Thank you, I agree with a lot of the underlying motive (once upon a time I wrote a research proposal about this, but never got into it). Where I disagree:
This is already mentioned in the comments, but my understanding was that improved contraceptive access is one of the best ways to lower abortions so moral concerns about abortions drive me towards supporting family planning charities.
Women will often not want to have children—so we should ensure they don’t conceive in the first place instead of terminating their pregnancies.
What I would add:
Something I find lacking in your description is how much more fetuses matter morally over time in my view at least. Merely terminating an unwanted pregnancy faster already has a lot of value. Many people seem to be oblivious to the drastic changes an embryo undergoes in the first trimester. Terminating at 4 weeks would mean aborting a being which is less than 1mm big and does not appear particularly human. At 12 weeks you have 5cm big little one (not counting the legs!) which very much looks like human baby.
I think most people who oppose abortion (and I guess probably many who don’t) would say that the morphology or size of the embryo isn’t going to have a big impact (if any) on its moral status.
On family planning, I explain the moral considerations behind the proposal to temporarily suspend support for family planning charities in more detail here.
Women will often not want to have children—so we should ensure they don’t conceive in the first place instead of terminating their pregnancies.
I agree with you completely that preventing a person from being born through contraception is much better than through abortion, because the former is much better for the woman’s physical, mental, and economic health. However, the loss of a future person is common in both cases, and I elaborate on why I think that’s a moral concern here.
Something I find lacking in your description is how much more fetuses matter morally over time in my view at least.
Your observation is very fair. Your description of the disvalue of fetal death best matches the time-relative interest account (TRIA), which you can read more about here. I do bring this measure up in a footnote, but you’re right that it could have warranted a more thorough treatment in the post. TRIA best matches our intuition that the fetus’s moral significance increases through the pregnancy, and through moral uncertainty, I would justify the same intuition. However, I personally find the deprivationist approach of purely measuring the disvalue of death through the amount of (adjusted) life years prevented to be more intuitive.
Thank you, I agree with a lot of the underlying motive (once upon a time I wrote a research proposal about this, but never got into it). Where I disagree:
This is already mentioned in the comments, but my understanding was that improved contraceptive access is one of the best ways to lower abortions so moral concerns about abortions drive me towards supporting family planning charities.
Women will often not want to have children—so we should ensure they don’t conceive in the first place instead of terminating their pregnancies.
What I would add: Something I find lacking in your description is how much more fetuses matter morally over time in my view at least. Merely terminating an unwanted pregnancy faster already has a lot of value. Many people seem to be oblivious to the drastic changes an embryo undergoes in the first trimester. Terminating at 4 weeks would mean aborting a being which is less than 1mm big and does not appear particularly human. At 12 weeks you have 5cm big little one (not counting the legs!) which very much looks like human baby.
I think most people who oppose abortion (and I guess probably many who don’t) would say that the morphology or size of the embryo isn’t going to have a big impact (if any) on its moral status.
I do (respectfully, I hope) disagree regarding contraception as well—I tried to give some reasons for that here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6ma8rxrfYs3njyQZn/a-case-for-voluntary-abortion-reduction?commentId=GoTAdivEoWeurn5Fv (forgive me for being basic and not knowing how to link to comments properly)
Hi Denise, thank you for your thoughtful comment!
On family planning, I explain the moral considerations behind the proposal to temporarily suspend support for family planning charities in more detail here.
I agree with you completely that preventing a person from being born through contraception is much better than through abortion, because the former is much better for the woman’s physical, mental, and economic health. However, the loss of a future person is common in both cases, and I elaborate on why I think that’s a moral concern here.
Your observation is very fair. Your description of the disvalue of fetal death best matches the time-relative interest account (TRIA), which you can read more about here. I do bring this measure up in a footnote, but you’re right that it could have warranted a more thorough treatment in the post. TRIA best matches our intuition that the fetus’s moral significance increases through the pregnancy, and through moral uncertainty, I would justify the same intuition. However, I personally find the deprivationist approach of purely measuring the disvalue of death through the amount of (adjusted) life years prevented to be more intuitive.