Having experienced (a comparatively smooth and uncomplicated) pregnancy and delivery, ‘discomfort’ feels wildly inadequate.
For example, rates of post partum depression are about 10%, higher in adverse circumstances. Depression is one illness where a person’s QALY’s are plausibly <0
As well as being woefully inadequate to describe what’s involved physically, the analysis here doesn’t address the other harms and distress that would be involved in term pregnancy, delivery and relinquishing of a child. The woman’s family, personal and work-life would all be affected in difficult to predict and probably negative ways. For example, what if you are a casual worker with no maternity allowance? Almost certainly lose shifts as you get more pregnant, probably lose your job.
rates of post partum depression are about 10%, higher in adverse circumstances. Depression is one illness where a person’s QALY’s are plausibly <0
Apparently even “Major depressive disorder: severe episode” only costs 0.655 QALYs.. If we generously assume every instance of post partum depression is ‘major’ and ‘severe’, and generously assume it lasts for 3 years, we get 30.10.655 = 0.1965 QALYs. As we were generous on both multiplicative assumptions, it’s plausible the true number is much much lower. Yet even if it was as high as 0.1965, that’s not enough to justify aborting a fetus if you ascribed even a 1% chance of it having moral value.
So perhaps my wording choice could have been better—but I don’t think it actually makes much difference to the object-level issue.
there are different ways of scoring QALYs—most of the constructs seem pretty dumb on the face of it that advantage people with small issues across the board compared to people with life-cripplingly severe issues along one dimension.
Having experienced (a comparatively smooth and uncomplicated) pregnancy and delivery, ‘discomfort’ feels wildly inadequate.
For example, rates of post partum depression are about 10%, higher in adverse circumstances. Depression is one illness where a person’s QALY’s are plausibly <0
As well as being woefully inadequate to describe what’s involved physically, the analysis here doesn’t address the other harms and distress that would be involved in term pregnancy, delivery and relinquishing of a child. The woman’s family, personal and work-life would all be affected in difficult to predict and probably negative ways. For example, what if you are a casual worker with no maternity allowance? Almost certainly lose shifts as you get more pregnant, probably lose your job.
Apparently even “Major depressive disorder: severe episode” only costs 0.655 QALYs.. If we generously assume every instance of post partum depression is ‘major’ and ‘severe’, and generously assume it lasts for 3 years, we get 30.10.655 = 0.1965 QALYs. As we were generous on both multiplicative assumptions, it’s plausible the true number is much much lower. Yet even if it was as high as 0.1965, that’s not enough to justify aborting a fetus if you ascribed even a 1% chance of it having moral value.
So perhaps my wording choice could have been better—but I don’t think it actually makes much difference to the object-level issue.
there are different ways of scoring QALYs—most of the constructs seem pretty dumb on the face of it that advantage people with small issues across the board compared to people with life-cripplingly severe issues along one dimension.
Untrained childbirth scores much higher on pain severity than almost all medical problems—at least on one pain scale http://www.thblack.com/links/RSD/McGill500x700.jpg