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Posted on 11/27/2008 3:51:49 PM PST by NYer
GHENT, Belgium, November 26, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Belgian couple faces possible jail time for having sold their newborn child on eBay and for having registered the child under an assumed name.
A Belgium state prosecutor said, “The couple are suspected of registering the birth under a false name, which is an offence. That is to say that the name the baby boy was given was not that of his real mother.” The offence carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. According to iafrica.com, obtaining an adoption without official authorization, a charge to which the couple may have to answer for the eBay sale, carries a maximum sentence of five years.
The pair, who have not been named, are a man 26 and woman aged 24 and are under investigation by police and social services in the town of Ghent after it was revealed that they had offered their second child on eBay to a Dutch couple for an undisclosed sum.
A spokesman for the Belgian prosecutor’s office said the couple had decided not to keep the child because of money problems. The amount paid for the baby has not been disclosed but it was described as a “decent five figure sum” and the Belgian authorities have decided not to remove the baby from his “adoptive” parents. Het Laatse Nieuws reports that the baby was handed over to a couple from the Netherlands in the hospital parking lot shortly after he was born in July.
While critics are saying that this incident could be the start of the buying and selling of children over the internet, in fact, babies have been appearing on the internet for sale for some time. In May this year, police in Vancouver, British Columbia were called when an online ad was spotted offering to sell a baby girl for Cn. $10,000. The ad said "Must have!!!! $10,000, a new baby girl, healthy and very cute. Can't afford and unexpected, Looking for a good home, Please call ASAP" and included a cell phone number.
In Salt Lake City in March, Police instigated a search for a baby girl who had been advertised "for sale" on a local online classified listing. The child was listed under "Baby & Children Items" at a cost of US $6,560, police said.
Pro-life analysts have long warned that widespread legalized abortion has triggered a vast cultural shift in western countries from the idea of a child as a gift from God to that of the child as either an insupportable financial burden or a luxury commodity that can be purchased or sold, or, as in the case of artificial reproductive technologies, made to order.
As early as 1986 the Catholic Church was warning that a fundamental shift had occurred in the way children were viewed. That year the Vatican issued a document, titled Donum Vitae (the Gift of Life) signed by the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, that warned that the artificial reproductive technologies industry had created a situation in which human beings could be bought and sold.
Calling artificial procreation a set of procedures characterised by a “dynamic of violence and domination,” the document said, “The abortion-mentality which has made this procedure possible...leads, whether one wants it or not, to man's domination over the life and death of his fellow human beings and can lead to a system of radical eugenics.”
“The child is not an object to which one has a right, nor can he be considered as an object of ownership: rather, a child is a gift, ‘the supreme gift.’”
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Christian Medical Association Condemns “Baby Supermarket”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jan/07010905.html
Feminist Revolutionary Warns of Exploitation of Women with Cloning Research
Ping!
Wow, you really can find anything for sale on Ebay....
Wonder what their feedback looks like?
Just make sure the check clears before sending it off to Nigeria
No, so-called “parents”, the site is NOT called ‘Ebaby’...
On this day when we thank God for his many gifts, including our children, some like these treat them as commodities.
Simply despicable.
Ya know!
I always miss the good stuff on Ebay.
I need to start watching Craigslist.
I wonder if they used the “buy it now” option.
And whether you think this couple is despicable or not, at least they didn’t abort the poor little boy.
So instead they sell it into slavery. No I’m not defending abortion at all, but I don’t think you can say that aborting the child would have been more despicable than what they did.
Like hyperbole much? The child wasn’t sold “into slavery”. The buyers were most likely an infertile couple. Slave traders generally aren’t the highest bidders.
My point was it was an ebay auction. They auctioned off a child to the highest bidder. Who’s to say who the highest bidder would have been? The couple obviously didn’t care. To them, it was a cash cow.
Like I said before, I’m not trying to say abortion was the better option, but any defense of what they did saying “at least it wasn’t aborted” really isn’t a defense at all. To me, what they did is just as bad as murder.
Do you know for sure that this child was sold into slavery??
Do you know how many couples are DYING for a baby?
I can clearly say that NOTHING is more despicable than aborting a baby.
Better dead? Really is that what you are saying???
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I'm making the slavery comparison because that's what they did during slavery!!! They sold people to the highest bidder...how is this any different?
Again, read what I am saying. I am not saying the baby is better off dead. I am saying selling the baby on eBay is not morally better. Selling the baby to unknown people simply because they will give you a couple thousand dollars is no different than sending it to the slaughterhouse.
>>Then why aren’t you upset that this family didn’t put the baby up for adoption???<<
Do you think that’s free?
Do you know what kind of money adoption agencies make?
And who said I wasn’t upset that they didn’t just put the baby up for adoption?
Selling a Baby is morally better than killing him. The baby would be DEAD. DEAD is forever.
>>Selling the baby to unknown people simply because they will give you a couple thousand dollars is no different than sending it to the slaughterhouse.<<
I’m sure that the child will agree with you one day. NOT!!!
I wouldn't be carrying on if you would make some admission that admonished the couple for their behavior. The moment you started posting it was nothing but a defense for them. Their actions are indefensible.
You know there is a difference between the costs of putting a baby up for adoption and selling the baby on eBay like some television set. Do you think we should start allowing babies to be sold on eBay? Maybe craigslist? 2 for 1 deal at Wal Mart maybe?
>>There are some things worse than death in this world. <<
I don’t really think that it’s your choice.
I will tell you this, Ebay has a huge set of rules, many people following the auctions and hundreds that report abuse.
What YOU fail to see in all this is that the Police allowed the couple who paid to keep the baby. They were monitoring it. DO you know how fast autions are swept off Ebay that are abusive? The police wanted this one to go, if the transaction never took place, there would be nothing to charge them with. GET it?
Now, let me say this. You are making a whole lot of assumptions about me. And jumping to some major conclusions.
Perhaps you should take a step back and realize that you are saying that a baby would be better off dead than alive.
Sorry, that’s wrong. Just wrong.
And that’s the last I’m going to say on the matter.
I wonder if they accept PayPal.
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