The Fate of the Violinist in Irish Constitutional Law

conorh91

Most of you are familiar with the violinist thought-experiment that acts as an absurd logical extension of the pro/anti abortion argument. The thought-experiment goes like so

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you “Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you - we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.

Imagine you are the AG and are asked to give a legal opinion to Government on the rights and obligations of the the person who has been hooked up to the unconscious violinist.

Many of us who are pro-choice instinctively feel that we would want to be unhooked. But I'm interested in whether or not that option would be available to us under Irish law.

How would the legal advice go?

By the way, I know this is an allegory for the abortion debate, but this is not an abortion thread. For the mods sake and indeed for everyone's sake, lets avoid getting into that quagmire, and adhere strictly to the allegory if possible?

qt3.14

conorh91 wrote: »

I know this is an allegory for the abortion debate

A bloody poor one. There aren't any laws or precedents that I can think of that would allow the forceful violation of anothers bodily integrity to the benefit of a second party except those that exist surrounding issues that exist from/pre-birth.
Even if it got beyond the doctor stage, which it wouldn't, no court in the land could order the connection unplugged.

conorh91

qt3.14 wrote: »

A bloody poor one. There aren't any laws or precedents that I can think of that would allow the forceful violation of anothers bodily integrity to the benefit of a second party except those that exist surrounding issues that exist from/pre-birth.

Well lets start at Square One, then.

On the hierarchy of constitutional rights, it could be argued that the individual's right to life is of higher rank than the individual's right to liberty or bodily integrity.

This does not mean that you can pick a random person from the street or from the prisons, and hook them up to this machine, or nick their spare kidney. Such a procedure would be arbitrary and capricious and taken care of in Judicial Review or through some other procedure.

But if the Court finds a person already hooked up to this grisly machine, it is faced with balancing competing rights in order of their hierarchy, is it not?

PS, I'm mostly playing devil's advocate there

PPS, This is not my homework.

qt3.14

conorh91 wrote: »

Well lets start at Square One, then.

On the hierarchy of constitutional rights, it could be argued that the individual's right to life is of higher rank than the individual's right to liberty or bodily integrity.

This does not mean that you can pick a random person from the street or from the prisons, and hook them up to this machine, or nick their spare kidney. Such a procedure would be arbitrary and capricious and taken care of in Judicial Review or through some other procedure.

But if the Court finds a person already hooked up to this grisly machine, it is faced with balancing competing rights in order of their hierarchy, is it not?

PS, I'm mostly playing devil's advocate there

PPS, This is not my homework.

The situation only arises out of illegal action though. I don't think the court could argue it's empowered to preserve the situation just because there are now seemingly positive outcomes.

conorh91

qt3.14 wrote: »

The situation only arises out of illegal action though. I don't think the court could argue it's empowered to preserve the situation just because there are now seemingly positive outcomes.

At risk of going against my own request that we leave abortion out of this, I would point out that in X v The AG, X had been raped.

Rape is an act that violates both the legal and constitutional rights of the victim.

Were it not for the risk to her life, X's right to bodily integrity would have ranked inferior to another, passive individual's right to life, notwithstanding the illegality of the action that gave rise to a state of dependence.

X v the AG seems to be a blunt but an obvious authority for the claim that an illegal act will not in itself be sufficient for preventing the hierarchy of constitutional rights from being put into effect.

johnnyskeleton

Refusing to continue medical treatment and having a positive medical step taken are two different things i suppose

conorh91

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Refusing to continue medical treatment and having a positive medical step taken are two different things i suppose

They are. And have been recognized as such in law. Not sure what the legal approach is here though... the case at hand would differ from previous and more simple 'intervention' cases in the sense that there are two lives at issue.

conorh91

conorh91 wrote: »

X v the AG seems to be a blunt but an obvious authority for the claim that an illegal act will not in itself be sufficient for preventing the hierarchy of constitutional rights from being put into effect.

In X the criminal act wasn't perpetrated on behalf of the unborn, nor was it committed for the sole purpose of maintaining their life. While the unborn in X can be seen as completely innocent of any wrongdoing the same can likely not be said for the violinist who, at the very least, is complicit in the act.

Little CuChulainn

Unless the decision was made by his next of kin while he was unconscious.

evolving_doors

What the hell is the Violin playing a metaphor for? Being a catholic is it?

Lets turn it on its head and say the guy is an accordian player.. (i.e. a Jehova's witness).

Sclosages

If he played the melodian, then I could begin to comprehend the question.

Ya big eejit ya.

Sclosages

Btw - 'most' of us are not familiar with this ahem ..........tripe.

Manach

Trying to distinguish this between the unborn cases, the key being that the OP's factual scenario is likely to be a one-off and not a precedence for a societal wide change unless there is a deluge of sick violinists out there.

Sclosages

Manach wrote: »

Trying to distinguish this between the unborn cases, the key being that the OP's factual scenario is likely to be a one-off and not a precedence for a societal wide change unless there is a deluge of sick violinists out there.

Nobody cares about sick violinists.

qt3.14

conorh91 wrote: »

At risk of going against my own request that we leave abortion out of this, I would point out that in X v The AG, X had been raped.

Rape is an act that violates both the legal and constitutional rights of the victim.

Were it not for the risk to her life, X's right to bodily integrity would have ranked inferior to another, passive individual's right to life, notwithstanding the illegality of the action that gave rise to a state of dependence.

X v the AG seems to be a blunt but an obvious authority for the claim that an illegal act will not in itself be sufficient for preventing the hierarchy of constitutional rights from being put into effect.

Even there thought the analogy isn't perfect so there's plenty of scope for any judge to claim there isn't stare decisis. X's pregnancy was a foreseeable but not intended or inevitable consequence of the rape.
It could also be argued that the violinist and donor are involved in a magnitudinally more complicated and invasive relationship than between a pregnant woman and a foetus, which regardless of how the pregnancy arose is a natural, well understood process at least medically.

Greenmachine

Baffled by the analogy. How exactly is the victim of the kidnapping connected up. And how would such a case even come before the courts. I imagine such as setup would require putting the kidnap victim into an induced coma, removing their free will. Failing that and waking up in such a scenario how likely are you to trust the information given to you. What would be considered reasonable force to remove yourself from this kidnap situation. Surely you are being injured merely by being connected up like this. Assault against you in this case. What if you kill yourself by asphyxiation or another means, would you then be guilty of killing the other person.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Pat Mustard

Sclosages wrote: »

Nobody cares about sick violinists.

Off-topic nonsense.

Please don't post in this thread again.