My essay on abortion and public policy has appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of the Independent Review, where it will gestate for nine months behind a paywall.
In the meantime, here is a late draft, identical for all practical purposes to the published version. Please note that the Independent Institute (which publishes the Independent Review) holds the copyright, and all requests for reprint rights should go to them, not to me.
“Even without Rawlsianism, the rest of the argument still applies. If you believe there are too few babies being born (either because the unborn and unconceived have rights that command our respect, or because you believe that a larger population will improve the quality of life for the rest of us, or for some other reason), you might want large conception subsidies.”
Coase, you when you explain Coase’s ideas, and thoughtful Pigouvians, all have argued that you might want the subsidies but also that you might not. You want them if baby-conceivers have the least costly solution to the problem of too few babies. Otherwise, you don’t want to subsidize them — you instead want to preserve your incentive to keep looking for your alternative, less costly way to solve the problem.
The same applies to this:
“Otherwise (for example, if you are concerned about overpopulation), you might want smaller subsidies, or no subsidies, or even negative subsidies (otherwise known as taxes).”
And I bet the same applies to Rawlsian contracts.
Biopolitical (#1): I fully agree with you, which accounts for the appearance of the word “might” in both of the passages you quote.