It’s no secret that we’ve all heard the slogan “my body, my choice” - a phrase popularized by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson. In her argument, she lays out a hypothetical where a society of music lovers kidnaps and hooks you up to the world’s greatest violinist, because he’s going to die, and your kidneys are the only thing that can keep him alive.

After establishing this hypothetical, Judith asks whether or not you should be able to disconnect from the violinist, and with it seeming obvious that you can, she concludes that the same should be true for pregnancy. The rationale is that if an adult person - even the greatest violinist alive - cannot use your body when you don't want him to, then neither should a fetus. Otherwise, the fetus would be receiving special rights.

Now, does this hypothetical justify abortion? I say no for two reasons.

The first reason is because there's a difference between killing someone and refusing to save someone, and bodily autonomy corresponds to the refusal to save. More specifically, in the case Judith presents, the violinist was already sick, and if one disconnected from him, he would simply return to his original state and die as a result of his pathology, rather than as a direct result of being disconnected from. In this respect, disconnecting from him would count as refusing to save the violinist, but not killing him.

However, in the case of pregnancy, if a woman gets an abortion, it is not merely a refusal to save, but an intentional act that kills the fetus. This is because, before the abortion procedure, the fetus is on a trajectory of flourishing. But because of the abortive procedure, which may consist of administering RU-486, which is a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol that causes the woman’s body to miscarry the pregnancy - a fatal sequence of events is initiated for the fetus.

This distinction is significant because bodily autonomy may grant someone the right to refuse to stop a fatal sequence of events, but it does not grant someone the right to initiate one.

Moreover, Judith Jarvis Thomson’s hypothetical is flawed because most cases of pregnancy do not involve third parties forcing a woman into a situation. Rather, pregnancy usually involves a woman voluntarily and with foreseeability engaging in an act that is naturally ordered toward creating a dependent child. This means Judith’s hypothetical mainly targets cases of rape, but fails to account for the majority of abortion cases.

So, to make the hypothetical more analogous, we should imagine that a woman voluntarily and with foreseeability presses a button that gives her pleasure or $1 million, which mimics sex, but comes with a 5% chance of causing a baby to dangle over a pit of lava, which mimics the state of dependency a fetus is in during pregnancy.

Additionally, let's assume that the only way the woman can save the baby from falling into the pit of lava is by pressing a second button and incurring pregnancy-like symptoms for 24 weeks, which mimics fetal viability.

That said, if we assume the woman voluntarily and with foreseeability pressed the first button, it appears obvious that she has an obligation to press the second button and limit her bodily autonomy for the sake of the child. If not, then how many times can she press the button and how many babies can she let die - 1 baby, 10 babies, 100 babies, 1,000 babies? I think you get the point.

Finally, even in cases of rape, abortion still appears morally impermissible because moral responsibility is not only generated in cases where you caused something to happen. For instance, if a woman is on a boat in the middle of an ocean and happens to find a baby that she didn't put there, it still does not seem morally permissible for her to evict the baby from the boat, even if caring for the child requires her to incur pregnancy-like burdens until she can safely transfer the baby to another location.

For these reasons, join me in urging our lawmakers to uphold and reinforce unborn children’s right to life across the United States. Sign this petition and make your voice heard.