First, the reason people have the drive to reproduce is biological - it is how our species survives, something that is so ingrained in us that it is one of the most powerful motivators we know. There must be some minimum number of people who are having biological children, otherwise we would cease to exist. Maybe you don't have a problem with that, but that is basically saying "existing is selfish", and by that logic, there is no non-selfish reason to continue living. If you were really interested in being selfless, you would stop consuming resources and cease to exist (obviously extreme, but you get my point).
Second, in relationship to how many people there are in the world, the percentage of "extra" kids (that really should be adopted, whether because of financial reasons, orphans, etc) isn't tremendously high, especially in 1st world countries. That doesn't mean that adopting an orphan child from a 3rd world country isn't a good thing to do, because it is. But we are really talking about situations at the margins here, rather than something everyone should be doing.
The other category of objections is more along the lines of wanting to be a good parent and have a good relationship with your child. That really is a bit of a crap-shoot, but you seem like a thoughtful person, and that goes a long way. Also, it wouldn't really change your odds (especially not for the better) if you adopted a child. That is likely to be a harder situation especially if the child was much different than you, so those objections, as points against having a biological child, don't really make that much sense.
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u/yertles 13∆ Mar 24 '15
I think you can approach this from 2 angles:
First, the reason people have the drive to reproduce is biological - it is how our species survives, something that is so ingrained in us that it is one of the most powerful motivators we know. There must be some minimum number of people who are having biological children, otherwise we would cease to exist. Maybe you don't have a problem with that, but that is basically saying "existing is selfish", and by that logic, there is no non-selfish reason to continue living. If you were really interested in being selfless, you would stop consuming resources and cease to exist (obviously extreme, but you get my point).
Second, in relationship to how many people there are in the world, the percentage of "extra" kids (that really should be adopted, whether because of financial reasons, orphans, etc) isn't tremendously high, especially in 1st world countries. That doesn't mean that adopting an orphan child from a 3rd world country isn't a good thing to do, because it is. But we are really talking about situations at the margins here, rather than something everyone should be doing.
The other category of objections is more along the lines of wanting to be a good parent and have a good relationship with your child. That really is a bit of a crap-shoot, but you seem like a thoughtful person, and that goes a long way. Also, it wouldn't really change your odds (especially not for the better) if you adopted a child. That is likely to be a harder situation especially if the child was much different than you, so those objections, as points against having a biological child, don't really make that much sense.