What Do We Owe to People Who Are Not Yet Born?

Lord Bird is a former student of Derek Parfitt's work on the non-identity problem. Parfits spotted an issue concerning future people, but no human being had ever noticed before. He asked us to consider a hypothetical 14-year-old girl who wants to have a child. If she has a child at the age of 14, she won't be a terribly good parent. She'll give the child a bad start in life because it will never exist now. But if she waits several years and conceives later, that child is very likely to have a life worth living. Lord Bird got tired of mending broken clocks - he wanted to try a new approach. I want