ColdButtonIssues and I discuss how to do the most good in the world and what the Effective Altruism movement gets wrong (and right!) about markets, culture, and religion
I think both the right and left fail to fully address what an incredibly bad outcome abortion is. The right of course recognizes it as bad and wants to ban it, but doesn't consider other approaches that could make it less likely. I suspect there are many possible incentives, technologies, institutions, and attempts at persuasion that could improve the situation either in place of or in addition to restrictions on availability.
The left argues for easy access to abortion, largely by pointing to some genuinely difficult circumstances that women find themselves in. Insofar as liberals argue that abortion is a really bad outcome, but it's the least bad of the alternatives so we should allow it to be legal and work really hard to reduce it in other ways I can sympathize. In practice this is not what I see the left doing and abortion has come to be treated as a positive good in and of itself that should never under any circumstances come with any negative associations or stigma attached.
A lot of people's immediate reaction to this criticism is probably "more birth control", but that does little to address the broader issue of fertility you and I are concerned about. Part of fully recognizing how bad abortion is means finding ways to promote more births, not just more effective ways to avoid unplanned births.
Any suggestions? My IRL friend also suggested a name change- haha.
Yeah, I saw the comment thread by you on ACX!
I think both the right and left fail to fully address what an incredibly bad outcome abortion is. The right of course recognizes it as bad and wants to ban it, but doesn't consider other approaches that could make it less likely. I suspect there are many possible incentives, technologies, institutions, and attempts at persuasion that could improve the situation either in place of or in addition to restrictions on availability.
The left argues for easy access to abortion, largely by pointing to some genuinely difficult circumstances that women find themselves in. Insofar as liberals argue that abortion is a really bad outcome, but it's the least bad of the alternatives so we should allow it to be legal and work really hard to reduce it in other ways I can sympathize. In practice this is not what I see the left doing and abortion has come to be treated as a positive good in and of itself that should never under any circumstances come with any negative associations or stigma attached.
A lot of people's immediate reaction to this criticism is probably "more birth control", but that does little to address the broader issue of fertility you and I are concerned about. Part of fully recognizing how bad abortion is means finding ways to promote more births, not just more effective ways to avoid unplanned births.