This comment is bound to spark a lot of response - it hits sensitive issues that we 'the masses' may have some worries about. It speaks to a populist conspiracy fear - that there is a "them" that wants to get rid of "us". That conspiracy is not actually proven.

Like; it an 'emotional' argument but doesn't actually propose solutions. I'd like to hear more about solutions or actual push back rather than simply push the emotion button over a conspiracy fear.

True it is The Economist, which can be suspect in that it tends to reflect something of an agenda of a minority population with a lot of power. I am in fact willing to believe that there is a small group of people who would prefer there to be less people period. But it still doesn't feel unreasonable to examine our morals. I'd prefer to build coherent arguments to oppose the concepts if these are bad concepts. Not just push the emotion button a lot.

If a single family has to make decisions about having more babies or not based on budget, then why can't a planet full of people decide how many people should exist period? Why is that "bad" to even think about?

And why not 'scan' an unborn child for diseases and terminate in some cases? I don't think it implicitly is 'defacto bad' as the sentence implies. This second comment attempts to tie larger issues of population to more narrow fear based issues around abortion. It's creating a gordian knot. It's not a great argument.

Is there a way to make an argument that isn't mashing the emotion button over and over? And that isn't trying to conflate far and near issues together into an unresolvable emotional morass?

I do favor a pro-choice stance, but I want to avoid strictly falling down into a pro-choice versus pro-life stance since that is hugely loaded politically with people on the left hugely inflamed at the restriction in women's freedoms, and people on the right ostensibly outraged that every single life is not seen as sacred. As a left leaning person I do think the people on the right are not charitable, and I do think they don't actually care about lives, but rather they are using babies as emotional tools to try manipulate emotions and hold onto power. So I tend to think pro-lifers are manipulative - basically I see them as trying to manipulate me with their rhetoric. But I am willing to acknowledge that it is worth trying to think about this more; a charitable read has to include room for some pro-life arguments that human life is indeed sacred. The problem with the scanning statement however is that it leads us only to an emotional argument - and those are not solvable today. It might be nice to propose an idea or solution, not just (again) hit the emotion button.

If we have a mental model of a potential child as having the best possible outcomes, having the most joyous life, contributing the most - then of course it is an utter tragedy to deprive that child of a possible life. But I think our mental model of life should be more like what we actually see in nature; a garden that is riotous and constantly and eagerly grows, and we weed and prune that garden constantly. I'd argue that we are 'helpess gardeners' - we cannot avoid gardening, we cannot avoid stepping in the garden, we can only choose where to step. The solution space I see here that bridges left and right values is to decide who the decision maker is around if a child lives or dies. I'd argue the best decision maker is the person most closely involved and most entangled with that life - basically the mother. I'd pour dollars funding and energy into the people with utereses - rather than into judges and police. Any structural imperialism that deprives the mother of agency and turns them into a baby factory feels cruel to me but also is clearly not valuing the mommas life itself. If people on the left or the right want to fund that mother, educate that mother, argue with that mother - then they should empower the uterus owner as much as they wish - pay for schooling, education, rhetoric - whatever they want to expose them to - but delegate the power of the decision to the uterus owner. People on the right then get a chance to bombard that poor uterus owner with their campaign - but so be it - at least the energy, money and attention are placed in the right spot. This is more diverse, close to the ground, grass roots and reflects more the nature of the world - that decisions should be distributed and local - more ecological. In any world where uterus owners were male this would instantly be the case - we only consider denying women agency because we come from a patriarchy.

Probably in fact - if we want to solve far field issues like planetary population concerns, then education is probably the best way in general. The system as a whole can load balance births with locally available resources if it is allowed to do so I believe.