was connected without consent, therefore the woman has no responsibility in this case, except altruism.
It is therefore that I would unplug myself but still not agree to abort a Child, unless it is medically proven to threaten the mother’s life if the childbirth takes place.
References
Ştefan, I. (2014). Arguments for and Against Abortion regarding Teleological and Deontological Theories. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 149, 927-935. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.08.301
