It is morally irresponsible to procreate in lieu of adoption.

For the sake of argument, I'm going to accept your morality as the template for this debate. The child abuse example in your argument is no different from seeing a child living in conditions not suited for a child's well-being. If a child is starving in the street and a passerby had food that could be given to said child, but chose not to and allowed the child to starve, that would certainly be viewed as "wrong" by the community. It isn't a matter of who or what is harming the child's life; it is matter of whether or not the child's life is being harmed at all. If a child's well-being is being harmed and a person has the capability to help the child, he or she has the moral responsibility to do so lest they be branded a heartless villain ruled by his greed to keep his money, time, resources, etc. to himself. Regardless of whether or not society sees a couple trying to having a baby as "in the wrong," there is still an opinion that most reasonable people would support. Even if the the majority of the world supported the idea of slavery, slavery would and should still be viewed as wrong since it violates human rights. While I acknowledge that there is more than one way to help the suffering children of the world other than adoption, there is nothing stopping people from choosing more than one way. A couple who adopts a child is free to send money to a charity that supports underprivileged children, give their time and effort volunteering at a foster home or orphanage, or both. But of those three options (there are undoubtedly more), adoption is the one that would most benefit the child. Adopting is not an extreme. It is literally the same thing as having a biological child aside from the method of acquisition. Procreation stands in direct opposition to helping children who need to be adopted. The resources that go into raising a child that was planned could also be used to raise an adopted child. Choosing to procreate increases the number of resources needed to care for every child around the world, whereas adoption does not. The novelty of procreation that I was referring to were the reasons why people would choose to procreate over adopt. Some like the idea of passing on their genes to their young ones. While this is understandably appealing, this novelty of having a small copy of oneself does not justify ignoring the needs of already-existing children. Human behavior absolutely fuels the desire to procreate. However, not every bit of human behavior should be tolerated. A man who sees an attractive woman should not be or feel free to have sex with her at his leisure simply because of a human impulse to mate. If he did, this would lead to rape, assuming the woman does not give her consent to some unknown man who suddenly attempts to have sex with her. My point here is that not every bit of human nature is beneficial to society. Some are just the opposite, and these bits of human nature that are detrimental to society should not be tolerated. The consequences of choosing to tolerate these would lead to innocent civilians being placed at the receiving end of crimes and a disharmonious society where humans run rampant acting on their every impulse. The only exception to adoption over procreation would be if every child who needed to be adopted was adopted. The biological desire not to let the species die out would demand that new humans be created via procreation. But this circumstance is one that the world is very far away from. Until such a circumstance comes about, procreation should be considered to be morally irresponsible.