Plus the child still has the potential to bring more life into this world, whereas the old people are now infertile (my definition of old being they are too old to procreate).
Those additional lives are hypothetical and in the future, and maximizing the number of humans alive might not be the right thing to do. IMO this is one of the really juicy questions.
Fair point. Given the decreasing birth rate in the western world, I figured we need a few more humans to pay for prior generations retirement. Only half joking…
