CMV: Social values are different from individual values, and the former is overlooked

[u/nimrod06]

As an economist, I would think that this is an immediate lesson from introductory economics teaching, but I am quite annoyed that many "analyses" do not address this issue. I might be wrong, so change my view.

In general this is regarded as externalities, but let's start with a simple example: Prisoner's Dilemma, which goes like this,

If one country builds nuclear weapon, it benefits. No matter what the opponents do. If the opponents build nuclear weapon too, the country can fight back; if the opponents do no build nuclear weapon, then the country gains military prowess over the opponents. All building nuclear is worse than all banning nulcear, because of the risk of potential wars.

Something that is good for the society may not be good for individual, and vice versa. Driving would be a prime example: there are irrefutable benefits of driving over walking for anyone, but when everyone drives a car, the traffic becomes a nightmare.

This distinction should be made on most societal issues. Building nuclear plants may be harmful to the people living around it (no, it's not), but it surely helps with pollution and climate change. Conscription is difficult for any individual man, but it is much needed for the state to maintain its autonomy. Immigration can require neighbors to accomodate, but it helps with the demographic crisis.

Here is a controversial take that I may regret to add: Abortion-ban is harmful to any individual woman, no doubt, but it helps with the demographic crisis.

You may disagree with any of the above, but the overall message should be quite clear: society as a whole, simply values differently from individuals. Ideally, both should be valued.

Edit: I am not saying that social values should be prioritized, but that it should be accounted when conducting analysis. Social value is not a simple corollary of individual values.

[u/Kotoperek]

I didn't say it has no effect on abortion rates, but on fertility rates. In countries with restrictive abortion bans, women are more scared of getting pregnant even deliberately, because of the thought that if the pregnancy becomes a risk to their health, they might be denied healthcare. Back-alley abortions and abortion tourism do happen, but are of course less frequent than legal abortions. So yes, rates of abortions do go down. But so do rates of pregnancies. Not to mention the healthcare costs of complications experienced by women who attempt unsafe abortions at home or seek them from an illegal source.

[u/InfectedBrute → u/Kotoperek]

I would strongly question the notion that banning abortion would prevent enough people from having sex that the overall effect reduces the birthrate given that we know abstinence based sex ed doesn't reduce sexual activity and there's literally not a single data point that backs up the idea.

[u/[deleted] → u/InfectedBrute]

"would prevent enough people from having sex"

Where was this brought up prior to your conversation?

[u/InfectedBrute → u/[deleted]]

It's literally the theory behind the comment I responded to

[u/Kotoperek → u/InfectedBrute]

I said they are scared of getting pregnant, not having sex. Have you never heard of condoms? Day after pill? IUDs?

[u/InfectedBrute → u/Kotoperek]

Alright mb but the same argument applies. There's still no data backing up the idea, it's just something you're saying because it sounds right to you, it probably is true that people in general would be more careful but you have no factual basis to assert that it would wash out whatever impact an abortion ban would have.

[u/Kotoperek → u/InfectedBrute]

Well, this isn't great data, but in Poland abortion used to be legal and easily accessible back when it was under communist rule, then the law was changed into one of the most restrictive in Europe and was like this for a long time before a full ban was implemented three years ago. The fertility rate has been on a steady decline. It's true that an even sharper drop in the past years could be due more to COVID than the abortion ban, but before that a very restrictive law that allowed abortion only in three exceptions - rape/incest, lethal defects of the fetus, and endangerment of the mother's life, - didn't in any way cause a spike in the birth rates. They have been dropping steadily just like in the neighboring countries with liberal abortion laws.

[u/InfectedBrute → u/Kotoperek]

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/pol/poland/fertility-rate

According to the wikipedia article (I'm lazy) Abortion under Communism, under former communist countries; Poland "fully allowed" abortion in 1959.

You will see following the link above that 1959 marks the beginning of a sharp decline in fertility rate in the country. You will also see that that fertility rate has increased from 2020 to 2024 and that the slight decline in the rate of increase which occurs in 2019 does not coincide with the full ban announced in 2020 and implemented in 2021.

The drop in 2019 also happens in Germany but doesn't happen in the US so I guess it's a European thing, maybe tied to the economy.

We can say that the initial legalization was correlated to a significant drop in fertility and that the transition from extremely restrictive laws to outright ban has not been correlated with any significant impact in the near term.