I'm not sure I could force myself to shoot A; but I think saving B is better than saving neither.
I'm aware that some people would say that an infant isn't really human; but I think that once it is born the argument that the pregnant person has the right to control their own body is no longer a valid reason to kill the infant, the option to have the infant adopted is now available. I think my views on failing to assist a person in labour to reach the best outcome possible given the circumstances are the same as my views on failing to provide healthcare in any other situation - vis; health care should be provided where possible (remembering that it isn't always possible to achieve the most best of all possible worlds, on the best with what you actually have).
I think it's reasonable to suggest that it would be nice if people had fewer children; perhaps even to provide extra ... stuff.. to people who refrain from having a great many children. I do not feel it is acceptable to refuse to provide basic things such as adequate housing, nutrition, and education to any child; for any reason.
On a previous post other people argued eloquently for bribing, or even co-ercing people with serious substance abuse issues into using long-term contraception on the grounds that such substance abuse harms unborn infants. I reluctantly concede that this consideration is powerful enough to warrant disregarding the wishes of the uterus owning person as to what they wish to do with their uterus. In other circumstances I would be very wary of bribery and outright against coercian (such as fines, or risk of homelessness).
I don't believe that, given a free choice in the matter, every person capable of bearing children will suddenly decide to birth a child every other year for as long as they can physically keep it up. There are a huge number of reasons why people don't have loads of children, some purely internal most social to some degree. I'm not totally anti social pressures that constrain family size; just the sort of hugely coercive policies like "throw pregnant 16 year olds out of school" or "if you have 5 children you can't get housing benefits, go live on the street" that really leave people with very little choice; factors like "I enjoy having shiny tech gadgets" and "I want to be able to pay to send all my children to Eton" are not really worrying. Also of course there are factors such as "I am interested in pursuing things other than having children".
In most places it seems that removing the direct social consequences of having too few children (such as ensuring that children are less likely to die young so you can have 2 and expect both will probably live to be adults; such as ensuring that care of the elderly does not fall entirely onto their children) family sizes shrink dramatically in only a few generations. Most people in the UK seem to prefer to have nice lifestyles than expend all their effort in raising 20 children.
UK fertility rate is already below replacement (google suggests 1.9 vs 2.1).
no subject
I'm aware that some people would say that an infant isn't really human; but I think that once it is born the argument that the pregnant person has the right to control their own body is no longer a valid reason to kill the infant, the option to have the infant adopted is now available. I think my views on failing to assist a person in labour to reach the best outcome possible given the circumstances are the same as my views on failing to provide healthcare in any other situation - vis; health care should be provided where possible (remembering that it isn't always possible to achieve the most best of all possible worlds, on the best with what you actually have).
I think it's reasonable to suggest that it would be nice if people had fewer children; perhaps even to provide extra ... stuff.. to people who refrain from having a great many children. I do not feel it is acceptable to refuse to provide basic things such as adequate housing, nutrition, and education to any child; for any reason.
On a previous post other people argued eloquently for bribing, or even co-ercing people with serious substance abuse issues into using long-term contraception on the grounds that such substance abuse harms unborn infants. I reluctantly concede that this consideration is powerful enough to warrant disregarding the wishes of the uterus owning person as to what they wish to do with their uterus. In other circumstances I would be very wary of bribery and outright against coercian (such as fines, or risk of homelessness).
I don't believe that, given a free choice in the matter, every person capable of bearing children will suddenly decide to birth a child every other year for as long as they can physically keep it up. There are a huge number of reasons why people don't have loads of children, some purely internal most social to some degree. I'm not totally anti social pressures that constrain family size; just the sort of hugely coercive policies like "throw pregnant 16 year olds out of school" or "if you have 5 children you can't get housing benefits, go live on the street" that really leave people with very little choice; factors like "I enjoy having shiny tech gadgets" and "I want to be able to pay to send all my children to Eton" are not really worrying. Also of course there are factors such as "I am interested in pursuing things other than having children".
In most places it seems that removing the direct social consequences of having too few children (such as ensuring that children are less likely to die young so you can have 2 and expect both will probably live to be adults; such as ensuring that care of the elderly does not fall entirely onto their children) family sizes shrink dramatically in only a few generations. Most people in the UK seem to prefer to have nice lifestyles than expend all their effort in raising 20 children.
UK fertility rate is already below replacement (google suggests 1.9 vs 2.1).