In A Defense of Abortion, Thomason argued that the pregnant woman has the right to choose whether to abort the baby. She give a very good analogy. She assumes that the woman body is just like the room. You feel the room is stuffy, then you therefore
open a window to air it but a burglar climbs in. And you have installed bars on the windows, in precisely to prevent burglars from getting in. But the burglar got in only because a defect in the bars. It would be absurd to say that
you would give the burglar a right to the use of the house. You have tried everything to avoid pregnancy but eventually you are still pregnancy. Then Thomason claims that abortion should be permissible in this case. However, I have a worry: what if you opened the windows intentionally and you didn't even installed the bars? And then a burglar climbs in? Would this be the case that the burglar would have the right to stay in the room? Any thought?
This is an interesting analogy indeed. However, I am not sure that unintentional conception is entirely analogous to burglary. Granted, in both cases, an unexpected visitor enters the room. However, unlike burglary, the fetus had no intentions about "breaking in"
ReplyDeleteIt may be more analogous to a different situation. A captain decides to pilot her ship (the room) into tumultuous waters (intercourse). Unexpectedly, in the midst of the storm, a person is pushed onto the ship by the currents (conception). The person was uninvited and is presumably unwelcome. However, the person did not borad the ship willingly; it was the result of the storm. The captain has a decision to make: either she throws the person overboard, or she tolerates the presence of the person for 9 months until she can drop him off at the nearest port, at which point the person will no longer be her concern