Utilitarianism

[Die Neue Zeit]

So far in modern social discussions, debates tend to go between social conservatives and social "liberals," from abortion to LGBT rights to stem cell research. However, what about utilitarian considerations?

Abortion

Given Russia's shrinking demographic, is anyone here willing to stomach bans on abortions to boost the population like what Stalin did before? Given India's booming demographic, is anyone here willing to "encourage" abortions like the Chinese and the one-child policy (which actually consists of fines and not abortions at gunpoint as perceived in the West)?

Crime and Punishment

The politically correct debate here is between pro-death and pro-jails. However, even outright executions cost money (poison for injections, electrical stuff for electrocutions, etc.). Jail terms for the worst offenders mean than they get to live at society's expense (even a potentially socialist one). Is anyone here willing to stomach penal labour like I have in high school (hey, the Bolsheviks did this in the Civil War for common criminals, POWs, class and political enemies, corrupt officials, etc.)? At least, in regards to those deserving the death penalty (but no urgency for immediate execution, thus the "death row"), the harsher forms of penal labour are a cheap way to "execute" them, while extracting labour value from them (as exploitative as that sounds, I know).



P.S. - I am well aware of Marx's criticism of various views of utility, but he didn't criticize utilitarianism itself. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#Karl_Marx.27s_argument_concerning_t he_importance_of_human_nature)

[BurnTheOliveTree]

I'm a rule utilitarian. :o

I agree with Bentham's "two principle masters" idea, pleasure and pain.


Given Russia's shrinking demographic, is anyone here willing to stomach bans on abortions to boost the population?

No. An entire generation of unwanted, unloved children does not resolve anything at all. It would make all concerned miserable.


Is anyone here willing to stomach penal labour

As long as it's carefully moderated. Can't have mass murderers going round litter-picking. But in general, labour is good for the psyche I think, plus the material benefits of that labour. So this is in a sense good for all those involved.

Anyway, you shouldn't feel the need to have a disclaimer about what Marx thought. He ain't infallible man. :)

-Alex

[apathy maybe]

Given Russia's shrinking demographic, is anyone here willing to stomach bans on abortions to boost the population? Given India's booming demographic, is anyone here willing to "encourage" abortions like the Chinese and the one-child policy (which actually consists of fines and not abortions at gunpoint as perceived in the West)?Migration. What BTOT said, unwanted children are the key. In over populated areas, forced birth control causes other problems.

Disclaimer: I'm not a utilitarian. I believe in freedom, even if that means people are free to be unhappy. However, my answer stands even if I were a utilitarian.



I'm a rule utilitarian. ohmy.gifBan.

Edit: OK, what the fuck, I'll expand.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ But what about orphanages? Surely more of those can be created.

[Nihilistic]

Hammer



Given Russia's shrinking demographic, is anyone here willing to stomach bans on abortions to boost the population like what Stalin did before?

Banning abortions is missing the point, the country is in economic ruin and there is a devastatingly ubiquitous alcohol abuse problem. A ban on abortion, from a Utilitarian standpoint would be morally wrong. Seeing as how many are unemployed, only to drown there sorrows in drink, you are not doing a child a favor by birthing it into such a sordid state of affairs.



Given India's booming demographic, is anyone here willing to "encourage" abortions like the Chinese and the one-child policy (which actually consists of fines and not abortions at gunpoint as perceived in the West)?

It might seem extreme, but perhaps social wellbeing would be maximized in China and India if an entire generation was prevented from having kids. The case could be very convincing, be it from pain of poverty to global warming and resource consumption.


Is anyone here willing to stomach penal labour like I have in high school (hey, the Bolsheviks did this in the Civil War for common criminals, POWs, class and political enemies, corrupt officials, etc.)? At least, in regards to those deserving the death penalty (but no urgency for immediate execution), the harsher forms of penal labour are a cheap way to "execute" them, while extracting labour value from them (as exploitative as that sounds, I know).

