Time June 7/June 14, 2021 pp60-66 |Society| “The Baby Brokers” “Inside the U.S.’s Unregulated Private-Adoption Industry” by Tik Root
Read the Time article for all detail
Summary provided by 2244
Some information
There are 13,000-18,000 “non relative infant adoptions” each year in America. Of those only 1,000 involve pubic, non-profit, agencies making the rest private adoptions.
…”at any given time, an estimated 1 million U.S. families are looking to adopt.”
The IRS offer allows as much as $14,300 per child for the adopting parents but adoptions are mostly regulated not by the federal government but rather by the 50 states. Regulations vary widely depending on the state.
“Buying or selling of an infant…is illegal in the U.S.”
Few that violate state laws regarding adoption are ever brought to justice.
Narrative
This insightful article, shares stories of the experience of several women who for various reasons elected to give up their newborn for adoption and focuses much on an agency known as Adoption Network Law Center (ANLC) as an example of questionable practices and problems that are common with private adoption.
Shyanne Klupp is highlighted. Her comments set the tone. “I’m not trying to sell my baby” commented Shyanne “But ANLC, she says, pointed out that the adoptive parents were rich.” ANLC mentioned that “You can ask for more” support during the period of her pregnancy. Funds that cover various normal expenses. “Shyanne says she had recuring doubts about her decision. But when she called…ANLC to ask whether keeping the child was an option, she says ‘they made me feel like, if I backed out, then the adoptive parents were going to come after me for all the money they had spent.’” “That would be thousands of dollars.” “Seeing no viable alternative, she ended up placing her son and hasn’t seen him since he left the hospital 11 years ago.” According to federal law an “expectant mother has the right to change her mind anytime before birth, and after for a period that varies state”-three days in TN and six months in MS as examples. “California and Nevada, explicitly consider birth-parent expense as an ‘act of charity’ that the birth parents don’t have to pay back.” ANLC and other for-profit agencies serve as "middlemen" in American adoption and for their work charge more than “$25,000” in fees-not including legal costs for finalizing the adoption, birth-mother expenses and other add-ons…” that “can balloon to more than double that.” An extreme example “Chosen Parents and Forever After Adoptions” posted on their website in something like a “Craigslist ad” last August “AVAILABLE Indian (as in Southeast Asia India) Baby to be born in the state of California in 2021…Estimated cost of this adoption is $350,000.”
There’s a sense that because of lack of public awareness these issues are ongoing. So, what’s being proposed to improve on current practices? Some want a system run like the foster-care system which is administered by a “division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services…”. Others believe change must happen at the state level. Ideas mentioned are making the process only the purvey of non-profit agencies. Other line items include requiring “mandatory independent legal representation for birth parents, better tracking of adoption data and the reining-in of excessive fees.”