It is morally irresponsible to procreate in lieu of adoption.

The comparison is perfectly valid as they both involve a course of action in response to seeing a child in need of aid. I will agree that between these two examples, the phone call to child services would be significantly less of a commitment that adopting a child. However, the only reason a person would not adopt the child is because of a selfishly-motivated reason such as wanting to save money. Now if the person could not afford to pay for the child, it is understandable that the person in question would not adopt the child. But for aspiring parents with the money, resources, parental and legal capability to adopt the child, they do not have a valid excuse for opting not to do so. Because their only reasons for not adopting would originate from a concern with the self rather the child, it perfectly fits the definition of selfishness, a quality that is condemned by the general public. The only reason why significantly few people opt to adopt now is due to their greed overwhelming their sense of morality. Given that this hypocritical piece of human behavior exists, it would stand to say that all parents who could have adopted, but did not, are guilty of exercising their selfishness (procreating and increasing the number of children needed to be cared for despite children already in need) and showing an unwillingness to do something good (reducing the number of children in need). People who would refute this are simply in denial. Whether their reason is because they are parents of biological children and are trying to defend themselves, or aspiring parents who want to have a biological child for the novelty (I will lay it out clearly what that means further on) is irrelevant; the evidence to support this claim is laid out clearly as if it were a mathematical equation, which it basically is. Regarding the slavery example, slavery actually would have been considered to be immoral at the time of pre-civil war America. Given that the number of slaves per state generally equaled, and in some cases surpassed, the number of slave owners during that time, slavery would have been considered immoral by the majority of humans living in said time and place. And beyond slave owners, there undoubtedly would have been free non-slave owners who would have opposed slavery. Even during that time, human rights were valued as being something that every human should have without exception. But due to either a lack of knowledge of basic biology or a desire to deny the truth of it, slaves were undoubtedly human. This would mean that the average citizen did oppose slavery, but lived in the mindset that slaves were not human despite being so, which is yet another example of hypocrisy justifying a disregard for morality. There is no distinguishable difference between altruism and moral responsibility. Altruism is in of itself a moral behavior. Altruism, or selflessness, by nature is the opposite of selfishness. While selflessness is valued by the morality of the general public, selfishness is frowned upon as being morally wrong. The only thing stopping people from being altruistic all the time is either selfishness or incapability. 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. But this is just another example of the hypocrisy of greed overwhelming human morality. An honest person would be able to admit that succumbing to one's wants is selfish while knowing that they are selfless acts that could be performed. What I referred to was the parental experience. The timeline of raising a child is, for the most part, still the same aside from the acquisition. But I will acknowledge that their are some differences. Not necessarily in the functioning of the family, but still some. But these differences do not justify aspiring parents to turn their backs on children who are need of families. Now regarding the "novelty" mini debate, procreation is a novelty. The desire to have a genetic descendant is just that, a desire. A person does not need to have a biological child. They will not perish should they never procreate. The only reasons a person would prefer to procreate are to continue the bloodline, experience the pregnancy process, or pass on their genes in hopes that the offspring will be similar to the parent(s). These are all novel reasons. None of them serve any practical use in the world. The desire to have a child can still be fulfilled by adopting one. Even if the desire to procreate is evolutionary (which I also believe it is), until it becomes a biological necessity, it is still a novelty. Humans are just as much animals as cats and dogs. Not that we have fur coats or anything like that, but we do fall into the definition of "animal." We humans have put it upon ourselves to try to put an end to the deaths of animals because of lack of resources. The primary method of this goal is spaying and neutering. Because we humans recognize that there are more animals than people and resources able to care for them, spaying and neutering are necessary. Knowing this, the average citizen would agree with the rule of spaying and neutering pets so as to not add more pets to be cared for than there are already. In this example, we can see observable evidence that would support the claim that humans are for the idea of no animal dying due to lack of resources. Because humans are also animals, this perspective or morality would apply to us as well. But because the average human views itself as being "above" animals, they seek to justify its desire to carelessly procreate as it sees fit. In this instance, we see both an example of defending the ego overwhelming human morality and of greed overwhelming morality. In short, because humans try to justify their own wants by using greed common to most humans to override their own morality, we can see that humans are in fact in violation of their own moral code. An honest person would be able to admit this trait in human psychology exists and that procreation over adoption would be seen as morally irresponsible if the human population were capable of being honest with itself.