Thomson's Summary Of The People Seed

Thomson, however, recognizes the fault in her analogy – burglars have a choice to enter the house while children do not. She then utilizers her thought experiment to account for the discrepancy. She asks her audience to consider that people-seeds were simply drifting around in the air and, if the circumstances are right, one may float into a window and take root in the carpet, despite if all precautionary measures were taken. She argues that the “people-seed” does not have a right to house, despite coming in through an open window. She uses this analogy to demonstrate a women who had consensual intercourse, but took preventative measures which failed (390). However, Thomson overlooks the property of responsibility. In the analogy of the people-seeds,
a women is not responsible for the creation or welcoming of the “people-seeds” but rather responsible for removing an obstacle in their quest to implant in her house, an act which does not necessarily guarantee the presence of people-seeds as it serves the primary purpose of bringing air into the room. Consensual intercourse, however, has a more severe degree of responsibility than opening a window. The act of intercourse is designed primarily for child formation while the pleasure attained from it is secondary purpose. A women did not create a “people-seed” nor did she force its existence in her house; a women does, however, create a child and force its existence in her body. Thomson does not account for the fundamental difference but rather sidesteps the issue as one that “can establish at most that there are some cases in which the unborn person has a right to the use of its mother’s body, and therefore some cases in which abortion is unjust killing” but cannot “establish that all abortion is unjust killing” (390). It appears that Thomson is recanting her utilitarian statement that fetus’ do not have the right to the means which sustains life, despite the circumstances which they were conceived. In this sidestepping, she adheres to the deontological view of ethics – the mother has a duty to the child she took part in forming.
She then returns to the heart of her argument, discussing the role of morality and decency.
She does not believe there is a fundamental connection between being moral and being decent; one can act indecent yet still act morally. In the case of the violinist, if circumstances were changed so that being plugged into him would not affect the women’s health and it were only for an hour, “it would be indecent to refuse” yet not be morally wrong if she did (390). After wavering into the camp of deontological ethics, she immediately returns to utilitarian and creates inconsistencies within her argument. Nevertheless, she goes on to dissolve the argument of her opponent that rights, as insofar they are just or unjust, depend on convenience. In the case of the violinist, if the person has only to remain plugged in for one hour, it would seem to be that the person has a responsibility to remain plugged in. However, the duration the violinist needs to remain plugged in cannot determine the actions of the person kidnapped. While this is the entirety of her clarification, she realizes her opponents will disagree as long as a human life is being used in the analogy. Therefore, she presents a more palatable analogy: the boys and chocolate. If two boys were given one box of chocolate to share, it would be unjust for the older to take it all for himself. It is unjust only as the boys were given equal part of the chocolate. However, if only the older boy were to be given the box of
chocolates, it would not be morally wrong for him to take it all for himself and deny the younger brother any chocolate. The latter case is what Thomson sees abortion as; the child has no inherent right to the mother so taking away the use of her body is not morally wrong, perhaps calloused and insensitive, but not unjust (391). If one is to agree to the latter analogy, argues Thomson, he must agree to the former as it is “rather a shocking idea that anyone’s rights should fade away and disappear as it gets harder and harder to accord them to him” (391). This principle, however, does not adhere to her utilitarian approach to ethics. If she were to adhere to her utilitarianism, she would have to consent to the idea that rights do fade away as it gets harder to accord to them as happiness gets harder to obtain in certain circumstances. But, to refrain from giving a boy chocolate, sparing the violinist an hour of use of kidneys, or aborting a child does not necessarily produce the maximum pleasure or happiness. Instead, Thomson adhere to ethical egoism and shuns rights-based theories of ethics.
Her following example, however, seems to suggest there must be a set of moral rules or expectation, thus she is inconsistent in her views of morality.
She proceeds to give a recount of Luke 10:25, the story of the Good Samaritan. Her point in doing so is rather ineffective and could have gone without the biblical analogy – used perhaps to convict those of a particular religion. Her point is the rules of morality seem to diverge when it comes to gender: “in no state in this country is any man compelled by law to be even a Minimally Recent [sic] Samaritan to any person” while “women are compelled by law to be not merely Minimally Decent Samaritans, but Good Samaritans to unborn persons inside them” (393). However, in doing so she admits not having an abortion is a good thing. The logic should follow that having an abortion is a bad thing, but she does not admit this. She simply admits that not having an abortion is an inherently good action, not made good in relation to having an abortion. Her argument of the minimally decent Samaritan resonates with her supporters under the circumstances that if a man can walk away from a pregnancy, a women should be able to. This, however, becomes legalistic and takes emphasis away from morality, rights, and unjust actions. Her minimally decent Samaritan argument is rather arbitrary as there are no other actions she provides for that which makes one a minimally decent Samaritan yet she sees it as “a standard we must not fall below” (394).
Since she does not provide any guidelines for what may be considered an action of a minimally decent Samaritan, it appears that she assumes a code of morality possessed by humans as inherent. Even in situations where a pregnancy occurred by means of consensual intercourse with the intention of forming a child, Thomson permits abortion: “it would be indecent in the woman to request an abortion, and indecent in a doctor to perform it, if she in in her seventh month, and wants the abortion just to avoid the nuisance of postponing a trip abroad” (395). Even at this point in her argument, she still considers it indecent not unjust. The reason for this is that she views the child as still not having a right to the means of sustaining life – the mother’s body. However, the case seems to go against her idea that in the case “which carrying the child to term requires only Minimally Decent Samaritanism of the mother” thus reinforcing the arbitrariness of her argument (394). In the last attempt to make her argument palatable, she differentiates between abortion and the killing of a child. She says she is not advocating for the latter, but the former and in the case it were possible to detach the child alive, its death is not something to be wished for. These two last attempts to make her argument palatable fail at gaining a following but succeed in repeating her argument in absurd terms.