One oroblem with the argument from a left perspective is that it assumes that rights, or anyway the right to life, is negative. I can't just shoot the violinist, but I don't have to give him what he needs to survive, that is, use of my body for nine months. Likewise with the fetus, insofar as it isn't viable -- please note that the argument, like the right in Roe v. Wade -- only supports abortion of nonviable fetuses. It doesn't have a claim on what it needs to survive, namely the woman's body.
Apart from other problems, I think it is important to see that this is not an argument that is comfortable for the left. We believe in positive rights, that people do have a right to what they need to survive; that it is just as unacceptable to allow people to starve because they cannot afford food or die of illness because they cannot afford health insurance as it is to just walk up and shoot them. A case could be made that committment to this idea defines what is to be on the left. I won't press that point. But I don't think that the JJT argument is one that we can be very comfortable with.
On the other hand, it is useful and amusing, as a rhetorical strategy, to turn this point on right wing anti-abortionists. How can they say that a _fetus_ has the right to what it needs to survive, but a _grown woman_ doesn't, if that "something" happens to be money for foof or medical care, etc. I can attest that this doesn't persuade anyone, because these beliefs are justified by but not based upon argument, when they are justified at all, but it sure as heck makes 'em squirm.
--- On Fri, 12/12/08, B. <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
> From: B. <docile_body at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Catholicism, was Re: blacks about as morally conservative as Republicans
> To: "LBO Talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Date: Friday, December 12, 2008, 10:40 PM
> One interesting pro-choice argument I've come across:
>
> Imagine you wake up one morning to find that a team of
> doctors are surrounding your bed -- and that they had
> attached a person to you through a series of tubes and other
> medical mechanisms, who was now laying next to you in your
> bed.
>
> They explain to you that this person had to be hooked up to
> you, and that the person must be hooked up to you for 9
> months, or s/he will die.
>
> Your say in this matter is immaterial; the medically-needy
> person's rights override your own.
>
> A bit miffed, you say it isn't fair that you must be
> forced to have this dependent person attached to you for
> nine months; it seems to violate a notion of
> self-determination, your sovereign control over your own
> body/being/self. "Sorry, it is illegal for you to kill
> someone," the doctors sting back, and shrug their
> shoulders that, well, it sucks to be you, but you'll
> just have to put up and shut up, and have the person
> attached to you for 9 months, regardless of your feelings
> about it.
>
> -B.
>
>
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