The violinist, people-seeds, and what a right to life does not include. A higher percent gives more weight to Thomson's style of argument.
About this test
Judith Jarvis Thomson's 'A Defense of Abortion' (1971) grants, for the sake of argument, that a fetus is a person, and then asks whether a right to life includes a right to the use of someone else's body. The violinist needs your kidneys for nine months. People-seeds drift in if you open a window. A rapidly expanding child will crush you inside a tiny house unless you kill him. Thomson later revised her trolley writings: a bystander at a switch is not a driver who must turn. These are original retellings. The percent is how much weight you give this family of rights-to-refuse. It is not a verdict on abortion. That question has its own test.
Question 1 of 11
What this test asks
You wake attached to a stranger, a violinist, who will die if you unplug in the next nine months. You did not agree to the attachment. Unplugging is painless. Staying is a long, serious burden.
People-seeds drift on the air. If one takes root in your house, a person grows who will die unless they remain nine months. You put up the best screens. One seed gets through a torn screen you did not notice.
This time you opened the window because you like the breeze, knowing seeds sometimes get in, and you did not bother with a screen.
You and a rapidly growing child are trapped in a tiny house. If he keeps growing he will crush you to death. The only way for you to live is to kill him. He is innocent.
The violinist needs only one hour, the burden is small, and nobody else can do it. Thomson thinks a decent person would stay. Is that a duty?
A third party, a doctor, can unplug you from the violinist at your request. The violinist does not consent to the unplugging. May the doctor help?
You are a bystander at a switch. A different person is the driver of a trolley that will kill five unless the driver turns onto a track with one. Thomson came to treat driver and bystander differently. Do you?
Does a right to life include whatever is physically required to go on living, including another person's body?
The person attached to you is not a stranger. They are your own child, and the dependence is ordinary biology rather than a kidnapping. What happens to the violinist lesson?
You consented, clearly, to stay plugged in for nine months, and now you want to revoke. The violinist relied on the promise.
Which description of a right to life did these stories push you toward?
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