Thomson's violinist analogy concerning an unwanted pregnancy is persuasive in that it points up the aggressive and programmatic devaluation of the sentience of the pregnant person in the case on the part of those who insist that abortion should not be available as a choice for resolving such a pregnancy. In developing the violinist scenario, Thomson establishes the condition of a presumption that the kidnapping victim has an affirmative obligation to nurture the violinist owing to the musician's privileged status. Similarly, advocates against abortion mount the claim that Thomson lays out early:
But surely a person's right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mother's right to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus may not be killed; an abortion may not be performed (Thomson).
In the violinist scenario, the hospital director uses the same logic to tie the kidnap victim to the patient: "Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him" (Thomson). Thomson characterizes that logic as "outrageous," but it completely tracks with the anti-abortion logic that opens her article. What the arguments share above all is an aggressive proprietary claim on the individual whose body incurs an obligation merely because the claim has been made.
Further, the more onerous the physical or emotional danger to the mother is, the more strenuously do antichoice advocates insist that abortion is impermissible. That is a feature of Gordon's argument against abortion: "To conceive and then abort one's child is to turn conception into a deadly trap for the child: it is to set her up in a vulnerable position that is virtually certain to lead to her death" (Gordon). Gordon glosses over the notion that that the fetus may be a dea...