I'm not sure I get your point. Care to elaborate? In one case, we're talking about assured suffering. In the other, the absence of suffering. Both are hypothetical, but in one case, we know about the outcome. There's obviously a difference here.

When you saying something like "we are talking about assured suffering" it is so unrigorous I cannot even begin to reply. Maybe read some philosophical literature. Or just the 5 w's like in grade school. Who suffers? Why is suffering bad? Why this comparison and not other comparative demarfations? What about second-order social effects? Could that increase suffering in some way? Serious ethicists grapple with these questions because they cannot assume a premise of 20th century nuclear-family hypotheticals (your error) removed from the societal context. And so on.