I have always wondered why society is so afraid of prisons working, I would suspect that in working there time would be easier spent, as they would have something to invest themselves in. This is not to advocate a "Gulag-like" system, but a system where inmates are allowed to work if they so choose. This could possibly improve the life of the criminal, and offset the social costs of keeping prisoners long-term.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Utilitarian considerations are leftist considerations. Law utilitarianism is a logical conclusion from the utilitarian philosophy. Therefore, there emerges a question regarding liberty. Maximizing utility seems to require a sacrifice of utility in individual situations in order to preserve freedoms.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Liberty, to my mind, is secondary to happiness/utiltity.

If sacrificing liberty means my happiness is adversely affected, then it's the fact that I'm unhappier that bothers me, not my lack of freedom.

-Alex

[Brekisonphilous]

I support penal labour as well, but only in criminals with high rates of recidivism and in an equal, caring, and fair way. I don't support the death penalty because it is useless and falls in the lines of "cruel and unusual" for a punishment.
Why not put these people to work doing humanitarian aid like projects to rebuild areas of slums in inner cities, restoring forests, and other relief work?
Not only does it result in the criminal giving back to society, it could also perhaps give them incentive to be more charitable and concerned about what is going on in the world.

If one expects the person to rot in prison for the rest of their life, why? what good is it doing society when keeping the convict in prison is actually just a drain on taxpayers income? When solitary confinement is the worst thing you could possibly do the psyche of a person? Give the prisoners worth and show them how important their contributions to society can be and maybe they will begin to feel feel good about what they are doing and be more inclined to choose a better path in life where their impact is positive rather than contributing to the problems of society.

[Genosse Kotze]

In our philosophy class this semester we covered both John Stuart Mill (utilitarian) and John Dewey (pragmatist), and although I didn't especially enjoy either of their writings, John Dewey made what I considered to be a very appropriate assessment of utilitarianism.

In the Moral Writings of John Dewey he says that the entire Kantian system of the of the categorical imperative and always acting from duty is an absolutist system produced by feudalism. What Dewey finds half-way redeeming about utilitarianism is that it, in part, does away with these notions of a single, universal standard and replaces it with the Greatest Happiness Principal--an idea that Dewey claims is reflective of the capitalist epoch in which it was written.

I always hate it when philosophers and other theorists espouse things that skirt Marxist ideas. These two arguments seem to come right out of the Communist Manifesto where Marx wrote: "the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class." And I think Dewey is correct in his assessment of utilitarianism as a capitalist morality--even though Dewey doesn't really see this as a problem. The Greatest Happiness principal, where everybody's goal is to go out and pursue pleasure is very compatible with the capitalist need for mindless, irrational consumers. Where Dewey takes issue with utilitarianism does actually have to do with it being a capitalist morality, although he fails to recognize it. He says that although it does away with the single external, universal Truth to be found in Kant and the Leviathan, it merely replaces it with a plurality of pleasures to be pursued in the same way. The same way bourgeois revolutions did away with absolutist monarchies and the ridged dominance of the Church (according to Marx anyway--one needn't look long to see that religion is alive and well and still influential), merely to replace their outmoded dominance for the broader bourgeois dominance.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

The Greatest Happiness principal, where everybody's goal is to go out and pursue pleasure is very compatible with the capitalist need for mindless, irrational consumers.

I can the see the point you're making, but I'm going to have to disagree.

It's been pretty much conclusively proved that wealth, accumulation of posessions, etc, does nothing to your happiness level, based on self report studies. The adaptation principle means that everyone simply normalises the environment they are in, regardless of whether they live in poverty or in a mansion.

So in fact, mindless consumerism wouldn't be a product of a genuine search for happiness.

Autonomy, social stability, lack of environmental noise, and some other things actually do effect it.

-Alex

[Whitten]

Abortion Laws: Banning abortion would be a bad idea, it will just give rise to illegal clinics, a black market, and a rise in child poverty. We need to treat the cause, which is massive unemployment in Russia. The cause is capitalism, install socialism and things get better. If things are still bad implement advantages to families with children (one of the good things Hoxha did).

Penal Labour: Definatly. All serious offenders should be forced into hard labour, there is no reason society should have to pay for them, and every reason why they should try to get something back from them.

