Oh absolutely. IVF results in the creation and destruction (or death by negligence) of many ooctocytes and blastocysts per cycle and it requires many cycles to get a successful implantation. On a per person basis a woman doing IVF is responsible for the death of many more fertilized eggs than a woman seeking an abortion. It's remarkable that the pro-life movement invests so few resources in convincing women paying thousands of dollars and undergoing unpleasant hormonal therapy to adopt instead.
The 'life at fertilization' position casts a funny light on the reality of human biology where 40-60% of embryos die before being born. If blastocysts are human beings than the leading cause of death is failure to be born, improving access to health care that makes fertilized eggs more likely to be born could become a leading pro-life effective altruist cause. However, older couples may be engaging in reckless oocyte endangerment whenever they have unprotected sex since they are placing a human in an environment where it will almost certainly die.
It's remarkable that the pro-life movement invests so few resources in convincing women paying thousands of dollars and undergoing unpleasant hormonal therapy to adopt instead
Did you mean "convince women to carry to term and surrender it for adoption rather than aborting"? Pro-life organizations spend a lot of their time and money doing this exact thing (as in, offer resources to help mothers carry to term even if abortion would be prudent from a socio-financial standpoint, even if they'd ultimately end up adopting it out- they'd find a prospective parent instantly given the below).
If you don't, I think they've correctly assessed that the demand for healthy babies to adopt massively exceeds the domestic supply in Western nations, so women/families looking to adopt have to make very large sacrifices. (And note that it's specifically adopting babies; children (3-8) are a much harder sell, and adults [13+, try as we might to pretend otherwise] are obviously not children thus they basically never get adopted.)
One of these sacrifices is to get a domestic model with a salvage title (usually fetal alcohol syndrome), which require way more maintenance and never perform quite right. Hence, it can be a rational choice to spend that maintenance fee on extra pulls of the IVF slot machine.
The other one of these sacrifices is to get an import model from a country that has a lot of orphans; Haiti is a popular choice for the NA market as it offers a convenient way to inspect the goods on offer before purchase (SEA/African models are trickier to inspect in this way). And while it's true that the TCO on a normal import model will likely be less than a marginal domestic one, there are a few other complications that come with it (namely, that these models have certain immutable traits that render the fact the kid isn't yours permanently and blatantly obvious). Revealed preferences of the population reveal this matters so much that people who want to adopt but can't afford IVF only seldom choose these models, and I don't think it's really a failure of pro-life organizations to not be trying that hard to change this.
Does anyone actually think like this? You know I can think of one Rat catholic that might take ideas seriously enough to follow through to that conclusion. But as far as I'm aware, most profilers who believe life begins at conception aren't utilitarians, they're into natural law. They're still going to hate IVF- but they won't really get started on it as a result of the number of zygotes being high, it will be a response to normalization of a practice outside of natural law. Its not a response to the number of zygotes being killed, its a response to the number of people killing the zygotes.
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Notes -
Oh absolutely. IVF results in the creation and destruction (or death by negligence) of many ooctocytes and blastocysts per cycle and it requires many cycles to get a successful implantation. On a per person basis a woman doing IVF is responsible for the death of many more fertilized eggs than a woman seeking an abortion. It's remarkable that the pro-life movement invests so few resources in convincing women paying thousands of dollars and undergoing unpleasant hormonal therapy to adopt instead.
The 'life at fertilization' position casts a funny light on the reality of human biology where 40-60% of embryos die before being born. If blastocysts are human beings than the leading cause of death is failure to be born, improving access to health care that makes fertilized eggs more likely to be born could become a leading pro-life effective altruist cause. However, older couples may be engaging in reckless oocyte endangerment whenever they have unprotected sex since they are placing a human in an environment where it will almost certainly die.
Did you mean "convince women to carry to term and surrender it for adoption rather than aborting"? Pro-life organizations spend a lot of their time and money doing this exact thing (as in, offer resources to help mothers carry to term even if abortion would be prudent from a socio-financial standpoint, even if they'd ultimately end up adopting it out- they'd find a prospective parent instantly given the below).
If you don't, I think they've correctly assessed that the demand for healthy babies to adopt massively exceeds the domestic supply in Western nations, so women/families looking to adopt have to make very large sacrifices. (And note that it's specifically adopting babies; children (3-8) are a much harder sell, and adults [13+, try as we might to pretend otherwise] are obviously not children thus they basically never get adopted.)
One of these sacrifices is to get a domestic model with a salvage title (usually fetal alcohol syndrome), which require way more maintenance and never perform quite right. Hence, it can be a rational choice to spend that maintenance fee on extra pulls of the IVF slot machine.
The other one of these sacrifices is to get an import model from a country that has a lot of orphans; Haiti is a popular choice for the NA market as it offers a convenient way to inspect the goods on offer before purchase (SEA/African models are trickier to inspect in this way). And while it's true that the TCO on a normal import model will likely be less than a marginal domestic one, there are a few other complications that come with it (namely, that these models have certain immutable traits that render the fact the kid isn't yours permanently and blatantly obvious). Revealed preferences of the population reveal this matters so much that people who want to adopt but can't afford IVF only seldom choose these models, and I don't think it's really a failure of pro-life organizations to not be trying that hard to change this.
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Does anyone actually think like this? You know I can think of one Rat catholic that might take ideas seriously enough to follow through to that conclusion. But as far as I'm aware, most profilers who believe life begins at conception aren't utilitarians, they're into natural law. They're still going to hate IVF- but they won't really get started on it as a result of the number of zygotes being high, it will be a response to normalization of a practice outside of natural law. Its not a response to the number of zygotes being killed, its a response to the number of people killing the zygotes.
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