Spare a Thought for the Billions of People Who Will Never Exist

As world population growth slows, the never-conceived are the ultimate forgotten ones. 

Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

A couple decides to have one child instead of two, or none instead of one. This happens all over the world. Billions of children are never conceived. How real is the loss of a life that never began? Is there a right to exist? Is there an ideal size of the world population?

These related questions become more pressing as population growth slows. China’s population is on track to peak before 2025. Population growth in the U.S. this year is likely to be the lowest in history except for one year, 1918.