[gilhyle]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 04:35 am



P.S. - I am well aware of Marx's criticism of various views of utility, but he didn't criticize utilitarianism itself. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#Karl_Marx.27s_argument_concerning_t he_importance_of_human_nature)
WIthout an effective concept of 'utility', utilitarianism is void, unless you move to rule utilitarianism and even then how do you decide your rules ?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Whitten+April 28, 2007 09:41 am--> (Whitten @ April 28, 2007 09:41 am) The cause is capitalism, install socialism and things get better. [/b]
Like others and I said before, socialism proper cannot be achieved in any one country alone. Not even my "revolutionary stamocap" (see "Stamocap" thread in the Theory forum), as opposed to Lenin's "primitive stamocap," can be achieved in any one country alone.


Nihilistic
This is not to advocate a "Gulag-like" system, but a system where inmates are allowed to work if they so choose. This could possibly improve the life of the criminal, and offset the social costs of keeping prisoners long-term.

You forget this necessity:

"We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it; now in this situation, the first maxim of your policy ought to be to lead the people by reason and the people's enemies by terror." (Robespierre)

I see penal labour as a deterrent and an economic benefit, NOT just the mere possibility of the latter. As for improving the lives of hard criminals, forget them without having to waste bullets or poisons on them.



As a side note, the increase in Gulag populations coincided with the First Five Year Plan and NOT the purges (gun-obsessed executions).

[hoopla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 08:41 pm
Liberty, to my mind, is secondary to happiness/utiltity.

If sacrificing liberty means my happiness is adversely affected, then it's the fact that I'm unhappier that bothers me, not my lack of freedom.

-Alex
aren't you an existentiaist tho?

tbh, i'm not sure why my anarchists dislike utilitrianism, does anyone know and is capable of explaining?

[BurnTheOliveTree]

aren't you an existentiaist tho?

I have an affection for existentialism, but to be honest I've never been able to fully comprehend what their claims are.

-Alex

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I want nothing to do with a society that tolerates penal labour - the penal system needs guards, and we all know what kind of pig-like mentality they have.

[LSD]

Given Russia's shrinking demographic, is anyone here willing to stomach bans on abortions to boost the population like what Stalin did before?

Why?

According to Wikipedia, there are 22 countries with lower population densities than Russia, several of them in far better economic condition.

So, whatever Russia's problems may be, and there are many of them, I don't think adding more kids to the mix is going to do anything to solve them.

And even if it were, Russia's birth rate isn't actually that anomalous. That is, children are already being born. The problem is that too many people are dying. And stopping abortion isn't going to do a thing to reverse that trend.


Given India's booming demographic, is anyone here willing to "encourage" abortions like the Chinese and the one-child policy (which actually consists of fines and not abortions at gunpoint as perceived in the West)?

There's actually a very simple and noncoercive way of increasing the abortion rate, and it has nothing to do with government policy; it's called development.

Because the more money people have and the more educated they are, the less likely they are to get pregnant and the more likely they are to have an abortion when they do.

And I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't trust the bourgeois governments to administrate a program as invasive as the one you're proposing.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Neither do I, but such could be implemented with less skepticism under the DOTP. :)

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 12:21 am
There's actually a very simple and noncoercive way of increasing the abortion rate, and it has nothing to do with government policy; it's called development.

Because the more money people have and the more educated they are, the less likely they are to get pregnant and the more likely they are to have an abortion when they do.
While I agree with most of your post, I will nitpick this. Most developed countries have implemented welfare systems that allow people to earn some money during joblessness and after retirement. It is not lack of education that makes people have too many children in underdeveloped countries; it is a perfectly rational calculation that many children are a warrant that you will be taken care of when you are to old to do it by yourself.

Luís Henrique

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 06, 2007 02:12 pm
Most developed countries have implemented welfare systems that allow people to earn some money during joblessness and after retirement. It is not lack of education that makes people have too many children in underdeveloped countries; it is a perfectly rational calculation that many children are a warrant that you will be taken care of when you are to old to do it by yourself.

