The Right to Survive

Many of you are familiar with Judith Jarvis Thompson's article "A Defense of Abortion". 

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.

My goal here is not to dispute Ms. Thompson's analogy, because to me, it's ridiculously stupid and doesn't deserve comment.  I start with it only as a lead-in to the analogy below.  This new scenario is in response to the tweet below, and fully disputes the insane notion that babies don't have the legal right to use their mother's body.  I look forward to seeing the choicer's attempts at aborting it.

It's a beautiful sunny spring day.  You're in the latter part of your pregnancy, and decide to take a walk to help bring labor on.  You walk on a posted nature trail, but you veer off the beaten path to see an unusual bird.  You're not concerned about getting lost, because you know how to use the sun and shadows to guide your way.  Suddenly, a dark cloud appears that blocks your compass.  You're pretty sure you came from 'that direction', so you walk toward it.  Oh wait, maybe it was from 'over there'.  As you repeat this pattern, you realize you're lost.  You know you're close to home, but you have no idea which direction home is.  You feel contractions beginning.  You walk some more, in an effort to find home.  The more you walk, the stronger your contractions become.  Without knowing it, you've ventured for miles, in the wrong direction.  Without knowing it, there is no one around you, for miles and miles. 

The final stages of labor are well in progress.  You give birth to your baby.  You've had no intention of breast feeding, ever.  You've said "I'm not a diner!" many, many times.  This baby coming when it did doesn't change that.    But if you don't supply the baby with nourishment, it will surely die.  There are no cows or goats around for you to milk, and even if there were, you have no bottle to put the milk in.  You had no reason to bring supplies for this baby, for this was supposed to be just a short walk.  You didn't consider the risk of getting lost and going into labor.

The time it will take you to get home is just a bit longer than your baby can survive with no nutrition.  You now have 3 choices. 

1. Breast feed the baby.  You're not a diner, but allowing this baby to use your body is the only possible way it can survive.
2. Let the baby die of starvation and dehydration.  Painful for the baby, and unless you leave it by a tree and walk away, it would be painful for you to watch.
3. Kill the baby.  So you can rid yourself of the burden it brings.  You will get to your goal, which is home, much quicker this way.

Which do you choose?  Killing the baby, or even just letting it die, is illegal.  Your only legal option is to breast feed the baby.  Which means... The baby has the legal right to use your body, even if you don't want it to.

Now, compare this unplanned birth experience to an unplanned pregnancy.  Unplanned pregnancies occur most often because the woman didn't consider the risk of getting pregnant when she had sex.  And even if she did consider it, she took the risk, in the heat of passion.  She now has 3 choices.

1. Continue the pregnancy, so the baby can survive.
2. Take steps to 'let the baby die', by drinking concoctions or falling down stairs, intending to induce a miscarriage.
3. Go to your neighborhood abortionist and have he/she kill it for you.

Many times in the abortion debate, we hear that "women are not incubators", much like the woman above is not a 'diner'.  But in order for the baby to survive, it must be allowed to take nutrition from the mother.  Whether it's via the umbilical cord in the womb, or via breast feeding, the baby must be attached to the mother.  It's a matter of survival.  And yes, it should have the legal right to survive.