Information Technology Reference
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You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with
an 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 you alone have the right blood type to help. They have
therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulation system
was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons
from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells
you, “Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you -we
would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and
the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him.
But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered
from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.
The rationale here is: A woman who carries in her womb an unwanted child is
like a person who is forced to remain connected to the circulatory system (body) of
another unconscious person in order to keep her alive. This analogy refers to the
possibility of abortion in case of pregnancy against own will (for example, in the
case of rape).
2
Another realm in Bioethics where the use of analogies is relevant concerns the
moral status of non-human animals:
It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of legs, the
villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally
insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it
that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps,
the faculty for discourse?...the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can
they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to
any sensitive being?... The time will come when humanity will extend its
mantle over everything which breathes...
3
The issue is that most of the no-human animals -at least those who are closer to us
in evolutionary terms (for example, apes)- have similar, analogous interests, prefer-
ences, and sensations (pain, fear) than humans do. However, their moral status is
radically different.
2
Another example related to the moral justification of abortion is the following:
Suppose you find yourself trapped in a tiny house with a growing child. I mean a very
tiny house, and a rapidly growing child -you are already up against the wall of the house
and in a few minutes you'll be crushed to death. The child on the other hand won't be
crushed to death; if nothing is done to stop him from growing, he'll be hurt but in the end
he'll simply burst open the house and walk out a free man. . . . However innocent the
child may be, you do not have to wait passively while it crushes you to death. Perhaps a
pregnant woman is vaguely felt to have the status of house, to which we don't allow the
right to self-defence. But if the woman houses the child, it should be remembered that she
is a person who houses it.
3
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832),
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
.
