My prior post was intended primarily to describe what I believe to be the foundations of the pro-choice movement. It was not, by any means, what I consider to be the best analogy for abortion. Here is what I do believe to be the best analogy.
You are on your own boat, in the middle of the ocean. A nearby boat begins to sink. Legally, you have no obligation to sail over and try to save the survivors. (Morally, of course, you’d have to be a monster not to try.) However, one of the survivors swims towards the nearest solid object: your boat. He climbs onto your boat. Is the boat your private property? Yes. Does private property normally include the right to exclude others? Absolutely. Can you throw this trespasser off your boat, and let him drown? No. It would be murder.
The first objection will probably be that sharing your boat with someone isn’t nearly as bad as pregnancy. Let’s make the scenario a little worse. Let’s say this person is absolutely filthy, and stinks to high heaven. The nearest dry land is months away. Your boat is so small that this filthy person’s body is pressed against yours. He’s coughing, and may infect you with whatever disease he has. (Assume, however, that it is not a deadly disease, because I do believe that abortion should be legal when the mother’s life is in danger). You have enough food supplies to keep both of you alive until you reach land–but barely. You’ll be on the verge of starvation for the entire time. What now? Do you now have the right to throw this person off your boat? Still no.
What about rape? Let’s modify our scenario a little more. Let’s say your mortal enemy had flown by in a helicopter and fired a few rockets at you. Fortunately, they missed. However, he then fired his last rocket at the nearby boat, with the express purpose of forcing you to live with the filthy survivors of that boat. How does this change things? Well, as far as the legal and moral relationship between you and the person on your boat is concerned, nothing has changed. You now have a major grievance against your mortal enemy, and if he is ever caught, he should be punished to the full extent of the law. But the wrong done to you has not given you a right to perform an equally great wrong by taking this poor person, who is a victim of your mortal enemy just like yourself, and throwing him off your boat.
