Posted on 03/12/2002 1:26:04 PM PST by antaresequity
The practice, which is widespread among private adoption facilitators, of charging prospective parents different fees depending on the race or ethnicity of the child they adopt is one that Hutcherson is fighting to change from his Redmond, Wash., church. The Antioch Bible Church has established its own adoption agency, and is lobbying state legislators to change Washington's laws.
"I've got championship Rottweilers. I sell them by supply and demand," Hutcherson said. "I raise thoroughbred racehorses. I sell them by supply and demand. I'm not going to let people sell children by supply and demand. What's the difference between that and slavery?"
The campaign to change the law is directed at Washington state legislators, but Hutcherson said he would prefer to see the federal government step in and create one set of regulations governing adoption, rather than leaving the issue to the states to decide.
Current Washington law bans payments to a birth mother for placing a child for adoption, but does not address payments for arranging an adoption or the fees that may be charged.
"I think it's an issue that Americans have not looked at closely enough, because if they had, things wouldn't be the way they are," he said.
He hopes to get attention around Washington with a billboard campaign as soon as he can raise the $70,000 to $80,000 he needs. The billboards will feature a white baby, a latino baby and a black baby and next to each, the fees some adoption facilitators might charge for them: $35,000, $10,000 and $4,000.
He said that besides putting a price on children, the practice discriminates against white babies and people who seek to adopt them an issue he said has been overlooked because white people, particularly those who can afford the high adoption fees charged, are not used to considering themselves victims of discrimination.
"I know about discrimination," said Hutcherson, who is black. "I don't care who it's against, it's wrong. Tell me that if it was black babies that cost $50,000 and white babies that cost $4,000, people would be screaming their heads off."
This is amazing if true...source please?
That is part of it. And home studies. They do expire and the longer you wait the more you will have to have done.
Or is there some legal slight of hand in which one can sell children without running afoul of the law.
Well... The birth mother can ask for and get almost anything she wants within certain limits. Housing, medical care, an allowance, in some cases the a-parents even might arrange to pay for her continued education.
After they (the adoptive parents) have shelled out the money they have no guarantee that she wont decide any time to change her mind. In some states she has up to a year after the birth to do so. As this was considered a gift she does not have to repay them. If this happens a couple times it starts getting very expensive.
A. Cricket
This is a great thought but in reality it doesn't happen...it will shock as to why...read post #115
I think that such training could be valuable if it is held to hair and skin care of black children, dealing w/ other's (black and white) reactions, etc. Telling white parents that they are somehow incapable of ever fully understanding or raising black children, is wrong, and I have heard some social workers with this attitude.
Another factor that may play into it is that the adoption choice and intervention may occur alot earlier with White women....Its a fact that Whites by and large have more "intact" family support structures. Those structures may urge earlier decision making to put the baby up for adoption. I mean if a women has her baby and then goes home and then decides to put it up for adoption, the cost would be alot less I would think.
I am just guessing here. What do you think?
"So sorry," they were told, "care to try again?"
They did but they had to start again from square one. The little girl that they did manage to adopt was so sick that they had to hospitalize her as soon as they got off the plane.
Their costs came to well over $100,000 not counting the medical bills. On the other hand they now have the cutest little girl you have ever seen and they love her to pieces so they would say that it was worth it.
In their eyes they would say that it isn't buying so much as rescuing. It costs but so what, having a child born to you isn't free either.
A. Cricket
I am not condoning the practice, but it is more effort to find a newborn white child to adopt than a newborn biracial or black child. Private adoption agencies must spend more time and money to find a mother etc etc. Don't get me wrong they are playing the profit game, I guarantee you their profit margins on a healthy white child are far above that of a healthy black child. The whole industry is a bit seedy IMHO, but it really is the only way you can go.
A. Cricket
Fifty five percent of your community property, child support and forty percent of your salary in alimony.
A. Cricket
The liberalization of the adoption laws, where the parents "rights" supercede the true needs of the child have made lifetime orphans out of many children who not so long ago would have been adopted and happy.
Insider trading, don't you know?
Vaguely recall an article written by a black woman. She was bemoaning the cost of her life insurance compared to her
comparable white colleague. (D@mned actuarial rates...). Until she went home to visit her mother, in Oakland, and
turning on to the old street - BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! - her car gets hit once or twice in the cross fire.
The economic point being that white babies have a greater chance of lasting longer...
(take-off on very old joke about cost of having a baby - cost a lot, but look how long they last).
I couldn't agree more....I could have written that word for word.
BUMP
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