This is what the alien in the episode has told Janeway: “Who are you to judge?”
I think this might be a private case of the butterfly effect, and that the Prime Directive is supposed to prevent such things from happening.
The debate on ‘Pen Pals’ (TNG) deals exactly in that. I’m not sure Picard would have signed the pact.
My problem is not the action and its consequence, rather the idea she got away from this by saying “I couldn’t have known”, while Ransom, doing something similar on the Equinox, got punished.