In Judith Thomson’s violinist example, the violinist is supposed to be analogous to:
Group of answer choices
the mother
the father
the fetus
the physician
The correct answer and explanation is:
The correct answer is: the fetus.
Judith Thomson’s famous “Violinist Example” is a thought experiment designed to examine the ethics of abortion. In this analogy, a person is kidnapped and connected to a famous violinist who is in need of their kidneys to survive. The person is informed that they have been connected to the violinist in such a way that their kidneys are sustaining the violinist’s life. They are told that if they stay connected for nine months, the violinist will be saved, but if they disconnect, the violinist will die.
Thomson uses this scenario to challenge the notion that the fetus has an automatic right to the mother’s body, even if the fetus’s life is at stake. The violinist represents the fetus in the analogy because, just as the violinist is dependent on the person’s body to live, the fetus is dependent on the mother’s body during pregnancy. Thomson’s point is that while the violinist’s life is valuable, the person who has been involuntarily connected to the violinist is not morally obligated to remain connected, just as a woman may not be morally required to continue a pregnancy if it is unwanted, even though the fetus’s life is at stake.
This analogy aims to demonstrate that a right to life does not necessarily entail the right to use someone else’s body to sustain that life, especially in situations where the person did not consent to the connection in the first place. The case is a metaphor for the ethical considerations surrounding bodily autonomy, and it challenges the assumption that abortion is always morally impermissible by emphasizing the right of the mother to make decisions about her body.