J.J. Thompson's Violinist Thought Experiment Concerning Abortion

[Neo-Scholastic]

Helios, please stop trolling me.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Helios, please stop trolling me.

You call it trolling I call it criticism

[brewer]

There is a difference between processes that proceed naturally, gestation, and those that must be sustained artificially, outside medical intervention. This distinction would be relevant for end of life problems too. Also, the mother-child relationship feels essentially different from that of two random people. Why does the prestige of the dependant matter? Not taking a stand on the issue just trying to consider all the angles on the thought problem.

Isn't the males sperm and it's dna basically 'random' to the female initially?

Tell us, at what point in time does the 'mother/child' relationship begin?

[Anomalocaris]

Mother/child relationship can only begin at some heuristically determined point.

The question is whose heuristics, and what is his motivation and extent of knowledge or ignorance.

[vulcanlogician]

I think the thought experiment is a good one.

I think Neo and Iggy have a point. The distinction between the violinist scenario and pregnancy is that choice is involved. But even then, it could be argued that living life, dating someone, and accidentally getting pregnant is a lot like waking up in a hospital after a car accident. Sometimes accidents happen. Even careful people have accidents-- not just careless people. We needn't assume that every accidental pregnancy is due to carelessness.

I think the thought experiment really shines as a counterpoint to the notion of "right to life."

I think the reason a "famous violinist" was chosen rather than just "some rando" is that it gives you a sense that this is a significant person. But, special as this person may be, does that obligate one to make long term sacrifices for someone because of their "right to life"? The thought experiment tests our intuitions here. And I think it says something significant.

[polymath257]

I think the thought experiment is a good one.

I think Neo and Iggy have a point. The distinction between the violinist scenario and pregnancy is that choice is involved. But even then, it could be argued that living life, dating someone, and accidentally getting pregnant is a lot like waking up in a hospital after a car accident. Sometimes accidents happen. Even careful people have accidents-- not just careless people. We needn't assume that every accidental pregnancy is due to carelessness.

I think the thought experiment really shines as a counterpoint to the notion of "right to life."

I think the reason a "famous violinist" was chosen rather than just "some rando" is that it gives you a sense that this is a significant person. But, special as this person may be, does that obligate one to make long term sacrifices for someone because of their "right to life"? The thought experiment tests our intuitions here. And I think it says something significant.

Once again, even if the original attachment to the violinist had been voluntary, it seems to me that there is a right to detach. The alternative is, essentially, slavery.

It gets a bit more interesting if you say that the attachment was voluntary originally and would only last a short period of time. It the attachment lasted only an hour, it might be hard to find someone saying it has to happen immediately. If it lasts a month, that starts to become one person owning another. Nine months? good question.

[The Grand Nudger]

We're either okay with strapping people to gurneys and body farming them, or we're not. People like to offer good and decent arguments for their position on the issue - I'm against it for this good reason, I'm for it for that good reason. It's broadly true of alot of things...but here...good reasons, probably aren't all that relevant. Exclusively sub optimal decision fields strike again. We're only deciding what types of bad things we're willing to countenance.

[Mermaid]

Yeah. Another discussion by a bunch of men about what women should and should not to do with their bodies. Super.

This thought experiment is nothing earth-shattering. There is nothing more yours than your body and we must maintain the legal rights to do whatever the fuck we choose to do with it. You choose to stay hooked up with the violinist? Great. You choose not to? Your right. Period. End of sentence.

You choose to abort an embryo/fetus that is unable to survive without using your body? Your choice. Your uterus. Period. End of sentence. You choose to carry the pregnancy? Again: Your uterus, your life, your choice. Period.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's the hook. People debate over the morality or practicality of someone else's choice...and let's stipulate (because it's easy to stipulate) that other people's choices can be good or bad - but other peoples choices aren't actually the item in question when it comes to the aims of these arguments. Neither is their sex. Regardless of whether someone else has made a good or bad choice to x, we..ourselves, are now considering a second question irrelevant to and unaffected by the moral or practical nature of the first.

What -we're- going to do, or willing to do....about it. It may not actually be the case that a person owning their body makes every decision about that body their choice (and it's just deliciously ironic that the presumed context of this discussion is babbies..who we don't think have -any- say in decisions about their body born, unborn, alive or dead.....)...but it certainly is the case that whatever we choose to do about it is owned uniquely by ourselves.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Yeah. Another discussion by a bunch of men about what women should and should not to do with their bodies. Super.

This thought experiment is nothing earth-shattering. There is nothing more yours than your body and we must maintain the legal rights to do whatever the fuck we choose to do with it. You choose to stay hooked up with the violinist? Great. You choose not to? Your right. Period. End of sentence.

You choose to abort an embryo/fetus that is unable to survive without using your body? Your choice. Your uterus. Period. End of sentence. You choose to carry the pregnancy? Again: Your uterus, your life, your choice. Period.

To be fair J.J. Thompson's technically started the conversation and she is very much a women