Navigating Fetal Sentience and Abortion Rights

This is a selection of highlights from episode #196 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

Jonathan Birch on the edge cases of sentience and why they matter

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Chapters:

• Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
• The history of neonatal surgery without anaesthetic (00:00:23)
• Overconfidence around disorders of consciousness (00:03:17)
• Separating abortion from the issue of foetal sentience (00:07:26)
• The cases for and against neural organoids (00:11:30)
• Artificial sentience arising from whole brain emulations of roundworms and fruit flies (00:15:45)
• Using citizens' assemblies to do policymaking (00:22:00)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong