“If the room is stuffy, and I therefore open a window to air it, and a burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say, “Ah, now he can stay, she’s given him a right to the use of her house—for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars burgle.” It would be still more absurd to say this if I had had bars installed outside my windows, precisely to prevent burglars from getting in, and a burglar got in only because of a defect in the bars.”
“Again, suppose it were like this: people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You don’t want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective; and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house? Surely not—despite the fact that you voluntarily open your windows, you knowingly kept carpets and upholstered furniture, and you knew that screens were sometimes defective. Someone may argue that you are responsible for its rooting, that it does have a right to your house, because after all you could have lived out your life with bare floors and furniture, or with sealed windows and doors. But this won’t do—for by the same token anyone can avoid a pregnancy due to rape by having a hysterectomy, or anyway by never leaving home without a army.”
The Burglar analogy pointing out the parents should not have responsibility for their own children to those “violinists”, “burglars”, or “person-plants”. Does the parents haven’t any responsibility or duty to their children even they have already taken precaution to avoid pregnancy? Since the World haven’t prefect contraception methods, or even those men and women think that coitus interruptus (體外排精) be avoiding pregnancy. It does not mean that they do not have any responsible for the foreseen results of actions. Abortion seems not a reason for relieving their responsibility.
Cars are vehicles that you normally should have control over. Imagine that car is becoming fully automatic control by artifactual intelligence technique or computer. You are the owner and driver of this car, and it hit a truck. I think that you still have some kinds of responsibility for this accident. Based on this thought experiment, I think that Judith Thomson’s Burglar Analogy is not strong enough to convincing me to accept abortion.
