Infertility, Technologies, Adoption, Baby Selling

Fertility management extends in two different directions. For those who do not wish to have children, birth control and abortion technologies are now extremely effective and relatively safe. On the other hand, for those who are infertile for some reason, but wish to have children, reproductive technologies are more advanced. For those who cannot successfully have their own children, there is surrogacy. In addition, there remains the option of adoption. Unlike birth control and reproductive technologies, however, adoption has become less accessible and less of an open process. There are a number of issues that narrow the choices of potential adoptive parents during the contemporary era.

Harris (1988) noted, for example, that the supply of adoptable babies has diminished over time and that it is no longer adequate to meet the demand of potential parents. In particular, the supply of desirable babies, i.e., those without health problems, young, and generally Caucasian, has diminished, while the supply of babies with various sorts of problems has remained constant or increased.

At the same time, there is a large supply of infertile couples. According to Hirschman (1991), appr

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ed that babyselling has the propensity to be exploitative of all parties, particularly the child and the mother. This seems to be borne out by the examples quoted in this section. The focus here is not generally on the best interests of the child and the mother, but on the need of the adoptive parents, with the needs of the mother, except for financial needs, being essentially ignored and neglected. The question of the best interests of the child is difficult to determine, although that issue will be explored in a later section of this study. There are other problems that result, too, which are related to larger social issues. Political and ethnic minorities may not fare well in a babyselling market, since they have less power, less money, and less status and influence. Williams (1994) showed how this can operate even in legitimate adoption agencies in her discussion of the impact of race on adoption decisions and fees. Private adoption arrangements, or babyselling, are less regulated by the state and have the potential to even more negatively impact the morality of the society's arrangements for its lower status children. Legal Issues There are a number of different legal issues involved in establishing a baby market.
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Approximate Word count = 7173
Approximate Pages = 29 (250 words per page)