A Market For Babies?

partyguinness

Not sure if this is in the right place so feel free to move it. May be more suited to legal/ethics forum.

Here goes

I read an interesting article when in college about 10 years ago and it has always stayed with me.

In a nutshell, should we have a marketplace for babies. To allow single mothers to trade (i.e. for value) their babies with prospective couples wanting to adopt? Discuss.

There a lot of advantages which I can get into as the discussion evolves. Of course highly emotive but in alot of ways it makes a lot of sense.

Ostrom

partyguinness wrote: »

Not sure if this is in the right place so feel free to move it. May be more suited to legal/ethics forum.

Here goes

I read an interesting article when in college about 10 years ago and it has always stayed with me.

In a nutshell, should we have a marketplace for babies. To allow single mothers to trade (i.e. for value) their babies with prospective couples wanting to adopt? Discuss.

There a lot of advantages which I can get into as the discussion evolves. Of course highly emotive but in alot of ways it makes a lot of sense.

Youre joking right? The advantages of creating an unregulated open market for mothers to sell their children for profit (your point is profit).

Assuming you pitch it differently and include some sort of intermediary regulatory body to police prospective parents, then you pretty much end up with our current adoption procedure with a cash incentive.

So....what exactly are the advantages? Purposive breeding for sale and profit? Unfit parents accumulating children through wealth?

Why not start a proper discussion by asking what could be done to reform the current system of application, review and monitoring?

I would love a citation for that paper, I have never encountered anything like it. (Assuming you are talking about internal adoption and placements)


Incidentally, we did have something quite similar to what you are talking about operating here 60+ years ago, have a look on adoptionireland and see how it worked out....

partyguinness

Not joking at all. I can get the citation for you but it may take a few days as I would have to root through my old college notes. I can even send you a copy as I am certain I still have it.

It was a very serious academic paper from the 70s. It was compulsory reading as part of Jurisprudence as an undergraduate law student.

It was a proposal on how to cut down on child abductions which is a huge problem in the US but not so much here.

TBH we were all horrified at the thought (like you) but when we read the article we found ourselves actually saying there were very valid points being made.

Why not start a proper discussion by asking what could be done to reform the current system of application, review and monitoring?

Off with you. Nothing is forcing you to read or reply to this thread.

Sam Vimes

is the thought of not having to spend 18 years and hundreds of thousands raising the child not enough for them?

holly_johnson

Moved to Humanities as I think it may be better suited here.

Earthhorse

partyguinness wrote: »

TBH we were all horrified at the thought (like you) but when we read the article we found ourselves actually saying there were very valid points being made.

Why not start a proper discussion by asking what could be done to reform the current system of application, review and monitoring?

Could you dig out the article so? If it's as convincing as you say it is the thread would better for everyone having read it.

partyguinness

holly_johnson wrote: »

Moved to Humanities as I think it may be better suited here.

Grand..was thinking as much..might be too sensitive for the Adoption forum.

Ostrom

partyguinness wrote: »

Not joking at all. I can get the citation for you but it may take a few days as I would have to root through my old college notes. I can even send you a copy as I am certain I still have it.

It was a very serious academic paper from the 70s. It was compulsory reading as part of Jurisprudence as an undergraduate law student.

It was a proposal on how to cut down on child abductions which is a huge problem in the US but not so much here.

TBH we were all horrified at the thought (like you) but when we read the article we found ourselves actually saying there were very valid points being made.

Why not start a proper discussion by asking what could be done to reform the current system of application, review and monitoring?

Off with you. Nothing is forcing you to read or reply to this thread.

I'm sorry for that, I'm adopted (doesnt give me any right to) but I tend to jump into things a little heated, so apologies. I would appreciate you sending me a citation, I will read it with an open mind!

Can you remember any of the points in relation to reducing child abductions? If you know the journal or any title words I could search now, I'm in work.

Sorry again, I didnt mean to be aggressive

metrovelvet

partyguinness wrote: »

Not sure if this is in the right place so feel free to move it. May be more suited to legal/ethics forum.

Here goes

I read an interesting article when in college about 10 years ago and it has always stayed with me.

In a nutshell, should we have a marketplace for babies. To allow single mothers to trade (i.e. for value) their babies with prospective couples wanting to adopt? Discuss.

There a lot of advantages which I can get into as the discussion evolves. Of course highly emotive but in alot of ways it makes a lot of sense.

I dont know about a merket place, but private adoption maybe.

My friends sister got pregant in college. She comes from a well off family but her mother wanted her to finish her degree so she held interviews from prospective adoptive parents in her living room and decided upon a couple who lived across the street. There was no profit or financial transactions though.

Ostrom

metrovelvet wrote: »

I dont know about a merket place, but private adoption maybe.

My friends sister got pregant in college. She comes from a well off family but her mother wanted her to finish her degree so she held interviews from prospective adoptive parents in her living room and decided upon a couple who lived across the street. There was no profit or financial transactions though.

How did they deal with guardianship?

partyguinness

Earthhorse wrote: »

Could you dig out the article so? If it's as convincing as you say it is the thread would better for everyone having read it.

I would like to state from the outset that I am not trying to convince anybody one way or another.

It was an interesting article and would prob provide a lively debate.

