Re: the twins that were sold first to an American couple then kidnapped and sold again to a Bristish couple. I was under the impression that buying and selling human beings is illegal in the US as an aftermath of slavery, and that a birth mother can be paid ‘expenses’ and for medical care, but cannot be paid for her children. Am I mistaken?
Selling babies? Who gave you my name?
I’ve got some fresh, Grade-A kidneys in my right breat pocket as well.
I’m going to bump this from Page 2 because it looks like a good question, but I don’t have time to go find the news item in question.
I’m assuming it is a news item? A quick check of Google turns up nothing. And I don’t have time to go back over to Snopes to see if it’s an Urban Legend.
StrayKat, you could help us answer your question by posting a link to whatever it was that you read. I’m not familiar with the story myself.
From the dollar amount, I’d say the US cost is common for adoption agencies (about $4-8000 to adopt, IIRC, for fees and paperwork and search, etc.). Not surprising that evil people think they can make some money from it. But private adoption companies are legally allowed to charge some hefty fees to place kids for adoption. Interesting that the fees paid did not cover the actual adoption paperwork in this case, as the first couple did not in fact adopt the babies before they were taken and handed off to the second couple. Maybe they thought they had time… or maybe they were concerned that they might not qualify?
There have been some other adoption scams around the US, such as companies taking the fees but then never delivering a baby to the parents (sometimes in the tens of thousands spent to ‘fly down and check on the mother in Guatamala’ or ‘pay for prenatal care’ or ‘do a direct search in China’, then nothing).
oh, and in the US you can’t even pay a woman for YOUR babies (as with surrogacy). You can only cover expenses and healthcare, and pay additional for ‘risk’ like multiples, and that only in a few states (like CA). I know a woman who is surrogating through IVF (in vitro) for a couple she knows (who tried for 15 years), and is (GULP!) having quads as a result. (in CA) The genetic parents are paying for her healthcare, plus small fees for the strain/health risks. Not even close to a real wage for the mom, BTW, but enough to make it possible to surrogate without going bankrupt herself. The contract is explicit that the surrogate is not being paid for the babies. They had to be explicit even though the children are not genetically related to the surrogate mom at all, because of the restrictions on ‘selling babies’. In CA they will list the genetic mother on the birth certificate, if a contract exists, without further paperwork. In most other states (like, the maybe three others that allow surrogacy), the birth mother is the mother of record, and she has to formally give up the kids (even if they aren’t hers, genetically) for adoption by the ‘real’ parents. Weird, IMHO.
So, no, selling babies is not legal in the US. Paying an adoption agency to locate, screen, and do paperwork for a baby to adopt is very legal. The UK does not have private adoption agencies (according to the article), and probably finds the fee-for-service concept absurd, morally questionable, and so forth, hence the tone.
Summarizing from ITN news:
Single parent Tranda Wecker puts twin kids up for adoption; they are adopted by US couple Richard and Vickie Allen and an arrangement fee (or however these things are phrased) of about $4000 is paid. Along come Alan and Judith Kilshaw, offering round about twice this (for administrative expenses, of course); Ms Wecker claims the Allens are “unfit”, reclaims her daughters, hands them over to the Kilshaws. Kilshaws head for the airport with the Allens in pursuit. Kilshaws return to Britain, claim the kids are legally adopted, tell our social services to kindly butt out.
Since adoptions in the US are legally recognised in the UK, there’s not a lot the UK can do about this (I think. I-am-not-a-lawyer). However, there seem to be some procedural irregularities (to put it mildly) which might mean that the Kilshaws’ adoption is not legal in the States.
On a purely personal level, I think this stinks. And my personal sympathies lie with the Allens, who seem to me to be the only ones wholly blameless. Let’s hope it gets sorted out quickly, and the children have to suffer as little as possible. The whole concept of “ownership” of children frankly makes my gorge rise.
The Home Office can refuse to give the children leave to remain in the country after their tourist visas expire. That would be a harsh move, but possibly justified given the peculiar circumstances of the case, the questionable legality of the Arkansas court’s decision and the latest parents’ duplicity in bringing the children into the country.
They bought the children as well, they just paid less. I have very little sympathy for any of the people invloved in this tawdry story.
Tom
The Allens paid the adoption agency to find them a baby. This is legal and common in the US. That money goes to the agency, not the mother. They were not buying a baby.
There is obviously some arraignment between the mother and the adoption agency which caused her to take the babies bakc and give them to the Kilshaws. That arraignment might be illegal; adoption scams do occur.
Perhaps you need to know the basics about adoption procedure in the UK to understand where Tom is coming from.
I was put up for this procedure but it never actually went through which is hardly surprising since I was around 14 at the time. Although this was many years ago the procedures have, if anything, become much tighter.
Agencies and fees are simply not allowed in the UK. A mother wishing or needing to give up her child will give consent for that child to be made a ward of social services.
Social services agencies(SSA) are tied to district councils and follow laid down guidelines but they do have a great deal of scope for setting local adoption policy.
The child will be first placed with foster parents and a team of social workers assess the needs of the child and wether the parents could support that child with help from the social services agency.
Foster parents are carefully screened before being allowed to volunteer their services - they are paid by the state the living expenses of the child.
Very many successful adoptions take place when families, who have volunteered to foster children, have a child placed with them and after a few years adoption takes place but was not the original intention. Foster homes are usually used to provide temporary care for children whose parents are unable to do so, for instance if both were injured in a car crash or any other myriad number of reasons. The aim ultimate aim is normally to return foster children but sometimes the temporary stay becomes permanent.
Prospective parents apply to be assessed by their local SSA. This process of assessment is lenghty and they have to pay something toward it but at a greatly subsidised cost.
Independant assessments can be made by approved bodies(often involving the same proffessionals) in less time but the adopters pay the full cost, all it does is speed the process up.
The criteria for adoption set by local council SSA’s are what cause the most controversy, some will only allow adoption by similar races ostensibly to put children with parents who have similar outlooks when it comes to life experiences such as, say, taunts at school.
Others have been disqualified because at 50 the adopters were considered too old.
The SSA’s seem to look very hard for reasons to turn adopters down on grounds that, when applied to everyone equally, can throw up curious decisions.
That said there have been very few cases of serious problems once the adoption has taken place, usually after a couple of years with the adoptee staying with the adoptors far progressively longer periods of time, so I guess the SSA’s can point out that they are acting responsibly.
The natural parents must give up all rights to the child fairly early on after counselling.
This is a very lengthy and cumbersome procedure that can be halted by the SSA at any time which causes huge amounts of stress in both children and parents, natural and adoptees.
It is much harder for a British couple to adopt a British child than it is to simply go over to somewhere like Romania and bring a child back, but fortunately provision has now been made and the law changed so that SSA’s do become involved following some cases where adopters were clearly not suitable and had been rejected by them.
Knowing what I do about what goes on, the case by case studies, the profiling of children and parents etc and the extreme caution we in the UK take in the adoption process I am amazed by the stories coming out of Arkansas, even though I understand some of the reasoning behind having a fast system.
It is so dissappointing to me that such commercial agencies can be allowed to exist at all without proffessional intervention from governmental authorities ensuring that the needs of the children come first.
I guess there is probably a wide range of standards across the various States which our legislators had not understood when they automatically recognised all legal US adoptions.
I know that even the very low standards of Arkansas may not have been met but, even so, I think that something like this should have Federal legislation and standards but that is a whole other can of worms I suppose.