I don’t think I am entering the abortion debate by assigning moral value to unborn lives any more than I’m entering any other debate that considers unborn or potential lives (e.g. the ethics of moderate drinking while pregnant, the ethics of having children in space, or the repugnant conclusion).
I think I’m comfortable with having mostly sidestepped the maternal health issues, given that I was focusing on interventions that are robustly good for the mother. If I were to do a stronger and more robust cost-effectiveness analysis, or tackle more controversial interventions where the interests of the mother and child clearly diverged, I would consider maternal health outcomes separately. I hope my piece makes it clear that we should prioritise uncontroversial and neglected interventions that treat or prevent painful conditions that women suffer from.
Although I do recognise that the ethics of pregnancy, lived experience of the mother, and autonomy trade-offs are important considerations, I’m afraid that attempting to tackle these here would have made this an impossibly long post!
Hi Klara, thanks for the response.
I don’t think I am entering the abortion debate by assigning moral value to unborn lives any more than I’m entering any other debate that considers unborn or potential lives (e.g. the ethics of moderate drinking while pregnant, the ethics of having children in space, or the repugnant conclusion).
I think I’m comfortable with having mostly sidestepped the maternal health issues, given that I was focusing on interventions that are robustly good for the mother. If I were to do a stronger and more robust cost-effectiveness analysis, or tackle more controversial interventions where the interests of the mother and child clearly diverged, I would consider maternal health outcomes separately. I hope my piece makes it clear that we should prioritise uncontroversial and neglected interventions that treat or prevent painful conditions that women suffer from.
Although I do recognise that the ethics of pregnancy, lived experience of the mother, and autonomy trade-offs are important considerations, I’m afraid that attempting to tackle these here would have made this an impossibly long post!