It seems to me that allowing the sale of babies would encourage people to have babies solely for the money, which can’t be a good thing.
ETA: Woohoo! 1500th post!
I personally don’t see anything wrong with people selling their children on their own. As long as the people involved are good people and will treat the baby with great care financially, physically and mentally, then go for it. I get the notion that not only do the state and adoption agencies get involved for the obvious reasons of the well being of the child, but to also get their hands in the pot.
Let’s face it, adoption is a very lucrative business and no matter what people say (i.e. well, all the money goes towards expenses and whatnot) there is definitely someone there with their hand in the pot making some serious loot from these adoptions.
People have gotten very rich from adoption services. I’m in no way implying that these places are corrupt, because they do provide people with a great service, lots of children have received great homes and parents in the past. I’m just pointing out that there are dollar signs behind every “service”.
The anti-abortion people always push adoption as a wonderful thing that is done for the best of everyone involved. They feel that no birth mother suffers when she gives a child to a loving couple and creates a good family and that adoption agencies are only in it for the betterment of everyone, while every woman who has an abortion suffers greatly mentally, physically and emotionally and that abortons are only doing it for the money involved.
Were that it were so clean cut and simple.
The latter isn’t a problem that arises for child-selling any more than for any other transfer of custody of a child. This is the reason that the transfer of legal custody of a child should always be overseen by the courts, and the recipient family should be required to undergo a homestudy and a criminal background check (as we were when we adopted our daughter). So I don’t see this as an argument against child-selling, only against unregulated child-selling.
The first is more of a concern. But I’m not sure there couldn’t be regulative measures to reduce this problem too.
But why is it a bad thing? The fact that it apparently skeeves you out isn’t an argument against it.
I’d say it’s because encouraging people to create extra (and helpless) people solely for purposes of making money will take away resources from the already numerous starving children in the world.
Personanlly, I don’t see it as comparable to prostitution, because if somebody wants to sell access to their own body, that’s one thing, but why should somebody have the the right to sell another human being?
We don’t want poor people adopting children. Raising a child is expensive.
Peace,
mangeorge, ND
Well, I’ve already argued that it isn’t selling people, since nobody at any point in the transaction owns the child.
Anyhow, you are right that there are plenty of starving, needy children in the world. But frankly, most people don’t want them. Most people who want to adopt want a white kid, or failing that, an asian kid. So I don’t think baby selling would prevent children from getting adopted who would be adopted in the absence of baby selling. It would just create more of the kinds of kids who get adopted, and of whom there is a shortage in the adoption industry–that is, white kids.
White male newborns, to be exact.
If we generalize, of course.
**Pro’s of selling babies: **
- If a mom doesn’t want her own baby, that means she either doesn’t want to or she can’t raise it. That makes it very likely that both her baby, she herself, and society in the long run, will be better off with the baby somewhere else.
-The baby generally will have a better start economically, as on average, mom’s selling a baby will be in worse circumstances then couples buying (or adopting) one.
-Pressuring moms into something they are going to regret can be done both by pro- and con babysellers. The odds of mom not being pressured into any direction are better if both ways are legally open to her and both ways are socially acceptable.
-There are currently more people willing to adopt then there are babies put up for adoption. Having more babies on the adoption market will lessen the sadness of more childless couples.
-It’s less hypocritical.
**Cons of selling babies: ** - If you believe that " the biological bond" and “hormonal attachement” make it much more probable that a birth mom will take the best care she can of her baby, then the risk of maltreatment by not-birth parents is bigger. However, that holds for both “buying parents” and adoptive parents.
-Selling or buying a baby can go fast, leading to possibly more “impulse” aquisitions of babies. The odds of people appreciating a baby go up if they’ve gone through more trouble for her. Paying money, for people who have plenty of money, is not “trouble”.
-It’s more of a taboo.
-It might lead to more stupid girls getting pregnant thinking they “will sell the baby” and then find they are left with a deep emotional wound if they try to do so. So they are left with a baby they can’t afford. That situation resembles the image of young women getting knocked up “for welfare”.
