I think what you’re saying is basically right, and it’s an important topic to discuss further.
This is more of a technical point, but I don’t you need to worry about whether a miscarriage or abortion kills a human. Rather, you the relevant question is whether the being killed matters. (My own intuition isn’t very strong that beings very early in development matter morally a lot, but I recognize that many people have the opposite intuition and I’m a bit moved by arguments based on potential (like from Don Marquis), and I’m willing to assign a probability to their views being right given this.)
This post by Michael Huemer has some interesting and relevant numerical comparisons that include abortion and miscarriage. https://fakenous.net/?p=225
From time to time, I think about exploring this topic in greater depth, trying to understand the potential effects of different interventions (e.g., potential for new forms of birth control to reduce number of unintended fertilizations, potential for different kinds of interventions—like better economic support—to reduce the frequency of the choice of abortion, and I’m not sure what for miscarriage but you list some good ideas worth exploring), but I haven’t ever gotten further than adding to a notes file. If you or someone else reading this is interested in exploring this area further, I’d be interested in collaborating. The collaboration would help me find motivation.
If we care only about human beings that are already in existence, (which I think is something that most people can agree on), what then matters is what counts as a human being.
In a more political vein, I personally am staunchly in the camp of increased birth control, though my views on abortion (as shown here) are tenuous at best. There are many birth control methods, such as IUDs, that dramatically decrease the chance of an unintended pregnancy (to near 0), yet the public decides to promote greater condom use for their ability to protect against STDs. Both are needed.
If we care only about human beings that are already in existence, (which I think is something that most people can agree on)
I think most people do care about future generations—if they didn’t, people probably wouldn’t worry very much about climate change, for example, as the vast majority of the costs are >100 years out. Equally I think most people would reject a trade that gave someone currently alive $1, in return for a baby being born into terrible pain in a year’s time. Longtermist EAs are outliers in how much they care about future generations, but I don’t think most people care literally zero.
Working on abortion or miscarriage probably wouldn’t even make sense if you didn’t care about future people, since the work you do now wouldn’t help fetuses or embryos that exist right now much. Any work you do would have to pay off in less than 9 months to have any value at all. That includes this post.
It could make sense on certain more complex person-affecting views or views that otherwise assign badness to death, so I would assume SaraAzubuike would adopt some such view.
My bad, I meant to say, “If we can all agree to care about human beings that are already in existence, what then matters is what counts as a human being.” The split between many EAs is just as you say—some care about future lives a lot; some don’t. However, I think what we all can agree upon is that humans that exist now are extremely important. Thus, what then matters is what counts as a human being.
I think what you’re saying is basically right, and it’s an important topic to discuss further.
This is more of a technical point, but I don’t you need to worry about whether a miscarriage or abortion kills a human. Rather, you the relevant question is whether the being killed matters. (My own intuition isn’t very strong that beings very early in development matter morally a lot, but I recognize that many people have the opposite intuition and I’m a bit moved by arguments based on potential (like from Don Marquis), and I’m willing to assign a probability to their views being right given this.)
This post by Michael Huemer has some interesting and relevant numerical comparisons that include abortion and miscarriage. https://fakenous.net/?p=225
From time to time, I think about exploring this topic in greater depth, trying to understand the potential effects of different interventions (e.g., potential for new forms of birth control to reduce number of unintended fertilizations, potential for different kinds of interventions—like better economic support—to reduce the frequency of the choice of abortion, and I’m not sure what for miscarriage but you list some good ideas worth exploring), but I haven’t ever gotten further than adding to a notes file. If you or someone else reading this is interested in exploring this area further, I’d be interested in collaborating. The collaboration would help me find motivation.
Thanks for your post!
Thanks for the link. It’s good to get a sense of the scale of things. I hadn’t realized that induced abortions were such a large number.
The reason I wanted to use the “human” bit was that I think the argument about “potential” is flawed. If we care about depriving the future potential of something, then we would oppose girls education on the basis that it reduces fertility (i.e. potential human beings). See https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YSz8JsCi3u7fupWHX/is-ea-just-about-population-growth.
If we care only about human beings that are already in existence, (which I think is something that most people can agree on), what then matters is what counts as a human being.
In a more political vein, I personally am staunchly in the camp of increased birth control, though my views on abortion (as shown here) are tenuous at best. There are many birth control methods, such as IUDs, that dramatically decrease the chance of an unintended pregnancy (to near 0), yet the public decides to promote greater condom use for their ability to protect against STDs. Both are needed.
I think most people do care about future generations—if they didn’t, people probably wouldn’t worry very much about climate change, for example, as the vast majority of the costs are >100 years out. Equally I think most people would reject a trade that gave someone currently alive $1, in return for a baby being born into terrible pain in a year’s time. Longtermist EAs are outliers in how much they care about future generations, but I don’t think most people care literally zero.
Working on abortion or miscarriage probably wouldn’t even make sense if you didn’t care about future people, since the work you do now wouldn’t help fetuses or embryos that exist right now much. Any work you do would have to pay off in less than 9 months to have any value at all. That includes this post.
It could make sense on certain more complex person-affecting views or views that otherwise assign badness to death, so I would assume SaraAzubuike would adopt some such view.
My bad, I meant to say, “If we can all agree to care about human beings that are already in existence, what then matters is what counts as a human being.” The split between many EAs is just as you say—some care about future lives a lot; some don’t. However, I think what we all can agree upon is that humans that exist now are extremely important. Thus, what then matters is what counts as a human being.