We legalise abortion because it helps people live their lives on their own terms, which is good (and some small cases where abortions are medical procedures that prevent death or physical harm directly). Young people can take risks and be stupid without it changing the course of their lives; or in more extreme cases, escape their abusers.
So, in the sort of Quixotic spirit of trying to avoid this thread getting out of hand, I want to be constructive. I think that such an obviously fraught and tense issue deserves more thought and care than a quick BOTEC. I get the broader point that you’re making, but you’re making it in a pretty crude way that feels insensitive to the very real harms people face due to restricted abortion access; I am not sure that the comparison was needed to make that point either.
I disagree. I think it’s an important principle of EA that it’s socially acceptable to explore the implications of weird ideas, even if they feel uncomfortable, and to try to understand the perspective of those you disagree with. I want this forum to be a place where posts like this can exist.
I think that’s a false dichotomy. It should be possible to have uncomfortable/weird ideas here while treating them with nuance and respect. (Are you instead trying to argue that having a higher bar for these kinds of posts is a bad idea?)
Equally, the original post doesn’t try to understand the perspective that abortion might be net good for the world. So I think the crux might actually be more about who you think should shoulder the burden of attempting-to-understand.
I see generally this may be good, but there are cases that require more socially aware education to be discussed. Additionally, this discussion seems to be from a view that is unfortunately only negatively affect or restrict half of the humans; it seems to be easy for the humans who are not affected to discuss on restricting; the barrier is unfairly lower unfortunately by human nature. I do think writers need to bear some responsibility for knowledge/background learning
You make a good point, and I’m not advocating for restricted abortion access in any way.
I was more trying to take the POV of those protestors; under their model of the world, each abortion is a murder(potentially with great suffering associated). I wanted to find out whether abortion would be an important issue to work on given that starting assumption that gave no weight to the future of the parents or children.
What I found was that, even when using the strongest case of abortion(albeit, that didn’t incorporate the potential value of a future human life), it still paled in comparison to other issues such as animal welfare.
Thank you for your constructive criticism! I recognize that this is a contentious issue, and I’ll try to soften the language a bit and clarify my very overly-simplifying assumptions.
I don’t think this is the strongest case for abortion, taking the world view of the protesters as a given. If you presented this BOTEC to them, I think it’s very likely that they would tell you that they care much more about humans than chickens.
That is what I understood Russell to be saying? See:
I realized that if you were even arguing about abortion, then you must value human fetuses(which look a lot like chicken fetuses) 8,650 times more than tortured, murdered chickens.
I agree with @huw, thanks for the thoughtful and constructive comment.
Adding to it: We also legalise abortions to protect not only the would-be parents, but also the children who are born to parents who might not be prepared (mentally, physically, economically) to care for them.
We legalise abortion because it helps people live their lives on their own terms, which is good (and some small cases where abortions are medical procedures that prevent death or physical harm directly). Young people can take risks and be stupid without it changing the course of their lives; or in more extreme cases, escape their abusers.
So, in the sort of Quixotic spirit of trying to avoid this thread getting out of hand, I want to be constructive. I think that such an obviously fraught and tense issue deserves more thought and care than a quick BOTEC. I get the broader point that you’re making, but you’re making it in a pretty crude way that feels insensitive to the very real harms people face due to restricted abortion access; I am not sure that the comparison was needed to make that point either.
I am opposed to adding more barriers to doing BOTECs, they’re already difficult enough and rare enough as it is. I appreciate that OP did a BOTEC.
I disagree. I think it’s an important principle of EA that it’s socially acceptable to explore the implications of weird ideas, even if they feel uncomfortable, and to try to understand the perspective of those you disagree with. I want this forum to be a place where posts like this can exist.
I think that’s a false dichotomy. It should be possible to have uncomfortable/weird ideas here while treating them with nuance and respect. (Are you instead trying to argue that having a higher bar for these kinds of posts is a bad idea?)
Equally, the original post doesn’t try to understand the perspective that abortion might be net good for the world. So I think the crux might actually be more about who you think should shoulder the burden of attempting-to-understand.
I am surprised and disappointed that this got downvoted; this comment to me is a perfectly reasonable and respectful discussion
I see generally this may be good, but there are cases that require more socially aware education to be discussed. Additionally, this discussion seems to be from a view that is unfortunately only negatively affect or restrict half of the humans; it seems to be easy for the humans who are not affected to discuss on restricting; the barrier is unfairly lower unfortunately by human nature. I do think writers need to bear some responsibility for knowledge/background learning
You make a good point, and I’m not advocating for restricted abortion access in any way.
I was more trying to take the POV of those protestors; under their model of the world, each abortion is a murder(potentially with great suffering associated). I wanted to find out whether abortion would be an important issue to work on given that starting assumption that gave no weight to the future of the parents or children.
What I found was that, even when using the strongest case of abortion(albeit, that didn’t incorporate the potential value of a future human life), it still paled in comparison to other issues such as animal welfare.
Thank you for your constructive criticism! I recognize that this is a contentious issue, and I’ll try to soften the language a bit and clarify my very overly-simplifying assumptions.
I don’t think this is the strongest case for abortion, taking the world view of the protesters as a given. If you presented this BOTEC to them, I think it’s very likely that they would tell you that they care much more about humans than chickens.
That is what I understood Russell to be saying? See:
I agree with @huw, thanks for the thoughtful and constructive comment.
Adding to it: We also legalise abortions to protect not only the would-be parents, but also the children who are born to parents who might not be prepared (mentally, physically, economically) to care for them.