I admire you for repeatedly pushing a point that is so ideologically awkward for people, but thatâs not quite right. Sometimes family planning just changes when people have kids, rather than how many. In those cases, the other gains from it are good on all sensible views, and thereâs no objection based on âcreating happy people is goodâ.
However, as far as Iâm aware, EA-recommended family planning interventions do decrease the amount of children people have. If these charities benefit farmed animals (and I believe they do), decreasing the human population is where these charitiesâ benefits for farmed animals come from.
Iâve estimated that both MHI and FEM prevent on the order of 100 pregnancies for each maternal life they save. Unless my estimates are way too high (please let me know if theyâre wrong; Iâm happy to update!), even if only a very small percentage of these pregnancies would have resulted in counterfactual births, both of these charities would still on net decrease the amount of children people have.
To the extent that they change timing rather than total number, the benefits (e.g. reduced maternal mortality) are probably overstated also, because you some of the maternal deaths you thought you prevents were actually just delayed.
Despite this I think Ariel is correct and these interventions are reducing the number.
I admire you for repeatedly pushing a point that is so ideologically awkward for people, but thatâs not quite right. Sometimes family planning just changes when people have kids, rather than how many. In those cases, the other gains from it are good on all sensible views, and thereâs no objection based on âcreating happy people is goodâ.
I appreciate that, and I agree with you!
However, as far as Iâm aware, EA-recommended family planning interventions do decrease the amount of children people have. If these charities benefit farmed animals (and I believe they do), decreasing the human population is where these charitiesâ benefits for farmed animals come from.
Iâve estimated that both MHI and FEM prevent on the order of 100 pregnancies for each maternal life they save. Unless my estimates are way too high (please let me know if theyâre wrong; Iâm happy to update!), even if only a very small percentage of these pregnancies would have resulted in counterfactual births, both of these charities would still on net decrease the amount of children people have.
To the extent that they change timing rather than total number, the benefits (e.g. reduced maternal mortality) are probably overstated also, because you some of the maternal deaths you thought you prevents were actually just delayed.
Despite this I think Ariel is correct and these interventions are reducing the number.