I'll try to root out the article online. Might be a problem as it was written in the 70s. I have a hard copy.

metrovelvet

efla wrote: »

How did they deal with guardianship?

What do you mean? You mean the father?

Guardianship didnt come into it. This was in the US. She sent her daughter to a home in texas to have the baby. He was not on the birth cert, was kept out of it, no say in the matter. Happenned too fast for him to have a chance to pursue it in court even if he was interested.

Ostrom

metrovelvet wrote: »

What do you mean? You mean the father?

Guardianship didnt come into it. This was in the US. She sent her daughter to a home in texas to have the baby. He was not on the birth cert, was kept out of it, no say in the matter. Happenned too fast for him to have a chance to pursue it in court even if he was interested.

With the adoptive parents (I assumed you were talking about Ireland)

How did they formalize the relationship?

metrovelvet

efla wrote: »

With the adoptive parents (I assumed you were talking about Ireland)

How did they formalize the relationship?

Legally they were appointed guardians. The bio mother abdicated all rights and responsibilities. It's not hard to to there.

partyguinness

From what I remember it went like this.

Firstly, in the US, child abductions are relatively common for various reasons..but one of the causes are desparate child mothers/parents wanting a baby. Sometimes they are willing to pay 10s of 1000s of $$s for a baby even if illegally abducted.

Second, very very high abortion rates in the US in tandem with many loving couples, who would provide a loving life and environment for a child, who cannot conceive.

If there was an incentive i.e. a market place, then this may wipe out child abductions (and the obvious tauma caused to natural parents), illegal child trafficking and provide childless couples with the child they desparately want and the child has a loving family. Everyone is happy.

Plus it may also turn children from poor familes into a benefit to society.

The line of reasoning is a bit similar to "legalise drugs" argument. You cant stop it so why not regulate it.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, the paper is several pages and that is just a very brief summary. There were a lot more coherent arguments which escape me. Its pure economics.

partyguinness

I have the citation:

"A Market For Babies?" University of Toronto Law Journal 34 (1984), 341-57; J. Robert S. Prichard.

Article was written in the early 80s not 70s...my bad:o

The_Conductor

holly_johnson wrote: »

Moved to Humanities as I think it may be better suited here.

Beat me to it.....

Ostrom

partyguinness wrote: »

I have the citation:

"A Market For Babies?" University of Toronto Law Journal 34 (1984), 341-57; J. Robert S. Prichard.

Article was written in the early 80s not 70s...my bad:o

Interesting, reads like Freakonomics

He writes it to refute market aproaches though, what were the advantages you mentioned in your first post?

John Triseliotis wrote something broadly similar in the 1999 edition of Adoption and Fostering (making the point that inter-country adoption in Europe has evolved from humanitarian to trade). I couldnt really comment on the American example in your paper since the Irish experience is so different, but in theory, the pre-1955 American adoptions could be thought of in the same way (economics and incentives - excluding for a moment the broader role of the church).

Anyway, the concensus seems to be that a move away from any form of market-oriented model serves the child best

Ostrom

Not a hint of endorsement anywhere in the article, he sets up a hypothetical to criticize market oriented approaches, and does so well:

"However, these reports also suggest that most of the economic rewards derived from these transactions are being gathered by the physicians and the lawyers involved in arranging them and not by the mothers who bear the children".

Administratively similar to Ireland pre and post 1955 (and arguably more so today)

"Fourth, one would expect the newborns to be of a higher quality than the existing newborns available for adoption".

Saturation in a matter of years

"Sixth, the market process would provide an incentive for parents to correct errors in judgment and shortcomings in contraceptive devices since they would be in a position to sell the child for a positive reward rather than simply give it away"

Again, an unsustainable incentive - once demand has been met, and the opportunity to use the market as an opt-out alternative to abortion, the results would be disastrous

"Seventh, one would expect the market to produce the children at a relatively low cost and certainly a cost much below the existing black market prices"

The only benefit seems to be underselling the dealers

"Put bluntly, the proposal for a market for babies smacks of slavery"

Again, one possible way of interpreting past adoption regimes

"Or indeed, it might be argued that an alternative source of supply - foreign babies from third world countries with excess newborns - might represent a better and distributively more attractive source of babies"

Which is what we now have in Ireland (without the 'third world' part), far from the precedent on which he bases any endorsement.

Where are the advantages?

Macha

Funnily enough, there's an article on this on the BBC today:

Tajik women who buy and sell babies

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7797823.stm

Ostrom

I think it may have been excluded with Guatemala in 2007

Stones85

What a totally demented concept. So basically instead of people taking responsibility for their actions, or not doing things that can land them with a child, they ****ing sell their children?? WTF??!!

Total no-starter, was the authur sectioned in the funny farm after it was published?:mad:

Ostrom

Stones85 wrote: »

What a totally demented concept. So basically instead of people taking responsibility for their actions, or not doing things that can land them with a child, they ****ing sell their children?? WTF??!!

Total no-starter, was the authur sectioned in the funny farm after it was published?:mad:

It wasnt like that, he outlined a fictional scenario without any endorsement as a heuristic tool to examine the implications of different approaches to adoption from a legal perspective. He gave no recommendations and simply outlined it as a hypothetical.

The piece was written in response to (at the time) growing child abductions for illegal sale in the US

And he concluded that it was complete nonsense