Luís Henrique
^^^ And the supreme irony is that, by that logic, welfare systems back in their heyday could have easily encouraged more births (though child care and child welfare), thus magnifying the potential of your being taken care of by someone else. More children -> more workers in the workforce, more tax revenues, and other increased economic activity.

[darktidus]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 11:03 pm
tbh, i'm not sure why my anarchists dislike utilitrianism, does anyone know and is capable of explaining?
I can speak only for myself as an anarchist - utilitarianism can justify atrocious crimes. Now while J.S. Mill's utilitarianism somewhat avoids a good portion of the ridiculous decisions Bentham's utilitarianism can justify - but the system, still, can justify disgusting crimes in the name of the greater good.

While generally we make decisions based on utilitarianism ideas in our lives as a matter of course, there are many situations in which we can and often do ignore the rules in favour of some undefinable adherence to a law of the 'good'. How and when does a rule utilitarian break the rules they've created, for example?

[BurnTheOliveTree]

How and when does a rule utilitarian break the rules they've created, for example?

I'll try and answer, as a rule utilitarian. Basically, the reason I'm not an act utilitarian is pragmatic - one is not always in a position to carefully judge the impact of a given action. For example:

Say you have a rule, "Don't murder innocent people". This almost always minimises suffering and maximises happiness. However - Supposing, just supposing hypothetically there were a child, unknowingly about to push a button that launched a nuclear missile. You have a gun, and are too far away to reach her. Non-lethal shooting might cause muscle spasm, and the button gets pushed. At this point, the rule is in direct contradiction with what is sensible, and needs to be suspended.

-Alex

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 10:43 am
Supposing, just supposing hypothetically there were a child, unknowingly about to push a button that launched a nuclear missile. You have a gun, and are too far away to reach her. Non-lethal shooting might cause muscle spasm, and the button gets pushed. At this point, the rule is in direct contradiction with what is sensible, and needs to be suspended.
You really gotta praise the imaginative abilities of utilitarians. The situations the can imagine to justify their theories are really fantastic.

Obviously, whenever utilitarian reasoning comes to a reasonable suggestion about what is to be done, we discover that the same suggestion can be derived from Kantian cathegorical imperative. The converse not being true.

Luís Henrique

[BurnTheOliveTree]

I was just using that because extreme scenarios usually demonstrate these thigns a little better.

Say you have the rule "Don't steal" and a friend has an asthma attack in a shopping centre. It's okay to break the rule and steal an inhaler. That's quite realistic.

-Alex

[darktidus]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 07:22 am
I was just using that because extreme scenarios usually demonstrate these thigns a little better.

Say you have the rule "Don't steal" and a friend has an asthma attack in a shopping centre. It's okay to break the rule and steal an inhaler. That's quite realistic.

-Alex
Generally, I'd agree that most of us live our lives by some sort of form of rule utilitarianism. The problem is however, when intuition overrides this. The whole idea of primae facie for example, I'd probably kill two people to save one family member, I suspect many others would.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

I'm sure you would, but from an objective view, (If there is such a thing) it is irrational to do so.

Is it an ethical action to kill two people to save one? No. Because it's your family member, your emotions beat your rationality into a snivelling pulp on the floor, and you kill the two people. It's an example of bad ethics. :o

-Alex

P.S. That probably makes me sound callous and non-human. The fact is I'd probably break my own codes and save my family member as well, I just wouldn't be able to stop myself.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Nihilistic+April 26, 2007 10:10 pm--> (Nihilistic @ April 26, 2007 10:10 pm)
Hammer

Given Russia's shrinking demographic, is anyone here willing to stomach bans on abortions to boost the population like what Stalin did before?

Banning abortions is missing the point, the country is in economic ruin and there is a devastatingly ubiquitous alcohol abuse problem. A ban on abortion, from a Utilitarian standpoint would be morally wrong. Seeing as how many are unemployed, only to drown there sorrows in drink, you are not doing a child a favor by birthing it into such a sordid state of affairs. [/b]
Sorry for the long wait, but Rosa got me thinking on utilitarianism just now.

