WHAT Industry?

[lost 3]

WHAT Industry?

Like any other industry, adoption is fueled by consumer demand.
In
this case, the demand of infertile couples to obtain other women's
children, and who are often willing to pay from $25,000 to $50,000
for that child.


BIG BUSINESS:
Adoption Services Valued At $1.
4 Billion
Report by Nancy Ashe Copyright © 2001 About. com, Inc.


"An industry analysis of Fertility Clinics and Adoption Services by
Marketdata Enterprises of Tampa, FL, has placed a $1.
4 billion value
on adoption services in the US, with a projected annual growth rate
of 11.5% to 2004.
According to a report from PR Newswire, this is
the only analysis of this business s ever undertaken.


Some details:

In 1999, there were 138,000 US adoptions;
There are 4,500 adoption services providers in the US, which include
2,000 public agencies, 2,000 private agencies, and 500 adoption
attorneys;
The number of attorneys involved in adoption has doubled over the
past 10 years;
Gross income for small agencies can come to $400,000 per year, and
$10+ million for large agencies.

Much of the present and future growth is attributable to the rise in
international adoptions.

Marketdata's analysis places adoption costs between $15,000 -
$30,000, and describes adoption as 'complex, and stories of
unscrupulous operators abound in this loosely regulated field.
' "
From "About. Com: About Adoption"
Reprinted with Permission of Author

Adoption Affects Millions

There are approximately 6 million adoptees in the United States.
We
can extrapolate that there are usually 4 of parents involved in each
adoption (two natural parents and two dopters).
This increases the
number to 24 million people involved in Adoption.
Add siblings,
stepparents, facilitators, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and it is
not illogical to conclude that there are over 100 million people in
the United States involved in Adoption.


There are costs involved in the original adoption - usually fees
paid by adopters to a "third party" who acts as a broker.
Examples
of some fees are:

Religious Agencies: A few hundred dollars to $10,000.
00 or more
Non-denominational Private Agencies: $10,000 to $20,000
Independent [Private] Adoption: A few thousand dollars to $50,000
but may be higher if there are extremely high medical bills.

Public Agencies: None to minimal.
There may be attorney fees to
finalize the adoption
International Adoption: $5,000 -$20,000 to the agency plus
transportation and lodging fees.

This is why there are entrepreneurs who make their livelihood
convincing young parents to relinquish their babies - it is a
profitable business.
These "baby brokers" include: adoption lawyers
maternity homes (often operated by charities and
churches) "facilitators" government social workers commercial
and "non-profit" agencies

Consumer Demand

Like all industries, the adoption industry is driven by consumer
demand.
This demand was recognized as far back as 1953:

"... the tendency growing out of the demand for babies is to regard
unmarried mothers as breeding machines...(by people intent) upon
securing babies for quick adoptions.
" - Leontine Young, "Is Money
Our Trouble?" (paper presented at the National Conference of Social
Workers, Cleveland, 1953) {quote courtesy of Karen WB}

". . .
babies born out of wedlock [are] no longer considered a
social problem . . .
white, physically healthy babies are considered
by many to be a social boon . . . " (i.e. a valuable commodity..).
-
Social Work and Social Problems (1964), National Association of
Social Workers.
{quote courtesy of Karen WB}

" Because there are many more married couples wanting to adopt
newborn white babies than there are babies, it may almost be said
that they, rather than out of wedlock babies, are a social problem.

(Sometimes social workers in adoption agencies have facetiously
suggested setting up social provisions for more 'baby breeding.
')" -
Social Work and Social Problems (1964), National Association of
Social Workers.
{quote courtesy of Karen WB}

The Industry Admits Coercion:

When unmarried motherhood was considered shameful to the family, it
was easy to convince parents to ship their unwed daughter to
maternity homes (assuming that marriage had been ruled out) and
adoption lawyers:

"Parents embraced the idea of maternity homes partly because in the
postwar decades, parents themselves needed protection as much as
their erring daughters... If the girl disappeared, the problem
disappeared with her." - Rickie Solinger, "Wake Up Little Suzie.
"

Pressure from society, churches, parents, maternity homes, hospitals
etc.
- plus the virtual non-existance of welfare for young single
mothers - virtually guaranteed that a young woman raised to respect
authority would surrender her baby.
As well, social workers were
convinced that unwed equalled unfit, that that they were doing their
moral duty in convincing (forcing/coercing) young women to
surrender:

" Unwed mothers should be punished and they should be punished by
taking their children away." - Dr.
Marion Hilliard of Women's
College Hospital, Toronto.
Daily Telegraph (November 1956) {quote
courtesy of Karen WB}

