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2/ It is really only worth answering in the context of a society that believes it has unlimited resources to care for and raise an unlimited number unwanted children to be good adults. I think much of the debate in the US comes back to whether we are actually in that position.

3/ If we're not in that position, we have to answer whether we can justify the high costs of creating unwanted children. Regardless, we must answer in what cases does one person have a duty to another person/animal/property, to what extent, for how long, at what personal cost.

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4/ Presumably, most of us would go through the effort to help a lost pet or phone get home. Most of the US has no Duty to Rescue. We have no expectation of a bystander to help save the life of another person in danger. So, why are the unborn exceptional?

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9:42 AM · May 23, 2022Twitter Web App

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5/ Is there a spectrum of potential <> actual value that we should consider? Valuing the life of even a 1-month old baby equal to that of a fully functioning adult seems wrong. The baby has potential but also requires significant investment to become a good, productive person.

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6/ BTW, many in the West would be surprised by how young unsheltered kids can become fully self-sufficient. Travel to some developing countries and you'll find 4-yos running around hustling tourists, selling trinkets, impressing with knowledge of global geography and languages.

7/ When does a human life become a person, and when does someone lose personhood? Are different "rights" (obligations on others) gained or lost at different stages? Does having a "right" to life mean others have an uncapped obligation to keep you alive? Who? What about quality?

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8/ Can a fetus have bodily "autonomy" while it is dependent on a host body? What is the point of being sentient if you are reduced to an incubator? Pregnancy itself is limiting, and the birth can be physically destructive. Where do we draw the line with sentient parasites?

9/ If society values the potential person, where are the market incentives for mother? The mother is an actual person, with many other real opportunities to create value for society that are mutually exclusive with carrying, birthing and caring for a child.

10/ Economic calculations aside, we come back to a lesser-of-two-evils Trolly Problem. Is the potential of an unborn human ever enough to overcome the bodily autonomy of the actual person? And, if it is, who but the host/mother could have the moral authority to pull the lever?

11/ 1 in a million people will use abortions as a casual form of contraception. You can't stop them, and these are probably not people you want having kids, anyway. For most others, pulling the lever is going to be a difficult choice nobody else could make or would want to make.

12/ Policies targeting 0-death increase misery. We should focus on improving the quality of life for living people. Human life is special but it's not sacred. If it were sacred, we'd honor it by being more controlling about the environments we allow children to be born into.

13/ There are a bunch of extreme counterexamples I haven't covered such as: * 50 year gestation period * 100lb baby * sentience at conception * constant implantation by airborne spores * Children of Men * human hosts in superior alien lifecycles * vampire & zombie feeding reqs