That alcoholism issue seeped in during the Brezhnev era, and historically a temporary return to "conservative" values (reversing Khrushchev's legalization of abortion, and a genuinely "Leninist" cracking down on alcoholism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_Russian_Empire_and_Soviet_Union) like the Bolshevik continuation of the czarist prohibition) would have done the population a demographic good.


It might seem extreme, but perhaps social wellbeing would be maximized in China and India if an entire generation was prevented from having kids. The case could be very convincing, be it from pain of poverty to global warming and resource consumption.

Note to LSD ("as invasive as the one you're proposing"): And I thought my utilitarian position was extreme! :blink:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I really cannot guess how or why anything I have said could get you thinking about thus quintessentially bourgeois moral theory, Hammer. :blink:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+October 04, 2007 10:42 pm--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ October 04, 2007 10:42 pm) I really cannot guess how or why anything I have said could get you thinking about thus quintessentially bourgeois moral theory, Hammer. :blink: [/b]
^^^
Rosa in SWP thread
The problem with utilitarianism, in all its forms, is that it is a consequentialist theory.

And as such it is a hostage to fortune -- it thus suffers from all the weaknesses of inductive logic, and largely for the same reasons.

Marxists should not, therefore, touch it even with someone else's barge pole.

Check this out:

http://www.marxists.org/subject/mayday/soviet/decree.html


Monuments erected in honour of the tsars and their servants and of no historical or artistic interest, should be removed from the streets and squares, some stored away and others put to some utilitarian use.

Like the idea that there are logical connections between certain things, events, etc, what I said above are instances where there are logical courses of action with very predictable benefits. Luis mentioned utilitarians stretching their logic many times, but that doesn't mean that utility as a concept is useless (even Marx said so).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hammer:


Like the idea that there are logical connections between certain things, events, etc, what I said above are instances where there are logical courses of action with very predictable benefits. Luis mentioned utilitarians stretching their logic many times, but that doesn't mean that utility as a concept is useless (even Marx said so).

There are no logical connections between events (or rather, there would be only if reality were mind), unless you mean those that might exist between descriptions of events.

But, either way, I am not sure what that has got to do with utilitarianism.

And I think Lenin was using the word 'utilitarian' in a different sense.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenst[email protected] 05, 2007 04:20 pm
And I think Lenin was using the word 'utilitarian' in a different sense.
Sorry for the long-delayed bump, but I only covered alcohol, and not drugs (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=74332&view=findpost&p=1292439750).

[Zurdito]

It seems to me that utilitarianism is easily abused and can often be used as a justification for reformism, int hat it doesn't take into account context. Therefore we have people justifying some measures against civil liberties by a capitalist state, on the grounds that a workers state may have to take the same measures.

If Russia was a workers state and we needed to raise the birth rate in order to raise living standards for workers, this would be different to us supporting the capitalist state doing the same thing to keep its system afloat, by forcing the workers to make an extra effort to resolve problems which could just be solved by redistributing the capitalists own wealth.

[Comrade Rage]

Given Russia's shrinking demographic, is anyone here willing to stomach bans on abortions to boost the population like what Stalin did before?No.


Is anyone here willing to stomach penal labour like I have in high school (hey, the Bolsheviks did this in the Civil War for common criminals, POWs, class and political enemies, corrupt officials, etc.)? At least, in regards to those deserving the death penalty (but no urgency for immediate execution), the harsher forms of penal labour are a cheap way to "execute" them, while extracting labour value from them (as exploitative as that sounds, I know).Big yes.

[palotin]

Marx may not have criticized utilitarianism directly, but he was certainly unflinching in his assault on the iconic utilitarians famously calling Bentham the "pedantic, leather-tongued oracle of the ordinary bourgeois intelligence in the nineteenth-century". Alain Badiou's book Ethics offers an interesting and provocative critique of how utilitarianism, suggesting that, even at its most radical (Peter Singer for instance), it can never be other than a rhetorical justification for reformist liberalism. From a utilitarian perspective only those specific things that produce obvious displeasure can be labeled evil. Thus, structural violence cannot be examined, though its most flagrant degredations can be 'dealt with' by throwing large sums of money at them in sacrificial, self-righteous ecstasy, while revolutionary activity that involves even minimal amounts of direct action and violence must be called evil. Utilitarianism will always be a rhetorical ethics with which State and Capital try to justify their existence by making superficial amends.

