If the price of newborn adoption went up would the demand for a newborn go down?

DevonChaos

I think if the price went up, people would resort to more and more illegal and shady means to procure a baby. I think that even now some people don't want to jump through the hoops and fill out all the applications and meet all the standards. They don't want to pay so much money to adopt. Therefore, we have people online looking for pregnant women who aren't wanting to parent. We have people preying on women at various places to try to get in with them to adopt their baby. I think that if they raised the prices, there would be even more pre-birth matching and adoption without agencies.

If every baby who was going to be placed went straight into foster care, perhaps this would change. There are many things that need to change with adoptions, and the prices being so high is one. No profit should be made from flesh and blood.

Randy B

I'm not a business expert but everything I know tells me that demand sets the price, not the other way around. If people didn't want babies then agencies wouldn't be able to charge what they do. If you place the fees at the level you mention then I think one of two things would happen:

1) Infant adoptions would stop because nobody could afford to do them and you would have homes filled with infants waiting to get to be an age where their adoption fees drop to where people could adopt them. Sure, that would solve the problem with infant adoption because they are "in escrow" till they are old enough to be adopted for less. Is that really where we want infants? Its a very formative time for them and to be bounced around in foster homes or orphanages would not to them any good regardless of what it would do to the stats.

2) Infant adoptions would be driven underground. If people know that they would have to pay $100 or $200k to an agency for an adoption then they would be inclined to offer some of that money to a young woman so that the adoption could be done privately. Sure, it's illegal but when has that stopped anyone from trying to get something they wanted be it an infant, a new car, concert tickets or anything else they value.

I still say, if you raise the fees people will find a way around them. If you lower the fees people will just go for what they want. The only thing that will make a difference is some sort of attitude shift on the part of those adopting and I can't see that happening any time in the future.

Rivkah

No. Strictly speaking, that's not exactly supply vs. demand works. To oversimplify, an increase in price doesn't create a change in demand, it creates a "void" that consumers fill with a cheaper alternative.

If you want to talk about children in terms of products, in this case the $200,000 baby is the Louis Vuitton that you buy on Fifth Avenue, and the alternative is the Louis Vuitton you buy on Canal Street from a Chinese guy named Wang.

IDK!!

I think that will just be more motivation to get more babies

If it were free in all cases, it will probably go down as there will be no profit in adoption and no need to "find" babies for adoption

ETA- so in your opinion, foster care should come first, over family or friends? What if the parents want people to adopt their child who have the values she wants rather the Hope whoever the SW "matches" them with will have those attributes?

Why not place the child in that chosen home, on a foster basis, until the has been an enough time for the parents to change their mind, or improve their situation?

ETA- Have you seen all the stories of what happens to kids in foster care? If I had to choose, I have MANY friends I would choose before foster care.... just as if I were to die, My kids would become guardians of 2 of my close friends, even over my family. I would trust MY judgment 10000X more than some social worker who doesn't give two craps about my kid.

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