See No Evil - Must Not Be Evil...What is Evil Again?

For Ethics class I am doing a paper regarding abortion. Before today, I didn't have the topic narrowed down. But now I realize that while I could argue for the status of personhood of the embryo, I am instead going to attack the view of Judith Jarvis Thomson wherein she states that just because a zygote is a person, because it must use another person's body, the law cannot force someone to let someone else use their body. She says the analogy is the same as hooking up a violin player to your kidneys without your permission.

In class, I brought up the maternal relationship, which was struck down because our professor didn't think that comes into the law's decision. He cited a recent case where one twin needed the organs of another twin which would not result in either of their deaths, the healthy twin refused, and the sick twin lost a lawsuit against the healthy twin. However, I would still hold that it is this unique relationship where an exception can be made on the basis of the protection of the life of one individual over the right of choice of the other. While not about life and death, the law does recognize relations when it comes to prosecution (I cannot as a lawyer prosecute my father), nor can I get married to my first cousin, even if we were to have abortions any time she became pregnant. Thus, familial relations can and should be taken into account when laws are written, and thus I hold (though I will argue by far more in depth in the paper) that the analogy breaks down by virtue of duty to different people and the state's right and duty to hold others to their duty.

If you disagree, let me know...if you agree, let me know what you think. It seems fundamentally improper for her argument to work when taken to its ultimate end. 1) The government cannot force me to use my body for someone else's benefit. Thus 2) My body which works to get money and a living is an extension of said body (this is Locke's point and is inherent in the amendments interpreted for privacy). Therefore, 3) the government cannot force taxation on me for ANY reason, even the regulation of a militia, let alone helping the poor, etc.

The Social Contract Theory is not the only moral theory used for legal ideas, and is in and of itself fundamentally flawed because it ignores duty to family which is meant to be the stable unit of society...for social well-being individuals are not autonomous and always combative as Hobbes suggested with regard to his fictitious history of the development of government from the "state of nature." I would argue that the branch of Virtue Ethics, particularly Feminist Ethics offers the strongest argument against abortion...even legally. What say you?