It is morally irresponsible to procreate in lieu of adoption.

Selfishness is not an absolute. The principles of psychological egoism would say that all decisions are selfish in nature to some extent or another. I would argue that selfishness is only condemned when it exceeds a reasonable threshold. I believe that some level of selfishness is not only accepted, but even expected to some level by society. This is evident by the overwhelming agreement that capitalism is superior to communism (at least in fundamental principles). Capitalism is fundamentally selfish, yet it is not condemned by society, but rather it is promoted by society. It does not stand to reason that everything that is selfish must be condemned by our moral code. Even if your statistical claim about the ratio of slaves to slave-owners is true (as I see no citation), it is only valid under the assumption that all slave-owners are pro-slavery and all non-slave-owners are anti-slavery, which is obviously not the case. Those who could afford slaves had slaves, and those who could not afford slaves, probably wanted slaves. It is common knowledge that the general attitude of the public (not just slave-owners) before the start of civil war was a stance of pro-slavery. It was not considered immoral at the time. Furthermore, I could point out that that there was slavery 4000 years before the civil war. My point was that morals are not absolute, and neither are they static. I simply pointed to the civil war as an example of an instance where our moral code changed. Its very plausible that you could support something seemingly innocuous in your own life right now that will be considered immoral in a thousand years from now. Perhaps if this argument were proposed at some point in the future, I would be arguing for the other side, but we are discussing the current moral code, not that of the future. You propose "The majority of people alive are not altruistic all the time. It is because that this is "normal" that people do not condemn selfishness in every instance." There are good reasons why it is not "normal" to be altruistic all the time. It is not healthy, nor realistic, nor even possible to take the selfless act in every situation. We do have to choose our moments, so-to-speak, and that is exactly the difference between altruism and moral responsibilities. Society would call most of my colleagues morally responsible. They do good when its called upon them by the moral code. Most of them are not, however, altruistic, as most people aren't. People don't neuter their dogs to end the rampant canine famine problem (that was sarcasm in case you didn't catch it). People neuter their dogs so they don't have to pay for ten more dogs down the road. It's a completely selfish act and it has nothing to do with the animal population as a whole. Our primary disagreement (among others) seems to me to be the division between altruism and moral irresponsibility. You seem to have the need to fit everything under one category or the other. According to your arguments, if some act is not altruistic, it is the act of a "heartless villain". To do so is to throw all context out as irrelevant. Such a way of thinking is truly a very narrow-minded perspective. On the other hand, I have demonstrated, followed by your admittance, that not all selfish acts are condemned, or considered "wrong" by society and that procreation in lieu of adoption is such an act. If you still accept our original definition of moral irresponsibility, then I have clearly demonstrated that it is not morally irresponsible to procreate in lieu of adoption. I would like to thank my opponent for a surprisingly holistic discussion. I am always welcome to a new perspective. I suppose if I subscribed to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, my idea of self-actualization would be the day I could effortlessly empathize with another persons world view.