In general, people are much more valuable to society alive than dead. This does not apply to unwanted babies.
Why does the fact that the parent does not want the baby imply that it has little value to society? I have a friend that was adopted (which seems to be the main alternative to abortion) that I value very much. If he was aborted as a fetus, then I would (probably) be much worse off than I am. Are him and I (and everyone he engages in mutually beneficial exchange with) not a part of society that is thereby gaining value by his non-death.
Well, sure he’s valuable NOW, but that’s after years and years of investment. It’s not that being unwanted takes a baby from super valuable to negative, babies are just not very valuable regardless.
Yes, but the same could be said of children and the elderly (that they are currently not very valuable to society), but it is still illegal to murder them.
The elderly arguably have grand bargains protecting them. Young people pay into Social Security to meet the promised payments to current old people, in the expectation that future young people will do the same for them, and so on.
Like wills. Why should we execute wills that leave millions to pet dogs or something? The dead person is dead, beyond any caring. Just take their bequest and do something useful with it! But of course, if we did that then people writing wills no longer trust will executors and will disperse their assets in life or just waste them. A grand Newcomb-like bargain.
No such bargains protect children. They haven’t provided anything and won’t be in a position to for a long time after a huge investment. (What’s the estimate of the net society-wide cost to produce a finished high-schooler? A few million? Highly non-trivial, let’s say.)
People on average increase in societal value from conception to childhood, and then it gets more complicated from there depending on how they turn out. And yes, typically their value declines as they become elderly.
But, as in your example with your adopted friend, even a baby that starts out unwanted, if society invests a bit in its welfare, will soon become part of the social fabric and so on and thereby become valued.
Certainly there are some people who literally nobody likes, but even then, there’s still reason B.
As it happens, my best friend was adopted as well. But I hardly think the limiting factor in the number or quality of my friends is society’s production of babies.
Why does the fact that the parent does not want the baby imply that it has little value to society? I have a friend that was adopted (which seems to be the main alternative to abortion) that I value very much. If he was aborted as a fetus, then I would (probably) be much worse off than I am. Are him and I (and everyone he engages in mutually beneficial exchange with) not a part of society that is thereby gaining value by his non-death.
Well, sure he’s valuable NOW, but that’s after years and years of investment. It’s not that being unwanted takes a baby from super valuable to negative, babies are just not very valuable regardless.
Yes, but the same could be said of children and the elderly (that they are currently not very valuable to society), but it is still illegal to murder them.
The elderly arguably have grand bargains protecting them. Young people pay into Social Security to meet the promised payments to current old people, in the expectation that future young people will do the same for them, and so on.
Like wills. Why should we execute wills that leave millions to pet dogs or something? The dead person is dead, beyond any caring. Just take their bequest and do something useful with it! But of course, if we did that then people writing wills no longer trust will executors and will disperse their assets in life or just waste them. A grand Newcomb-like bargain.
No such bargains protect children. They haven’t provided anything and won’t be in a position to for a long time after a huge investment. (What’s the estimate of the net society-wide cost to produce a finished high-schooler? A few million? Highly non-trivial, let’s say.)
People on average increase in societal value from conception to childhood, and then it gets more complicated from there depending on how they turn out. And yes, typically their value declines as they become elderly.
But, as in your example with your adopted friend, even a baby that starts out unwanted, if society invests a bit in its welfare, will soon become part of the social fabric and so on and thereby become valued.
Certainly there are some people who literally nobody likes, but even then, there’s still reason B.
As it happens, my best friend was adopted as well. But I hardly think the limiting factor in the number or quality of my friends is society’s production of babies.