NCJ Number
75080
Date Published
1979
Length
110 pages
Annotation
Public testimony on proposed legislation designed to prohibit the sale of children, including sale for adoption, is given.
Abstract
The market for the sale of children, especially babies, is increasing steadily and involves three victims: (1) natural mothers, (2) adopting parents, and (3) the children themselves. Baby brokers have established complex supply systems for matching babies with prospective parents as well as intricate payment systems for insuring that fees cannot be traced. Pregnant women are recruited across the country and in foreign lands. In many cases the mothers receive only subsistence funds while pregnant and are not given a share of the adoption fee. The strict adoption laws found in some States are circumvented by arranging for the adoptions to take place in States with more liberal laws or in other countries. Because baby brokers are concerned only with the fees involved, they make no effort to screen prospective parents or to obtain information about them. Doctors acting as baby brokers will often induce labor before full term to avoid problems with mothers who may change their minds late in the pregnancy. Opponents of the legislation suggest that the baby brokers fulfill an important role in facilitating adoptions which would otherwise not take place, that a very limited number of brokers sell babies by bid, and that pregnant women and adoptive families are referred to them by word of mouth not by means of a complex doctor-broker system. Other testimony recommends that arranging adoptions for a fee should be prohibited under any circumstances.