Wow - it's a good thing we dodged that bullet. Let's kill 40 million more.
Indeed! This calls out for reductio ad absurdum. If we aborted 100% of all preganancies, our costs would drop dramatically and we'd all be much better off!
Aw, now, you know that's not what I meant.... The point was, simply, that if the author is going to be predicting outcomes of unrealized lives, then we can't just focus on the good things they might have done. It's likely that, because of family background, more of them would have voted "D" than "R."