I am not clear from your explanation on whether health impacts are talking about the effect on the mother or the effect on the stillborn child. If you are considering the effect on the stillborn child, it seems that you should consider increasing reproduction as approximately as good as decreasing stillbirths.
it seems crazy to imagine a baby dying during labour as anything other than a rich, full potential liife lost, but if we extend that logic too far backwards then we might imagine any moment that we are not reproducing to be costing one “life’s worth” of DALYs. Time discounting is a difficult science
It seems to me that you have to accept one of these or the other. Treating a failed conception as ~0 DALYs but a stillbirth as ~5 DALYs doesn’t make any sense to me. Either they should both be ~0, or they should both be ~70. But if the 5 DALYs number is the effect on the mother, then that’s fair. (Although I’m guessing the effect on the mother would be much smaller than that?)
(I have no comment on the rest of the investigation as it’s somewhat technical and outside of my expertise. It looks like you’re looking at the right questions, at least.)
You’ve highlighted an issue I agree with- that this is something of a grey area where one’s personal position on complex moral issues can make a big difference to how effective you think this problem area might be.
I am not clear from your explanation on whether health impacts are talking about the effect on the mother or the effect on the stillborn child.
In the article, I’m defining the health impacts of a stillbirth as the years of health, or healthy life, lost to the child who is stillborn- this, as you point out, is very hard to define. Any health impacts on the mother (not related to economic or wellbeing impacts) were not described particularly fully in the readings I found, although there may be more research that I haven’t seen; I suspect they would be hard to entangle from the health problems which may have contributed to, rather than caused, a stillbirth.
It seems to me that you have to accept one of these or the other.
If I was smarter, I’d have a better impression on where I fell on this issue. What I hope to point out in the article is that taking either position to an extreme results in a position that clashes with my, and I suspect many people’s, moral intuition. Probably further thought on this is required by people who have more experience with time discounting/health economics/actuarial sciences than me.
If you are considering the effect on the stillborn child, it seems that you should consider increasing reproduction as approximately as good as decreasing stillbirths.
Presumably, some people do think this. I think for me to have a strong position on it I’d have to have strong positions on other, more fundamental moral questions that I haven’t come to good answers for.
You’re right; surely abortion, miscarriage, and stillbirth are all equally bad for the embryo/fetus/child and should either be counted as 0 or −70 depending on whether you count these as people or not. (Unless there’s some kind of Shapley value argument where an abortion of a 5-week embryo counts as only a fractional loss of life because it might have miscarried anyway even if there had not been an abortion, but I don’t think anyone is proposing such an accounting here.)
It’s frustrating that people downvoted you to −6 agreement but no one bothered to explain what they disagreed with.
I am not clear from your explanation on whether health impacts are talking about the effect on the mother or the effect on the stillborn child. If you are considering the effect on the stillborn child, it seems that you should consider increasing reproduction as approximately as good as decreasing stillbirths.
It seems to me that you have to accept one of these or the other. Treating a failed conception as ~0 DALYs but a stillbirth as ~5 DALYs doesn’t make any sense to me. Either they should both be ~0, or they should both be ~70. But if the 5 DALYs number is the effect on the mother, then that’s fair. (Although I’m guessing the effect on the mother would be much smaller than that?)
(I have no comment on the rest of the investigation as it’s somewhat technical and outside of my expertise. It looks like you’re looking at the right questions, at least.)
Hi Michael. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
You’ve highlighted an issue I agree with- that this is something of a grey area where one’s personal position on complex moral issues can make a big difference to how effective you think this problem area might be.
In the article, I’m defining the health impacts of a stillbirth as the years of health, or healthy life, lost to the child who is stillborn- this, as you point out, is very hard to define. Any health impacts on the mother (not related to economic or wellbeing impacts) were not described particularly fully in the readings I found, although there may be more research that I haven’t seen; I suspect they would be hard to entangle from the health problems which may have contributed to, rather than caused, a stillbirth.
If I was smarter, I’d have a better impression on where I fell on this issue. What I hope to point out in the article is that taking either position to an extreme results in a position that clashes with my, and I suspect many people’s, moral intuition. Probably further thought on this is required by people who have more experience with time discounting/health economics/actuarial sciences than me.
Presumably, some people do think this. I think for me to have a strong position on it I’d have to have strong positions on other, more fundamental moral questions that I haven’t come to good answers for.
You’re right; surely abortion, miscarriage, and stillbirth are all equally bad for the embryo/fetus/child and should either be counted as 0 or −70 depending on whether you count these as people or not. (Unless there’s some kind of Shapley value argument where an abortion of a 5-week embryo counts as only a fractional loss of life because it might have miscarried anyway even if there had not been an abortion, but I don’t think anyone is proposing such an accounting here.)
It’s frustrating that people downvoted you to −6 agreement but no one bothered to explain what they disagreed with.