" The fact that social work professional attitudes tend to favor the
relinquishment of the baby, as the literature shows, should be faced
more clearly.
Perhaps if it were recognized, workers would be in
less conflict and would therefore feel less guilty about
their "failures" (the kept cases).
" - Social worker Barbara Hansen
Costigan, in her dissertation, "The Unmarried Mother--Her Decision
Regarding Adoption" (1964) {quote courtesy of Karen WB}

" The caseworker must then be decisive, firm and unswerving in her
pursuit of a healthy solution for the girl's problem.
The "I'm going
to help you by standing by while you work it through" approach will
not do.
What is expected from the worker is precisely what the child
expected but did not get from her parents--a decisive "No!" .... An
ambivalent mother, interfering with her daughter's ability ... to
surrender her child, must be dealt with as though she (the girl's
mother) were a child herself." - Marcel Heiman, M.D.
in "Out-Of-
Wedlock Pregnancy In Adolescence," Casework Papers 1960.
{quote
courtesy of Karen WB}

Governments had (and still do have) their own incentive for
encouraging the adoption industry.
Every baby surrendered by an
unemployed unsupported single mother means one less welfare
recipient.
An example: if a single parent is eligible for welfare
until their child was 7 years old, a government saves $35,000 (7 x
$5,000 annually) in welfare payments each time its social workers
obtain a surrender.
Federal governments also encourage adoption by
providing cash bonuses to states for every adoption completed.


"To the Province generally the great advantage and economy of the
Adoption Act can be realized when it is stated that many of the
children before their adoption were costing five and six dollars a
week for maintenance.
" - 35th Report of the Superintendent of
Neglected and Dependent Children (Ontario, 1928)

Today's Modus Operandi

As divorce rates rose in the 70's and 80's, single parenthood lost
its stigma, women no longer experienced the same societal/family
pressure to surrender, and the number of babies surrendered in the
U.S. and Canada began falling.
Consumer demand has, if anything,
risen dramatically, as women who have postponed children for careers
are now finding themselves infertile (see the April 15, 2002 Time
magazine article "Making Time for a Baby").
According to Adoptive
Families magazine, "For every healthy newborn available, there are
now almost forty potential parents searching.
" ("Love for Sale,"
Adoptive Families).


With money to be made from desperate "Family Builders," the industry
has had to come up with new ways of obtaining its commodities.
They
have done this through modern marketing and advertising tactics.


Adopters have now formed "consumer groups.
" Pressure from these
consumer groups on government has led to laws changing to vastly
decrease the time period in which a woman can revoke her surrender
or consent to adoption.

Adoption lawyers are promoting the legal idea that, if a child is
placed in an adoptive home even before the adoption in consented to,
the adopters have the right to retain that child against any
challenge from the natural parents (see the "Children's Rights" page
by the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys).

The Internet has increasing numbers of websites set up to encourage
women to "place" their children.
Agencies and lawyers fund these
websites by purchasing advertising space on them.

"Adoption was created to provide homes for orphans.
These by
definition are children without parents.
Car crashes, war, natural
disasters.
It was never created to provide children to 'poor
infertile couples'.
When did the wires get crossed? I guess when
someone started making money.
Children are not a commodity!!!! Get a
puppy.
"
- An adoptee
"Follow the money" - Deep Throat

[trappedinwreakage]

Priceless ! Not that I didnt know this aspect of the CPS/DSS pursuit.

I personally know two girls that gave up their babies years ago. They did both go on to have families later in life, but Im sure they still carried a burdon within themselves. I do feel this is a good alternative but one that MUST be of well thought out choice. None the less I know that CPS does their thing in part to accumulate their numbers on paper to support their budgets/futures at the cost of all that come into their path for the comparitively small handful of children and families that DO need help. Then at the same time its obvious that they are in the adaption business.

Listen to the Money talk

Worse yet, these yuppies that are all business and suddenly have the knee jerk reaction to have children when its TOO LATE are the worst candidates in the world for babies. They already have proven that they are SELFISHLY ALL ABOUT THEMSELVES. These are also the people that have their noses in everyone elses business with the "I wouldnt do that if I had children" amounst nearly every other little quirky thing. Damn all for being human.

Walk the walk or dont talk the talk

I listened on the extension line one day when my wife who had no charges or restraining order on her, ask our "head" caseworker, a barren hag, if she could take my daughter Christmas shopping, something they both wanted to do, what the heck, it was Christmas. That case worker said... exact words, I will never forget. "Your daughter is not going to go Christmas shopping with you anymore, she will be doing that now with her new foster Mom" That was 3.7 years ago and to this day I still want that womans head. My mother died when I was 12 and I will tell you right now, you only get ONE Mom. You dont sit on the other end of a phone and tell a childs MOTHER, that her child has a new Mom.

barren - unproductive of life, uninteresting (Websters)
hag - witch, ugly old woman (Websters)