Sir, - Ten years ago Vincent Browne was convinced that the taking of innocent human life was wrong in all circumstances. He has now changed his mind (Opinion, May 10th). The substantive reason Browne offers for his change of mind is his reading of an article by a US woman philosopher. He doesn't tell us who this philosopher is, but from the description which he offers of her article, she can only be Judith Jarvis Thomson, and her article the notorious A Defense of Abortion, first published almost 30 years ago!
The analogy central to Thomson's article is adequately summarised by Browne. It envisages a woman waking up in hospital finding herself forcibly hooked up to another patient whose life now depends on the maintenance of that connection. The relation of the child in the womb to its mother is supposed to be analogous to this hypothetical hook-up. Thomson's article discussed the implications of this analogy.
Now Browne himself admits that there are "a lot of ridiculous assumptions built into this fictional construction"; but despite this, he believes it "illuminates a few moral issues involved in the abortion question". The Thomson analogy certainly has a lot of ridiculous assumptions but I doubt its power to throw any light on abortion.
The argumentative value of fantastic examples is controversial. I would argue that we can have no settled or reliable intuitions concerning Thomson's hypothetical case because it is simply too far outside our experience. The absurdity of its assumptions isn't just a rhetorical accident that can be discounted, leaving its rational force intact; the argument no rational force apart from whatever can be gleaned from the central analogy and that has the effect of dislocating our moral intuitions so much that our heads spin.
There are other ways in which the analogy limps. The child in the womb is not a stranger to its mother in the ordinary sense of that word, which is the sense it carries in Thomson's analogy. Richard A. Posner, who is Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals, notes that "the law punishes the neglect of a child by its parents, even if the child was the result of a rape; and Thomson does not suggest that she disapproves of such punishment. . ." Finally, the doctor performing an abortion does not merely "pull the plug" on the child in the womb. He uses surgical instruments or a suction pump or injects chemicals that either kill the foetus or induce premature labour, or he crushes the child's cranium.
Moral argument, even when cogent, is rarely persuasive. When, as in Thomson's article, we have an analogy that limps so badly it needs orthopaedic shoes, the argument is completely devoid of persuasive power, except for those already disposed to accept its conclusion.
It is possible to hold that abortion is morally reprehensible and yet reject its criminalisation; after all, not every immoral action is or should be illegal. But the cost of a divorce between morality and legality here, as elsewhere, is high. Once you allow the taking of innocent human life to be legal when the victim is very young and very small you must permanently man the ramparts to prevent the net widening to include the old, the mentally or physically impaired and eventually, with monotonous predictability, those with different skin colours or religions.
Browne concludes his article by stating that "It seems therefore to be the case that every unborn child does not have a right to have demanded from the mother that she carry her/him to full term." He may indeed believe this to be the case - but he can hardly do so rationally on the basis of Thomson's Gothic fantasy. - Yours, etc.,
Gerard Casey, Department of Philosophy, UCD, Dublin 4.