-the horrible ethical dilemma’s sketched by Annie X-mas. Buying parents copping out of buying, or resenting the baby they bought, because of birth defects, wrong gender, etc. That does assume that the buying parents will be incredible shallow or perfectionistic, though. And while most real people aren’t like that, some will be.
-Dealing with most states/countries that will hav different laws. If you buy a baby and move your new family across some border, you might be charged with slavery or kidnapping charges.
Neutral points on selling a baby:
-It raises all sorts of ethical dilemma’s and philosophical questions about the " worth" of babies, and of different kinds of babies.
-the baby might feel, growing up, that Mom didn’t want him. But he can just as easily feel that his aarival in the world was planned because his current mom and dad wanted him so very, very much. This isn’t much different from how kids feel after adoption, and according to statistics, most kids are doing okay on this point.
-Both adoption and buying and selling of babies can be done through the independent professionals of an Government Agency, who can weed out the bad apple transactions. Buying babies doesn’t necessarily imply: “free market”.
People, please, remember that babies are fungible and subject to the wonders of the free market. Legalize it and kill the baby black market–soon the benefits will trickle down to you.
There have also been cases of women having their children adopted and putting the wrong man or a fictious name on the birth certificate. After the adopted family bonds with the child, the real daddy shows up (sometimes with the mother) and wants “his” child back. The most famous was the legal trial of Jessica DeBoer
I don’t think so. Last I heard (I don’t have a cite, sorry, though I believe it was in the magazine Adoptive Families), something like 80% of people who specified a gender for their adopted child chose a female child. Something about them being supposedly easier to raise.
I can’t comment on the OP. I’ll get too upset.
I think the bottom line really is that if a baby is “sold” in the sense that the birth mother literally is allowed to take as much money as she can get for the baby (as we generally do with any other commodity), that turns the decision-making process in terms of who gets the baby into one of who can afford to or is willing to pay the most. For most commodities, the character of the “buyer” is irrelevant. If I have a car, and I sell it to someone, society has no stake in whether or not the person takes care of it for years, or decides to use it in a demolition derby the next day. This is not the case with children…how much someone can get for a baby shouldn’t be the deciding factor in who they give the baby to. Economics being what it is, though, allowing such sales would inevitably lead to at least some people, whether out of greed or necessity, allowing anyone to adopt if they can fork over enough cash.
Why do shelters charge an adoption fee?
“Because shelters must be able to cover the costs involved in caring for the animals they house, they charge fees for adoption services. These costs include feeding, grooming, vaccinations, medications, and in some cases, spaying or neutering. Many shelters depend on donations to cover these costs as they are not profit-making organizations.
Although adoption fees are needed to run shelters, they also serve another purpose. The decision to acquire a pet should be made very carefully (see “What to Consider Before Adopting a Pet”). Individuals need to be ready and willing to pay for inoculations, veterinary exams, emergency treatment, spaying or neutering, licensing, and food. If a relatively small adoption fee causes the prospective pet owner concern, then he or she very well may not be prepared to make the financial commitment required of responsible pet owners.”
Not to mention if pets were free a lot of them would end up in medical and science labs. If you lose “Fluffy” on an out of state camping trip most people want to think their pet met a humane end. You don’t want to have to tell the kids “not all experiments mean bad stuff, I heard the company that bought her only tests shampoo” (on eyes) :smack:
Not to mention some dinner tables :eek:
But this has already been addressed. Babys aren’t cars, and society does have a right to oversee the transfer of custody of a child. That’s why any such transfer should be overseen by the courts, and the adopter of the baby should undergo a background check and homestudy–just as with any other adoption.
Right, but this isn’t GD, it’s GQ. I thought the question was regarding the ethics of selling babies, and why it is generally considered unethical to do such a thing. I’m not saying it couldn’t be worked around to still have ethical adoptions, what I’m saying is that I imagine that this is the logic used in deciding that “selling” babies isn’t ethical.
Thay could well be. My information is pretty old, from when people were going overseas because they couldn’t get a boy in the US. Especially not a newborn.
True. To be honest with you, I am amazed that no mod has shifted this thread yet.