The idea that "well-being" is a metric that can be measured in order to influence behaviours like this is utterly absurd. I'm not religious, but I often feel l

The idea that "well-being" is a metric that can be measured in order to influence behaviours like this is utterly absurd. I'm not religious, but I often feel like this is a huge hole in the modern landscape, there's no sense of whether anything can be good or bad outside of "outcomes". It's like, if it doesn't cause some sort of obvious malady, that's just fine then. Quality surely exists as a concept regardless of how much philosophical warbling we could do on the subject. Imagine the theoretical study that shows that "having/not having children by age 40 is not linked to female well-being". For the sake of argument let's say this is factual, that happiness, rates of mental illness, physical illness etc are the same in both childless and mothering groups. So should someone who wants to have children ignore their desires because "science" told them that they'll be fine either way? Should someone who doesn't want to have children ignore their desires? I'm ranting now, but I guess my point is that this isn't really actionable in any way.