I’ll add this, now that you’ve confirmed your views RE: voluntary vs nonvoluntary abortion reduction (mainly referring to “that would still be as good as saving millions of lives, which I think dominates concerns of personal autonomy”)
Taking your analogy from this comment, which you use to argue against family planning despite “the aims we want—women’s health + autonomy”
As an analogy, many Ethiopians suffer from malnutrition. Let’s say well-meaning EAs sponsored an “EA steakhouse” in Ethiopia, as steak can provide crucial nutrients to people in extreme poverty. There seem to be other interventions, including GAIN’s Salt Iodization program, which also target malnutrition, without the possible serious negative externality of animal suffering. In that case, I think we should temporarily suspend our support for the steakhouse while we evaluate the relevant moral considerations. In the meanwhile, Ethiopians can still eat steak at non-EA steakhouses if they’d like (as other well-meaning altruists have sponsored steakhouses of their own), or acquire steak through other means—we wouldn’t be reducing their ability to voluntarily eat steak if they so choose. Our goal—combating malnutrition—remains the same, but we choose the intervention to accomplish that goal without the possible negative externality.
If I apply this same logic to your goal of increasing population size, you could plausibly say that interventions that empower women who want to have more children or reduce barriers that they face are equivalent to GAIN’s salt iodisation programme, and interventions that reduce the ability for women who don’t want children to have abortions are equivalent to the steakhouse? If so, shouldn’t you choose the intervention to accomplish the goal of increasing population size that didn’t have the negative externality?
I’m not actually endorsing using this argument generally for all cause prioritisation considerations, but just pointing out that if you’re happy to use this analogy to argue against family planning, it seems like it could now be also used to argue against interventions that reduce access to abortion, if your goal is to “increase future humans”? So am curious about the inconsistency there and what other considerations you’re taking into account.
And I guess this makes me update towards your your goal of pushing against abortion being higher than I previously had in mind. May be misinterpreting you though!
My aim is to increase the amount of happy future people. Reducing abortion is one way to do that, but I’ve been clear in a few comments that I would endorse other interventions over reducing abortions:
“optimizing for increasing the amount of children that families want and are able to happily have is probably better than voluntary abortion reduction as a means of increasing the amount of near-term future people” (source)
“I think voluntary abortion reduction is just one of many ways to increase the amount of near-term future people. The post’s “In Our Personal Lives” section includes the suggestions you gave and more, which I agree are arguably more effective than voluntary abortion reduction in accomplishing that goal.” (source)
You weren’t able to see this, but I also agree-voted the following comments by others:
“the best solution here is incentivizing people to voluntarily have more children—e.g. child tax credits, maternity/paternity leave, etc” (source)
“I’d be tentatively more comfortable with measures taken to facilitate increasing the number of wanted pregnancies, including legalizing paid surrogacy services and subsidizing childcare and adoption of older children.” (source)
Everything I wrote about prioritizing other causes over voluntary abortion reduction goes double for involuntary abortion reduction, because of personal autonomy concerns. So yes, I endorse applying the same argument here in favor of prioritizing EA intervention without a negative externality regarding personal autonomy. I don’t think there’s an inconsistency here, because I’ve made it clear that I would prioritize “interventions that empower women who want to have more children or reduce barriers that they face.”
I’ll add this, now that you’ve confirmed your views RE: voluntary vs nonvoluntary abortion reduction (mainly referring to “that would still be as good as saving millions of lives, which I think dominates concerns of personal autonomy”)
Taking your analogy from this comment, which you use to argue against family planning despite “the aims we want—women’s health + autonomy”
If I apply this same logic to your goal of increasing population size, you could plausibly say that interventions that empower women who want to have more children or reduce barriers that they face are equivalent to GAIN’s salt iodisation programme, and interventions that reduce the ability for women who don’t want children to have abortions are equivalent to the steakhouse? If so, shouldn’t you choose the intervention to accomplish the goal of increasing population size that didn’t have the negative externality?
I’m not actually endorsing using this argument generally for all cause prioritisation considerations, but just pointing out that if you’re happy to use this analogy to argue against family planning, it seems like it could now be also used to argue against interventions that reduce access to abortion, if your goal is to “increase future humans”? So am curious about the inconsistency there and what other considerations you’re taking into account.
And I guess this makes me update towards your your goal of pushing against abortion being higher than I previously had in mind. May be misinterpreting you though!
My aim is to increase the amount of happy future people. Reducing abortion is one way to do that, but I’ve been clear in a few comments that I would endorse other interventions over reducing abortions:
“optimizing for increasing the amount of children that families want and are able to happily have is probably better than voluntary abortion reduction as a means of increasing the amount of near-term future people” (source)
“I think voluntary abortion reduction is just one of many ways to increase the amount of near-term future people. The post’s “In Our Personal Lives” section includes the suggestions you gave and more, which I agree are arguably more effective than voluntary abortion reduction in accomplishing that goal.” (source)
You weren’t able to see this, but I also agree-voted the following comments by others:
“the best solution here is incentivizing people to voluntarily have more children—e.g. child tax credits, maternity/paternity leave, etc” (source)
“I’d be tentatively more comfortable with measures taken to facilitate increasing the number of wanted pregnancies, including legalizing paid surrogacy services and subsidizing childcare and adoption of older children.” (source)
Everything I wrote about prioritizing other causes over voluntary abortion reduction goes double for involuntary abortion reduction, because of personal autonomy concerns. So yes, I endorse applying the same argument here in favor of prioritizing EA intervention without a negative externality regarding personal autonomy. I don’t think there’s an inconsistency here, because I’ve made it clear that I would prioritize “interventions that empower women who want to have more children or reduce barriers that they face.”