This post is written as part of the Draft Amnesty Week; it's an idea I've been thinking about for a while. Most of the figures here are rough, “best-guess” estimates, so please suggest improvements!

Summary

• Most global health charities and evaluations focus on Lives Saved or DALYs (Disability-Adjusted Life Years), which generally only focus on post-birth outcomes
• However, according to (in my view) reasonable assumptions, birth is an arbitrary dividing line, and unborn children and potential lives also have moral worth
• I divide worldviews into a simplified "pro-life" person-affecting worldview (early life has moral worth, foetuses count as people) and a simplified "pronatalist" non-person-affecting worldview (the more humans, the better, regardless of whether they exist). I also consider an anti-natalist worldview briefly for comparison
• I focus on global health interventions, and find that:
  • If unborn lives are given moral weight, many mainstream interventions - malaria prevention [...]

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Outline:

(00:24) Summary

(01:44) Overview Table

(02:05) Intro

(03:07) Why research this?

(05:05) View A: Early life has moral worth; foetuses count as people

(06:19) Pregnancy Loss Numbers & Causes

(08:26) Hypertensive Disorders

(09:28) Maternal malnutrition and anaemia

(11:39) Infections (other than malaria)

(13:46) Malaria

(14:49) So, AMF?

(17:30) Abortion and explicitly pro-life charities

(19:46) View B: More people = better world; potential lives are intrinsically valuable

(21:20) STI screening and treatment (chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis)

(22:35) Schistosomiasis control

(23:59) Safe delivery and post-abortion care

(25:33) View C... What if youre anti-natalist?

(26:46) Conclusion

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First published:

Source:

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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