[Encrypted Soldier]

While utilitarianism is definitely an interesting ethical theory, all ethical theories fail in that ethics are simply a human invention.

Ethical theories grew out of evolutionary forces which gave us such things as remorse and guilt when we did certain actions.

Don't take me wrong though. Personally, even though I am an amoralist, I believe that people should follow the social contract. That way, you can establish a fair government, which is the goal of the leftist movement anyways. And if a government does not suite you, you always have the power to either vote to change it or to revolt.

As for the entire GLBT rights, women's rights, worker's rights, etc., I think the entire debate is pointless. What we are trying to achieve is individual liberty for everyone - not just gays or women or workers or disabled people. The entire point of leftism is to redistribute wealth and to create individual liberty for everyone. We shouldn't distinguish gays from straights or women from men or disabled from regular people. That is counterproductive. Gays should have the same rights as straights (union), women should have the same rights as men (suffrage, equal pay, etc.), and disabled people should have the same rights as "normal" people (ability to enter restaurants and whatnot).

[Niccolò Rossi]

*snip*

[careyprice31]

"So far in modern social discussions, debates tend to go between social conservatives and social "liberals," from abortion to GLBT rights to stem cell research. However, what about utilitarian considerations?

Abortion

Given Russia's shrinking demographic, is anyone here willing to stomach bans on abortions to boost the population like what Stalin did before? Given India's booming demographic, is anyone here willing to "encourage" abortions like the Chinese and the one-child policy (which actually consists of fines and not abortions at gunpoint as perceived in the West)?

Crime and Punishment

The politically correct debate here is between pro-death and pro-jails. However, even outright executions cost money (poison for injections, electrical stuff for electrocutions, etc.). Jail terms for the worst offenders mean than they get to live at society's expense (even a potentially socialist one). Is anyone here willing to stomach penal labour like I have in high school (hey, the Bolsheviks did this in the Civil War for common criminals, POWs, class and political enemies, corrupt officials, etc.)? At least, in regards to those deserving the death penalty (but no urgency for immediate execution, thus the "death row"), the harsher forms of penal labour are a cheap way to "execute" them, while extracting labour value from them (as exploitative as that sounds, I know)."


Holy smoke



Jacob, you sound like a 21 century version of Sergei Gennadyevich Nechayev.

If you read "catechism of a revolutionary" it sounds a lot like you, actually.

I dont believe on any bans on abortion cause its a womans right, and i oppose the death penalty, and I dont believe in encouraging abortions either (a woman should be free to continue her pregnancy or abort as she deems fit for her at that time.)


I still think you're cool, though, you're very nice and polite.

I can be friends with a 21 century nechayev *laughs*


I hope we'll remain on good terms. I think you're cool, even if i don't think your beliefs are *laughs again*


but let me put in my two cents worth.

Russia banned abortions in 1936. Over the deacdes the number of abortion had risen not, dropped so that Russia had the highest number of abortions in the world. The government didnt really do anything to improve the living standard so that people would want to have children. who really wants to bornj a child in the sort of environment where even today if your a RussiAN Male your lifespan is onlyu about 59?

and prisons, the answer is not killing criminals. The answer is to find out why children turn to a life of crime. If we solve the big issues that create the criminals, we would drastically cut crime and close a lot of the jails also.

The anser is NOT creating more orphans and impoverished people and killing criminals . Thats not where the answer lies.

in addition many russian women are turning to foreign men to get out of there and start families. Russian women outnumber men by about 1o million. It would be very difficult to even find someone to start a family with.

and if u know anything about tsarist Russia then you know about the terem, well the terem still exists for russian women and the women want to step out of the terem, notgo back inside.

What you propose would just create a terem for russian women, not abolish it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Life is life (I'm bumping this because of my post in Hopscotch's History thread on the CSA), whoever this Nechayev was. :)

On the question of abortion, was not the lifting of abortion by the Khrushchev regime key to stagnant population growth later on (because of increased abortions)? :confused: